You think you're having a bad day!? (Fictional rants.)

There’s something I gotta get off my chest, and I don’t care who in the Defense Federation hears it.

As you may or may not know, I’m the local Reeks-n-Wrecks contractor for this Galactic Resources District. Basically, that means I run a glorified dump for whatever the Defense Federation Forces decide is too crappy for them to fix but not quite lethal enough to justify the cost of orbiting it into a nearby star. I try to fix and sell what they ship my way or, failing that, resell the junk for scrap value. It’s a fairly good life, and I’m helping the DFF during the current Emergency, but the sheer brusqueness of the whole system amazes me. Imagine if your First Contact was with a vaguely glowing Altair ore freighter and a recorded message saying that from now on, you were Doing Your Part for the Duration! But that’s a thread for another day.

A few weeks ago, some lowlife dumped a dead core in my zone, square in the middle of the one otherwise good patch of dirt I had left. The whine of overstressed retros and the sickening crack of a fracturing entry shield is not something to make you joyous about the new day, especially if your mass detector is going mad about something that, by all laws of Curie and R’Tar, must be radioactive. Happily, my mass detector has no knowledge of the amazing properties of duralite. Focus on that thought: It’s the only good news to come of this whole mess.

For those of you whose knowledge of space travel ends with the Plutonium Teakettle making its Lunar flyby, a dead core is the remains of an overworked nuclear reactor. It’s composed of murderously radioactive molten slag (the remains of the fission core that labored unto death) encased in a single thickness of duralite. The duralite contains the radiation, with the exception of some long wave noise, and will protect the world from its noxious cargo from anything less than three hundred pounds of TNT hitting it dead-on. However, nothing can make the slag any lighter. Though a degree in hyperuranic physics would be required to know exactly how something the size of a Volkswagen Beetle can mass more than the Empire State Building, suffice it to say that nothing short of a Jovan-class engine is able to carry a dead core.

I got out of bed to see the sun glinting off of a shattered entry shield, illuminating four gaudily-colored retro rockets that would never retro-rocket again, and being sucked into the pitch blackness that is industrial-grade duralite. I saw that core, and I stared. I tried to comprehend the blatant farging zorking belgium that would dump a dead core on an inhabited world! AN INHABITED WORLD WITH PEOPLE ON IT!

There are rules we live under, us Reeks-n-Wrecks men. Rules that tell us how to dispose of different things. Laws that say which things we can chuck into a local lake and which things we must encase in concrete and bury in a god-forsaken piece of desert. Other beings are supposedly bound by those laws, or versions of them, though you’d never know it. Wherefore do I doubt? Because a dead core is a Schedule 0 Hazardous Waste. In a nutshell, that means it is:
[ul]
[li]Utterly worthless: Nothing can make use of a dead core. Those hungry for duralite won’t risk cutting into something full of deadly isotopes, and those hungry for radiation not only don’t need the hassle of cutting through duralite, but don’t want to refine something worthwhile out of the junk slag contained within.[/li][li]Hazardous: Remember when I mentioned how three hundred pounds of TNT could fragment the case, if it were placed directly on top of it? That, my friends, is a Doomsday Scenario. Fracturing the case would release enough radiation to parbroil the entire area, and enough dust and gas to severely cramp the style of anyone who uses the atmosphere for breathing. Of course, rains must fall and all streams lead to the ocean… You get the picture. Not a Nice Day.[/li][/ul]It means one more thing: It cannot be dumped on any planet that currently or may prospectively contain life. Since that is construed broadly enough to include all planets (including gas giants, which have shown to be all but sterile), the only legal way to dispose of a dead core is right into a black hole or a sufficiently large star.

Was I pissed? Sure I was pissed.

Did I call my local Resources Director? You bet I was on the horn the moment I verified what I had, and that I shot up my sensor logs along with a full and accurate report.

Did I wait for a vage non-solution cranked out by a moron with a template? Hell yeah!

Now, these weeks later, I got my response. In summary, I am to shift my shit into a collision orbit with the nearest Class G Main Sequence I can find. Well, our very own Sol is a Class G Main Sequence, so I guess I get the honors of tossing the first piece of trash into the same sun what keeps us alive. Oh, joy.

As for the problem of moving it: I think I’ve got it covered. Mostly. I used some connections in the spacecraft grey market (mods: I’m not saying how, I’m just saying what.) to wangle a Jovan-class hauler and a pilot rated with enough Orbital Mechanics to plot a safe collision orbit. It will only cost me a hundred grand.

:smack:

Genius. Pure genius. Can we have a sequel?

Well, the point is for others to add their fictional rants to this thread, creating a true masterwork.

I’m flattered by your praise, but I’m not up to carrying a whole thread. :slight_smile: I might add more later on, though.

You’re talking about a bad day?

Suppose (I’m not admitting to anything, just suppose) you are the Second Acolyte at the Ritual Summoning of B’aal-D’shemgar, and further suppose that the High Priest decides half-way through the initial incantation to have a coronary, and then suppose the idiot of a First Acolyte actually walks across the protective circle to apply CPR … where are you then? I’ll tell you where you are, you’re in a world of trouble, that’s where you are.

I mean, there I was … uhh - remember, we’re just supposing here, right? I don’t want any demon hunters kicking my door down in the middle of the night … anyway, there I was, the dimensional barriers are splitting at the seams from the half-completed incantation, the Sigils of Protection are all scuffed up, the High Priest is well out of it and the First Acolyte is pumping away at his chest … and are the rest of the Cultists any bloody help? Are they heck. They only joined up for the insane blood orgies, first sign of a real crisis they just flap around like wet hens. Bloody weekend cultists, they’re keen enough on the erotic rituals, but they’re no use at all when That Which Hungers For Human Flesh is knocking on the door, are they?

So there I am, surrounded by half-naked screaming idiots, and obviously the only way out of this is to use the Banishing Ritual of Iaa-Pneth, right? Only it has to be completed before the Hour of Saturn is over, that’s about 2:36 A.M. at this time of the year, and where the heck are you supposed to find an eight-foot ashen rod and a litre of goat’s blood at that time of the morning?

Well, I’ll tell you where, in the garden shed. I always keep some materials in reserve, precisely in case this sort of thing happens. So, I reckoned I didn’t have a moment to lose, nipped out of the Chamber of Summoning still in my ceremonial robe, made sure the Dread Portal was firmly shut behind me, and dashed off to the shed. Didn’t take me a minute to pick up the materials, but when I got back …

… well, I’d shut the Dread Portal behind me, hadn’t I? And I was wearing the ceremonial robe wasn’t I? And not my trousers, which had my bloody keys in the pocket. I’d locked myself out. Honestly, I felt such a chump. Especially when 2:37 rolled round, and an ancient Assyrian devil-god burst out of its dimensional prison and got to work on the rest of them, who were still locked inside. It was all right for me, it couldn’t get past the Dread Portal. And, of course, it evaporated come the dawn. It evaporated, but the bloodstains and splintered bones didn’t … took me all day to find an understanding locksmith and clean everything up.

Bah. If it wasn’t for the lust-crazed nubile women, I think I’d pack it in and join the Church of England. At least with them, if the vicar mispronounces a few words during the service, you don’t have to spend six hours hosing what’s left of the congregation off the walls afterwards.

So I’m about to start coiling the tungsten filament, when I hear “Thomas! Thomas!” coming from the house. I’ve got 5 bloody interns working on the glass harp and 2 more blowing the shell. They keep dropping stuff on the goddam floor, breaking it and starting over.

I’m trying to ignore this little interruption, since it’s the third one this morning, but she (the Mrs., that is) comes barging in with the freaking guy from the bank. Oh this is what I need now! The pig’s-arse of a banker! He’s about to waste my time with a bunch of pointless questions, the answers to which he already knows. He’s just here to spy, make sure I haven’t spent the money on the phonopraph thing, or given it to that idiot Frank Pope for one of his hare-brained projects.

Chr*st! I’m so far behind on this already and by the time I get rid of the bank jerk-off, the interns are waiting for me.

I finally start on the assembly, and someone’s “borrowed” the vacuum pump! Who the needs a vacuum pump but me? I kick the kid’s ass out the door to go get it and it takes him an hour to come back. I got a deadline from hell, been working all night, and 6 kids standing around with their thumbs up their asses. Is there any good help in New-freaking-Jersey?!

I get the bulb assembled and leave it to one of the geniuses to hook it up to the battery. Big mistake. Mr. Fumblefingers (Don’t EVER hire a relative!) has managed to fry the terminal. How the hell can one do that? It’s physically impossible. Anyway, got it all back together (“See? See how the wires go?” Idiot) without major damage and I’m back on track.

I think I’m on track, that is until I hear that oh-so-familiar “Thomas. Thomas!” (I’m gonna strangle that woman one of these days.) Don’t tell me the guy’s early! Crap! You’d think you could entertain him for 5 minutes!

I stall him while the interns are working out the quirks and we finally demo the thing to him. He’s nodding and rubbing his chin, looking at the light, not saying a word. And when he finally opens his mouth, this goat-felching moron says, “Good. I’ll take two”.

Sometimes it’s not worth getting out of bed.

Damn do my writing skills feel inadequate…

…and then I stepped on the pingpong ball…

Oh, sure. Everything started out just fine. We had captured a young newlywed couple from the other side of the island who’d strayed a bit too far into the jungle. There’s always at least a few people who don’t listen to the tour guides, thankfully.

So there we are, decked out in our ceremonial head dresses and war paint, dancing wildly around these terrified, bound and gagged kids (they get married younger and younger these days). If I do say so myself, our chants to Kar the Volcano Goddess were top-notch this time around.

Anyway, we’re just getting ready to whip ourselves into the final killing frenzy, when what do I notice? That idiot nephew of mine isn’t wearing his grotesque mask depicting Kruph the Alligator Chieftan, but that ridiculous set of Mickey Mouse ears he bought when the tribe went to Disney Land last summer!

Not wanting to ruin a perfectly good killing frenzy, I tried to work my way over to the boy (how he passed his Trials of Manhood in the Caves of Neverending Foreboding I’ll never know) to rip them off his head. As luck would have it, of course, somebody else noticed the ears at that exact moment. Before I knew it, snickers were rippling through the tribe, clearly audible over our chanting!

Now, when I was a young warrior in the tribe, an idiot like my nephew would’ve been skewered and placed in the middle of the village to die slowly. The laughter that soon replaced our ancient ceremony just goes to show how our once noble people have lost their way.

Things bad enough so far? Well, once everyone calmed down a bit, we noticed that the prisoners had escaped in the confusion! I swear, I’m going to find a new tribe that isn’t full of idiots.

The Volcano Goddess is going to be so pissed.

You know, when I first joined the Nephews of Liberty militia group, I had no idea it would be such a hassle. I was tempted by thoughts of weeks spent watching the satellite TV at Cliffe’s rural mountain compound in Montana, and of course the bar in the basement. Last friday, the whole gang was camped out for the weekend with four scientists that used to work at the Black Mesa Research Facility. They were laid off after the place exploded (or so the government says…), and decided to hang out with us anti-government types to work through their anger issues. Me and Steve were playing poker with two of them in the kitchen, and Bill and Ron were in the garage showing the other two scientists our new white Ford Explorer. They were really impressed, looking at the all-leather interior and examining the powerful engine. They kept talking about ways they could integrate secret military technology to boost the horsepower. They must have been real car geeks.

Anyway, I had this really sweet hand. Just as I was about to bet $100, I heard Rogerr scream “Hey Akhmed! There’s someone in the sewer!” Roger’s an odd fellow. He’s pretty paranoid, and whenver he thinks government agents are after him, his first reaction is to climb up onto the kitchen flourescent light fixure above the sink and just sit there with his arms wrapped tightly around a Desert Eagle .50, rocking back and forth. So, I grab my AK-47 and start to walk around the crates of Coca-Cola we have stacked by the back door.

Suddenly, the door slams open, and in jumps Navy SEAL in full combat gear, shaking like a leaf. Before I can even think “Crap! Hide ‘The Anarchist’s Cookbook,’” the guy’s swinging his M-249 Para Squad-Support machinegun at me! I dive under the card table just as he opens up, COMPLETELY WASTING BOTH SCIENTISTS! The guy stops shooting, looks at me, looks at the scientists, looks at his gun, looks back at the scientists, then gets on his radio and says “Uhh…they’re…uhh…shooting the hostages! That’s it! THEY’RE SHOOTING THE HOSTAGES! Hostage down, hostage down!” and resumes firing at me before I can finish thinking “Huh? Hostages?!” I watched wide-eyed as the bastard got Steve, but thankfully, Roger chose this exact moment to wake up from his PTSD flashback to his time working in Tech Support for Microsoft, and capped the SEAL in the back of the head with his deagle.

I heard the front door opening, so threw a grenade into the front room and jumped onto the bar. I saw a French GIGN and UK SAS officer run in just as the grenade went off, leading me to wonder just who was running this operation. I finished the two off with my AK, taking one in the shoulder from an M4A1, and two in my body armour from an MP5. I wasn’t feeling too good, but I was still mobile. I left Roger to guard the back door, and ran into the garage to check on Bill, Ron, and the other two scientists. Just as I ran through the door and turned on the light, I heard the attic window being shot out and a grenade bounced to the floor in the midst of the group. We dove to the floor just as it exploded, killing both scientists in a hail of shrapnel. As if that weren’t enough, someone started shooting through the garage door with what sounded like a Steyr Aug. They killed Ron, who wasn’t wearing body armour and had already been weakened by the grenade.

Bill and I made it back out the same way I had come in, running upstairs to try to find safety. We got caught at the top of the staircase by a German GSG-9 with a shotgun, and he was able to finish off Bill before I dropped him. At this point, I just wanted to make it out alive, so I ran into the upstairs bathroom, shutting the door behind me. On top of all this, there was a FLOATER in the damn toilet!

Gagging from the stench, I stumbled out into the upstairs bedroom. I made my way out to the rear porch and climbed up the ladder to the roof. I capped another SEAL in the back yard with a single well-placed AK shot to the head. I ran over the peak of the roof and was heading down the other side, going for the front of the house, when suddenly a noise like a thunderclap and the sound of an exploding watermelon filled the air.

I was floating. Looking down, I saw my still-twitching body lying in a pool of blood, clad in an olive-green shirt, khaki pants, and a pair of stylish sunglasses, now shattered. In the distance, another GIGN worked the bolt on his military-green sniper rifle, a spent 7.62mm LAPUA Magnum round clattering at his feet.

I hope this puts some perspective on what YOU guys think of as a shitty day.

So I died, and I come to the pearly gates. But there aren’t any pearly gates, just this beach with footprints in the sand. And there’s Jesus there, as well.

So I says, “Hey, Jesus, how come you never stuck up for me?”

He says, “Take a look at the prints, my son. Notice how they change from one set to two.”

I says, “Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about! I was all alone back there!”

He says, “No. That is where I was carrying you.”

So I looks down and notices that my footprints are always the ones walking alone!

When I look up, Jesus is gone.

And so’s my wallet!

(Great work, guys! I’m still working on the sequel to my OP, but I’m glad to see that this thread has at least some fans besides myself.)

You people just do not know from bad days.

There I was, in my junior high class as usual, working on my kanji, when suddenly there’s a huge explosion in the courtyard. But nobody else seems to hear it!

So I go running outside and there’s this guy with neon green hair telling me that I have inherited the title of Ultimate Savior of the Dominion.

Which apparently means in a nutshell that I’m the only thing between evil monsters and Tokyo.

Sure, sure, he tells me that I’ve got the power to transform into Princess Savior but how much good is that going to do me against the Octopi of Doom?

And sure enough, as soon as I get to gym class I find out that one of them has already landed and grabbed a bunch of my friends.

Can you say tentacles? Well, I won’t go into detail here but it wasn’t pretty. I transformed of course and destroyed the thing but it’ll take medication to wipe that scene out of my brain.

So do not tell ME that YOU had a bad day.