I hear rocks… rocks bubbling. Or is that something else. Wait a tick, wait a tick… could be… Yes, by god it is. It’s… the man-sized tuber cooking dinner. Again.
I suppose it probably comes as no surprise to those of you who have known Big Green for more than a week or two that an oversized vegetable does much of our cooking. Yeah, we’re vegetarians, and I think that particularly resonates with the man-sized tuber – my guess is that he thinks the safest place for a vegetable around here is on the handle-end of the ladle. Fact is, we don’t eat a lot of root vegetables, and the man-sized tuber is far too tough to roast, far to fibrous to fry, far too husky to boil. He’s just plain inedible, that’s what it comes down to. (Though with a handful of shallots and a splash of merlot, he might respond to an overnight marinade. Mmmmmm-boy.) Wait, tubey, wait…. just kidding, man! Aw, put the pot down. Put it DOWN. No. NO. NOOOOOOOO…
Oh, okay – he’s just moving it to the back burner. Can’t hear real well, our tubey. I keep forgetting. Well, what the hell else is new? Oh, yeah. We’re hurtling through space in our new ride. Yessir, the cobbed together playground equipment we’ve been using to traverse interstellar space finally proved 
itself unworthy of even terrestrial travel, so we broke down (quite literally) and scraped together enough scratch to rent ourselves a ship… a proper ship. Not the kind that comes in a bottle, mind you – a space vessel, with functioning navigational controls, living quarters, and a hull that will hold atmosphere. But where… where would we find such a conveyance out here in the void between Cancri 55 and Earth? Actually, not that much of a problem. Hey… every shit town has its commercial strip, with gas stations and used car lots, right? Well, this interstellar backwater is no different. We just followed the neon lights and pulled into Proxima Centaurii Motor Rentals and South Asian Grocery. (Take exit 452a, just past the companion star – can’t miss it.)
I’ve never been any good at haggling, so I left the negotiations to John, and he came away with a sharp looking little unit for a one-way rental back to Earth. All we had to do 
was, well, hand over the licensing proceeds to our recordings for a radius of three light-years around Proxima Centaurii for the next three years – not too shabby, since we’ve yet to sell a single disc out here. (Don’t say anything!) That and whatever else we had in our pockets, including the last of our Cancri 55 currency. Got to tell you, it’s a relief to stand on a solid deck once again, instead of monkey bars… particularly when you’re traveling at 65% light velocity. And crew cabins, for chrissake! Marvin (my personal robot assistant) was immediately tasked with setting up the galley for the man-sized tuber.
So here we are, cruising along towards home, rice on the boil. Why rice? It’s cheap, that’s why. We blew the bankroll on this ship. Sure, it would be nice if we had a few vegetables to sauté;…. nice… root…. vegetables…..
