I spy with my little eye… a planet. See it? Just outside the viewport there? Right — very good. Yes, that’s right… the one that’s getting bigger and bigger with each passing moment. That’s the one. You’re good at this game.
Ah, the distractions we devise to keep our minds off of unpleasant things. Things like uncontrolled descents, fiery crashes, and all that. Yes, friends — that bit of engine trouble I told you about last week was a bit more serious than we’d thought. Now it appears we’ve been issued a one-way ticket to Kerplackistan, if you catch my meaning. And let me tell you something, blog-o-file… it’s downhill all the way. It’s that irresistible force of gravity that’s the problem — no matter where you go in the universe, you’re never quite free of it. Too technical? To simplify matters, I will convey the problem in song, while Marvin (my personal robot assistant) renders its emotional import in a brief interpretive dance:
What goes up
must come down.
Spinning wheels
got to go round
Talk about your troubles
it’s a cryin’ sin
Ride a painted pony
let the spinning wheel spin
Then there’s the bit about having no money and no home, but you already know that part.
How did we arrive at such a revolting predicament? Well, after drifting aimlessly through the asteroid belt, past the object briefly known as the “planet” Ceres, one of our number stumbled upon a novel idea for interplanetary propulsion. No, it wasn’t a member of our scientific contingent — both Mitch Macaphee and Trevor James Constable had long since retired to their cabins with a case of Beefeater’s (each) and a sizeable poke of Zenite snuff (courtesy of sFshzenKlyrn). It was, in fact, the man-sized tuber who first “suggested” (i.e. made his idea known through the art of bad cooking) placing our main PA speakers inside the aft airlock and turning them up to eleven, with sFshzenKlyrn obligingly supplying a mega power chord from his trademark trashed-out telecaster. We just cracked the hatch open, let that bad noise out, and forward we lurched.
When I say “lurch”, I mean just that — an aimless forward motion. (Not a large, Frankenstinian butler working for the Addams family). We were propelled by the sustained power chord out of the asteroid belt and into the gravitational pull of our home planet, known to you terrestrial types as “de oit”. (That’s like “Detroit” without the “tr”.) Well, as many of you already know, the “oit” has a much stronger gravitational field than the asteroid formerly known as “planet” Ceres. And resisting said gravitational pull will take more than a mere power chord or two.
So, let me close with the refrain from another highly apropos little number:
Down and down and down I go!
Round and round and round I go
like a something, something, something….
P. S. — YAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!
