04 April 2011

Things I Do at Work OR The Adventures of Bob the Space Cowboy Pt. 1

My job, at times, does not require a great deal of brain power.  I mean, really I'm meant to sit around and wait for people to ask me questions along the lines of "Where's the 'print' button in Microsoft Word?" and "How do I delete something in my email?"  Not exactly rocket science considering I've been working in IT for about five or six years now.  (Note: My degree is in education, but I'm becoming increasingly aware that my technology skills are much more marketable.  Go figure.  *sigh*)  Anyway, when boredom strikes, I am often looking for something to make the time go much much faster.  Luckily my friend Carrie is often able to supply me with such a distraction.  We were chatting in gchat and she tells me to tell her a story about Bob, the space cowboy from Neptune.  I was more than willing to oblige.  The resulting is this: Pt. 1 of The Adventures of Bob the Space Cowboy.  (There's not much.  I did still have to help people during this time, after all...)

Once there was a three arm gephlot named Bob.  And he was a space cowboy, boy howdy.  But not the kind that wrangled alien wildlife, was rugged and strapping, or generally particpated in the romantic stereotypical definition of what you and I know to be a cowboy, mind you...  No, no. Bob, he liked hats. Specifically of the wide brimmed variety.  And to him, this qualified him as a cowboy.  He was a recent transplant to the planet Neptune from his home planet, Atlepraxis II.  Sadly, Atlepraxis II's leader, Mimzy, decided to outlaw the wearing of wide-brimmed hats and Bob was having none of that, no sir!  So he shipped out to new environs.  Now, Neptune was nice enough.  Lots of gas clouds...reasonably freezing...crooked rings, not like that unartistic planet, Saturn.  Pish with your fancy colours!  You're not artsy at all!  You just found a box of crayons you unwashed miscreant planet!  Yeah.  Bob, he liked Neptune allright.  But after three and a half Neptunian years on the planet (which was only equal to an Atlepraxian week), Bob was beginning to feel just a twinge of homesickness.  "I miss the carnivorous sloop-margles that used to bound in and out of the dunes in the Atlepraxian desert," sayeth Bob.  "I miss the infinite convenience of the three suns that kept my Atlepraxian homeworld in eternal day!  What the hell is this nighttime business, anyway?  How does anyone get anything done when it's so dark?  And what's with all these random points of light in the sky?  They don't do anything.  They don't shed any sort of light on the planet's surface, they don't make any pictures, you can't find your way around with them.  Pish, I say!  Pish!"  So, Bob, he says to his friend, Ed, "Ed, my man, I miss my home.  I miss cave surving in the audial hwho-bangs on the Eastern mleldelnop."  Ed, who's just about had it with his friend's incessant belly-aching, says to Bob, "Really man?  Your planet, Ablebab the Fifth or whatever, sounds like a drag.  Everything sounds like this ridiculous amount of danger and thoroughly unfun.  Furthermore," says Ed, "You had to leave your planet because they outlawed wide-brimmed hats.  I mean, really?  That's your reason for packing up and changing your entire life?  And who wastes their time making stupid laws like outlawing certain kinds of hats?  You, sir, are an idiot and you planetary leader is a bitch."

So endeth Pt. 1 because, you see, work had ended and I went home to watch Fry and Laurie.

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