Since I just soaked my clothes and everything (actually her clothes), I asked her how I was supposed to clean up. She takes me to this room at the end of the hall, where I see toilets and showers. I ask what's wrong with them and she says the waste processing system isn't recycling like it's supposed to and it just ends up clogging and flooding the bathroom and she'll get someone to fix it in a few days. But she says there is one thing that works and she hands me this hose thing with a brush attachment. She said it's a little harsh, but I could use it to scrub clean for now. She washed my arm to demonstrate. You push a button and a spray comes out with soap, and at the same time a vacuum sucks the liquid back in.
She then says it's high time I get into uniform anyway. And she leaves the room.
It's quiet for awhile. All I hear is the droning hum of the ventilation system. I just kill time by looking around at everything, opening cabinets, looking in the showers, messing with the weird buttons.
I jump because I suddenly hear someone whistling. I go to a vertical tunnel to investigate but can't see anything.
Then Sigma comes in with a white plastic container. She opens the container and I see the "uniform", a green tunic with a gold logo on it, a plastic diaper and a pair of black leather leggings with no crotch.
I said "you've got to be kidding." I said this couldn't possibly be the uniform. But she said it was. I said I wasn't wearing it, but she said that in addition to it being required as part of my job, there are no toilets, we don't have breaks, and the tunic is branding. I said nobody will see me, but she reminded me that I can see people on the computer, so they can see me. I asked her if I could just wear the top and get some real pants or at least wear something over the diaper, but she said that was "impractical" and the thing she had was what people have been wearing for years. And plus she wanted her clothing back and didn't want me to ruin any more. I said that was an accident, but she said she didn't want any more accidents and to just wear what she gave me, and that it's a required uniform. She just floated there, with this expectant look on her face, not looking too happy. I asked her how she'd wash her clothes if the system's broken and she said the clothes washer worked. I didn't think I could climb into that, so I just stared at my "uniform" and weighed my options.
I needed a job. I was stuck on this ship. I hadn't seen a paycheck for my wacky little excursions yet, but I knew I was soggy and couldn't just go in her closet and get something else because I didn't know where her clothes were on that station. I finally said okay and took them. I told her to leave. She said the...whatever went over the...something and left.
There was sort of a privacy curtain there, so I drew it around myself, cleaned up, then put on that ridiculous outfit. I put the leggings over the diaper because I thought that was what you were supposed to do. When she came back in and saw me, she said it went the other way. There was a big enough hole on both sides for that to make sense, so I reluctantly went back behind the curtain and changed it around. After that she said it was time for me to work.
So we go back up to the cube farm, with me dressed in that ridiculous costume.
I thought I'd be safe from embarrassment, since I presumed it was just me and Sigma on the station, but I was wrong.
The moment we walked around the corner of the cubicles, this female with pink hair and pink fur comes floating up to me.
She had on a "uniform" like mine, but she wasn't wearing the leggings. Probably on account of having such hairy legs.
She looks at me and giggles, then we're introduced.
Sigma tells her who I am and we're introduced. The pink one's name was Minda, and I guess she'd been with the Dogos program for more than three years. Sigma explained how I was there to "fill in" for the sick people and says there will be plenty of time for us to get acquainted later. So Minda goes off and I'm led over to a cubicle.
It reminded me a lot of the cubes we had at GE Money Bank. Instead of the low type where you could see over the top, they had high walls where you couldn't see much of anything once you're sitting at one. The desk she picked for me was facing Jupiter, but I had to stand up to see it.
I had a desk, a hologram computer with a rock keyboard, and a leather office chair with a back support that clamps onto the desk like those safety bars on roller coasters.
Briefly, I considered asking for another desk, but I realized I still would have to turn around backwards to see Jupiter. So with a sigh, I buckled myself into the seat, activated the computer and wondered how bad it could be.
It was crazier than I expected. There was no lull between calls. As at NCO, I had 30 seconds to notate the account, and then bam, the next call comes in.
I still found it jarring to open up windows and put people on hold by rolling rocks around.
It's difficult to remember everything I did on the "phone" that first day, or the ones that followed, because the calls just kept coming.
I'll write what happened next some other time.
Showing posts with label paranormal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label paranormal. Show all posts
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Going in space
Okay, so back to what happened Saturday.
I had a few Cokes before I came onboard and I suddenly had to go. When I asked her where the restrooms were, she said "that reminds me. We've got to get you a uniform."
I told her I didn't understand the connection, but I had to pee. That's when she tells me the toilets are all broken and the company has provided special suits that absorb our waste and converts it to water and fertilizer packets. I said "like a stillsuit" and she smiles and says "exactly." I said no thanks and I'd go back to the ship, but she said someone named Mekilta took the ship to Titan while we were touring. I thought I could hold it awhile so I asked when she'd be back. She tells me Friday. Great. So an entire week of pissing in a stillsuit.
I said I never saw Mekilta, and she said she "was probably in the workout room when we came in and left through another tunnel". I told her I wanted to see for myself that the ship was gone, so she leads me back up to the dock where we came in, and she takes this white rubbery suit out of a compartment, handing it to me, along with a helmet. I asked her if that were my uniform, but she said it was a space suit so I put it on. She did the same. My bladder settled itself, so I said it was about time we tried a space walk.
We donned our helmets, and she opened the "airlock." Once there, she closed us in the chamber and hooked umbilicals to both our suits, and the opposite hatch came open.
The air around us blasted out, and I felt myself drifting.
I didn't see the ship we came in on, or that fleshy stuff. I crept forward, looking around the edge of the "airlock", and that was when I noticed things weren't right. I saw no ground. No floor. No scaffolding or any trappings of artificiality. Not satisfied, I found a railing with handholds and crept along the edge of the airlock, onto the outer hull.
About a yard or so away from the hatch, I looked around and I peed in the space suit. This wasn't earth. This thing was floating in the middle of nowhere, with big assed Jupiter looking like some kind of huge whale's mouth about to eat us. I was floating. I wasn't being pulled towards the earth like I would have been if I were in a plane flying in the upper atmosphere.
I freaked out and scrambled back in. Once we were back inside and had the door shut and the helmets off, she saw my expression and laughed at me. I told her I went in the space suit and she sighed and said she'd have to get someone to clean it.
I told her I believed her now, though. I believed everything.
I had a few Cokes before I came onboard and I suddenly had to go. When I asked her where the restrooms were, she said "that reminds me. We've got to get you a uniform."
I told her I didn't understand the connection, but I had to pee. That's when she tells me the toilets are all broken and the company has provided special suits that absorb our waste and converts it to water and fertilizer packets. I said "like a stillsuit" and she smiles and says "exactly." I said no thanks and I'd go back to the ship, but she said someone named Mekilta took the ship to Titan while we were touring. I thought I could hold it awhile so I asked when she'd be back. She tells me Friday. Great. So an entire week of pissing in a stillsuit.
I said I never saw Mekilta, and she said she "was probably in the workout room when we came in and left through another tunnel". I told her I wanted to see for myself that the ship was gone, so she leads me back up to the dock where we came in, and she takes this white rubbery suit out of a compartment, handing it to me, along with a helmet. I asked her if that were my uniform, but she said it was a space suit so I put it on. She did the same. My bladder settled itself, so I said it was about time we tried a space walk.
We donned our helmets, and she opened the "airlock." Once there, she closed us in the chamber and hooked umbilicals to both our suits, and the opposite hatch came open.
The air around us blasted out, and I felt myself drifting.
I didn't see the ship we came in on, or that fleshy stuff. I crept forward, looking around the edge of the "airlock", and that was when I noticed things weren't right. I saw no ground. No floor. No scaffolding or any trappings of artificiality. Not satisfied, I found a railing with handholds and crept along the edge of the airlock, onto the outer hull.
About a yard or so away from the hatch, I looked around and I peed in the space suit. This wasn't earth. This thing was floating in the middle of nowhere, with big assed Jupiter looking like some kind of huge whale's mouth about to eat us. I was floating. I wasn't being pulled towards the earth like I would have been if I were in a plane flying in the upper atmosphere.
I freaked out and scrambled back in. Once we were back inside and had the door shut and the helmets off, she saw my expression and laughed at me. I told her I went in the space suit and she sighed and said she'd have to get someone to clean it.
I told her I believed her now, though. I believed everything.
Space station tour
Sigma has a weird toilet on her ship. I didn't mention it before because it just looked like yet another wacky movie prop, but I've had to use it a few times before during my language training sessions. Sigma told me how to use it. On earth, it was fine because I could just go in the big cup and not have to do anything weird with the vacuum attachments. Well, since we were floating and I had to go, I actually had to use those attachments. If you know anything about astronauts, you'll know what I'm talking about. Anyways, I used it a couple times during the trip, and this is going to factor into the story later.
So we're at the "station". Sigma gets out of her chair and I follow her down a hallway to a hatch on one side of the room. She opens it and I see this fleshy bridge thing connecting to a metal airlock structure. She scans a badge through a device on the door and I'm looking at a carpeted hallway you'd see in an office building. She leads me in and starts playing tour guide.
We climb down the hallway on handlebars and footholds set in the walls and floor, and she shows me the break room, the main conference room, and the call center.
The call center was the most impressive, since the cube farm occupied the entire wing of the structure, and it had a huge window overlooking the planet Jupiter. She was right. Jupiter was so huge that I couldn't see anything else, even though that side of the building was just one big long window. I asked her how we weren't being sucked into Jupiter's gravitational pull and she just laughed at me.
I didn't see anyone there. Not a single person at the desks or anywhere else. I asked her why that was and she said they were out sick. I guess they had some sort of space crud. I forget what she called it, but I guess it wasn't fatal. She said they were at another base recovering.
She showed me another conference room, then we went down a vertical tube tunnel to another carpeted room. She showed me a gym (which we had to use to avoid atrophy), our "sleeping quarters" (more jellyfish beds), and another break room.
This break room "upstairs" was a bit small, but this one was more like the lunch room at NCO, roughly the size of one and a half semi trailers. Okay, not that big, but close. Like everywhere else, the tables were bolted to the floor and there were seatbelts on the magnetized chairs. I was surprised to see vending machines, but they basically contained nothing but blue Fanta soda, flavored water, and thin diet pretzels. That's it. Row upon row of them. I wondered who put those machines in, who's rotating stock, and who's buying. I still don't have the answer to that.
On the sides of the break room were two "gardens". She showed me those next. They were basically greenhouses equipped with lamps and sprayers, and they only seemed to contain one or two different types of plants. They weren't the type of plant I've ever seen before. They reminded me of sea plants, like anemone more than anything, but they had mouths and eyes and lots of wiggling tendrils. One of the "gardens" contained a farm and I got to see "Zufa" firsthand.
They were gray and they had no eyes on their heads, only a proboscis. They had tails like puppy dogs and claws like lobsters. They sat in stacked cages like some PETA unfriendly chicken farm, but I didn't feel sorry for them. I just thought they'd be too fatty without them exercising.
She showed me the freezer, and then we looked around the garden some more.
I sketched the layout on one of the work handouts I was given. It looked like this:(
Picture here)
The circles with the X's on them are the tunnels we used to go from one chamber on the ship to the other.
At the station
I didn't know what time it was because my watch was coated in filth and she'd taken it somewhere.
I thought about how it was that we got to Jupiter so fast, but since I had difficulty believing we were in space, I figured a better question to ask was how she managed to get everything to float, and if we were inside an airplane flying around in the atmosphere somewhere.
She asked me what I thought I was seeing and I said probably something like they have at Epcot Center. She asked me what I saw in the "septic system" and I said you can find some pretty horrible stuff in the Amazon jungle or under the ocean and they could have been from there or outer space. That made her laugh.
I told her I wouldn't believe we were in space until I actually took a space walk or stuck my head out an airlock. She said it could be arranged, but not at that moment.
We went back to the entrance and watched cable.
A quarter of the way through a movie, I heard this klaxon sound and she went to the room at the end of the hall. I followed her, watching as she made noises at someone on an intercom.
A big bug shaped object came into view, and we slowly drifted towards it. Jupiter, in the meantime, just kept getting bigger and bigger.
I was floating, so it didn't tire me to just "stand" there for ten minutes. We approached the object, then sort of passed to one side of it. The thing was all metallic, and sort of blocky. Kind of surprising, considering I was in a big sea cucumber thing with rubbery skin.
I heard some hissing sounds and she said "we're here."
Wow. This was a lot longer than I really intended, but it really can't be helped. A lot of weird things happened to me all at once in the course of only a few short days. Nobody will understand them if I don't at least try to explain it a little. And I do mean a little. I skipped over the boring parts, and I've forgotten some things between then and now so this is only an approximate description of what happened to me. I'll go into greater detail about some other things if I have time and remember them.
I'll write a post about what happened on the station tomorrow or something.
I thought about how it was that we got to Jupiter so fast, but since I had difficulty believing we were in space, I figured a better question to ask was how she managed to get everything to float, and if we were inside an airplane flying around in the atmosphere somewhere.
She asked me what I thought I was seeing and I said probably something like they have at Epcot Center. She asked me what I saw in the "septic system" and I said you can find some pretty horrible stuff in the Amazon jungle or under the ocean and they could have been from there or outer space. That made her laugh.
I told her I wouldn't believe we were in space until I actually took a space walk or stuck my head out an airlock. She said it could be arranged, but not at that moment.
We went back to the entrance and watched cable.
A quarter of the way through a movie, I heard this klaxon sound and she went to the room at the end of the hall. I followed her, watching as she made noises at someone on an intercom.
A big bug shaped object came into view, and we slowly drifted towards it. Jupiter, in the meantime, just kept getting bigger and bigger.
I was floating, so it didn't tire me to just "stand" there for ten minutes. We approached the object, then sort of passed to one side of it. The thing was all metallic, and sort of blocky. Kind of surprising, considering I was in a big sea cucumber thing with rubbery skin.
I heard some hissing sounds and she said "we're here."
Wow. This was a lot longer than I really intended, but it really can't be helped. A lot of weird things happened to me all at once in the course of only a few short days. Nobody will understand them if I don't at least try to explain it a little. And I do mean a little. I skipped over the boring parts, and I've forgotten some things between then and now so this is only an approximate description of what happened to me. I'll go into greater detail about some other things if I have time and remember them.
I'll write a post about what happened on the station tomorrow or something.
Men's skirts
I think I had an allergic reaction to either the soap or her hair because I kept itching. I told her about this and she said sorry, but she didn't have any other soap.
She then started talking about why she didn't understand why earth men had such a problem with wearing things like skirts and other things I saw in that box. I told her there were Deuteronomic commands against wearing women's clothing and I was probably breaking it now and wouldn't have if she'd told me about the compartment. She said that was a disposal chute and then started talking about how men wore kilts. I argued that was different but she kept saying it wasn't, that males on her planet think it's perfectly fine to wear skirts and they're not gay or anything. I argued that the colors are not manly, so she argued that Korean men wear colorful robes for ceremonies and it's no different, and plus she picked read and green instead of pink. She said it "was only fabric." And then she said that it's not comfortable for her people to wear a lot of clothes and her people have tails, so skirts can be ideal. I argued that I didn't have a tail so the point is moot. She kept going at it, so I gave up.
I watched cable some more. She told me there wasn't much earth food on the "station" and that it's "good that I have my implant." I asked how could that be when we're only a few miles from earth, so she says the station has better refrigeration than earth and there's a freezer that contains enough food to feed a hundred people for three years. I asked her how many people were onboard and she said barely a sixteenth of that amount, and that they had a farm of sorts onboard as well. And she offhandedly mentions that nobody on board likes earth food.
I asked her if I could take a look outside. I'd been too angry to think about it before, but now that I had eaten something and had clothes on, even if they weren't a good fit, I was feeling better, so I asked. She took me down the hallway to a round chamber with a single chair in the center. The room was pretty well featureless except for that chair, which had all kinds of devices attached to it, I presume for controlling the ship.
The walls all displayed a view of space. I figured they were either monitors or some type of glass.
Apparently we were already close to to Jupiter. I could see it up ahead. It was huge, and Sigma told me it wasn't even that close to us. She said that it fills up the entire office window and you can see all the storms and satellites moving around. I said it sounded cool.
Then out of the blue she starts asking me these religious questions. Kind of awkward to be talking about that dressed in women's clothing but I tried not to think of it. She asked me what good my faith was when I behaved more or less like other people she knew with no religious convictions. I briefly explained the whole thing about how my religion is for lost sinners and how the Great Physician came to earth to heal the spiritually sick, not the "healthy", and that there's a comfort, and a peace in that. That made her quiet. She finally asked why I followed some of the rules but not others, like hitting people and calling them bad names and cussing, but I refused to sleep with her or wear a skirt. So I gave her a short speech about how the Christian faith walk was a contradiction, that we're in constant need of grace and of the Holy Spirit to guide us in righteous actions that we ourselves don't have the power to perform. At that point I felt compelled to say I was sorry, and I said I hoped she'd forgive me, as I'd be asking Jesus for forgiveness as well. I basically did that to "pitch a sale" so to speak, and to sort of cover over the fact I contradicted my own words I'd said to her a few days ago about loving my neighbor and all that.
She was quiet again, and we just watched Jupiter get closer.
She then started talking about why she didn't understand why earth men had such a problem with wearing things like skirts and other things I saw in that box. I told her there were Deuteronomic commands against wearing women's clothing and I was probably breaking it now and wouldn't have if she'd told me about the compartment. She said that was a disposal chute and then started talking about how men wore kilts. I argued that was different but she kept saying it wasn't, that males on her planet think it's perfectly fine to wear skirts and they're not gay or anything. I argued that the colors are not manly, so she argued that Korean men wear colorful robes for ceremonies and it's no different, and plus she picked read and green instead of pink. She said it "was only fabric." And then she said that it's not comfortable for her people to wear a lot of clothes and her people have tails, so skirts can be ideal. I argued that I didn't have a tail so the point is moot. She kept going at it, so I gave up.
I watched cable some more. She told me there wasn't much earth food on the "station" and that it's "good that I have my implant." I asked how could that be when we're only a few miles from earth, so she says the station has better refrigeration than earth and there's a freezer that contains enough food to feed a hundred people for three years. I asked her how many people were onboard and she said barely a sixteenth of that amount, and that they had a farm of sorts onboard as well. And she offhandedly mentions that nobody on board likes earth food.
I asked her if I could take a look outside. I'd been too angry to think about it before, but now that I had eaten something and had clothes on, even if they weren't a good fit, I was feeling better, so I asked. She took me down the hallway to a round chamber with a single chair in the center. The room was pretty well featureless except for that chair, which had all kinds of devices attached to it, I presume for controlling the ship.
The walls all displayed a view of space. I figured they were either monitors or some type of glass.
Apparently we were already close to to Jupiter. I could see it up ahead. It was huge, and Sigma told me it wasn't even that close to us. She said that it fills up the entire office window and you can see all the storms and satellites moving around. I said it sounded cool.
Then out of the blue she starts asking me these religious questions. Kind of awkward to be talking about that dressed in women's clothing but I tried not to think of it. She asked me what good my faith was when I behaved more or less like other people she knew with no religious convictions. I briefly explained the whole thing about how my religion is for lost sinners and how the Great Physician came to earth to heal the spiritually sick, not the "healthy", and that there's a comfort, and a peace in that. That made her quiet. She finally asked why I followed some of the rules but not others, like hitting people and calling them bad names and cussing, but I refused to sleep with her or wear a skirt. So I gave her a short speech about how the Christian faith walk was a contradiction, that we're in constant need of grace and of the Holy Spirit to guide us in righteous actions that we ourselves don't have the power to perform. At that point I felt compelled to say I was sorry, and I said I hoped she'd forgive me, as I'd be asking Jesus for forgiveness as well. I basically did that to "pitch a sale" so to speak, and to sort of cover over the fact I contradicted my own words I'd said to her a few days ago about loving my neighbor and all that.
She was quiet again, and we just watched Jupiter get closer.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Zufa
After she took a shower herself, she cooked me supper, and it was pretty much like I expected. Gray hairy crab legs, some leftover meatloaf, and something like caviar. Since I couldn't care less about being poisoned or drugged at this point, I ate everything on my plate.
She called that gray stuff "Zufa" and it was halfway decent. It wasn't what I expected, but it was all right. The closest thing I could compare it to is pork mixed with candy and thousand island salad dressing. That's not accurate, but it's kind of what it was like. The caviar tasted, well, like caviar, with sort of a cheese flavor. I only ate the stuff because I was hungry.
While I ate, she told me stuff about the job. She said we're required to wear uniforms on the station, and that the station is fairly large and you could actually see outside. She said we were in a shuttle and that's why it had no windows. She said the station is powered by solar energy and gravitational power generated by Jupiter and that the break rooms get all the channels because we're up in space where the satellites are.
She also told me about some new policies, like how there aren't any breaks, only a fifteen minute lunch and that the caller needs to scan their identification into the computer before I can assist them with their locked spaceship.
The break thing caught me off guard. I asked her what happened if I had to go to the bathroom, being there's no "health breaks" or breaks period, and she just said "I'd learn more about that when I got onboard". Whatever. I figured I didn't have a choice, but I could probably find some wiggle room somewhere.
We got done eating and I went back to watching HBO on the hologram. Since we weren't talking, she made bad attempts at conversation. She asked me what I thought about my coworkers at BBL. I gave her a guarded response, so she asked me if I had any prejudices against race.
I said I was okay with black people, and as a Christian I have to love people of all races, but certain customers get on my phone and give the whole African American race a bad name.
She tells me that her people are discriminated against by the color of their fur. That made me laugh, but she was serious. She said it was difficult for the green people to get work. Okay. Sure. That's great. I'm wearing your clothes and a bikini because you made me throw out all my stuff and ruined my food and I'm supposed to feel sorry for you.
She asked me if I liked her fur color and I said it was okay.
She called that gray stuff "Zufa" and it was halfway decent. It wasn't what I expected, but it was all right. The closest thing I could compare it to is pork mixed with candy and thousand island salad dressing. That's not accurate, but it's kind of what it was like. The caviar tasted, well, like caviar, with sort of a cheese flavor. I only ate the stuff because I was hungry.
While I ate, she told me stuff about the job. She said we're required to wear uniforms on the station, and that the station is fairly large and you could actually see outside. She said we were in a shuttle and that's why it had no windows. She said the station is powered by solar energy and gravitational power generated by Jupiter and that the break rooms get all the channels because we're up in space where the satellites are.
She also told me about some new policies, like how there aren't any breaks, only a fifteen minute lunch and that the caller needs to scan their identification into the computer before I can assist them with their locked spaceship.
The break thing caught me off guard. I asked her what happened if I had to go to the bathroom, being there's no "health breaks" or breaks period, and she just said "I'd learn more about that when I got onboard". Whatever. I figured I didn't have a choice, but I could probably find some wiggle room somewhere.
We got done eating and I went back to watching HBO on the hologram. Since we weren't talking, she made bad attempts at conversation. She asked me what I thought about my coworkers at BBL. I gave her a guarded response, so she asked me if I had any prejudices against race.
I said I was okay with black people, and as a Christian I have to love people of all races, but certain customers get on my phone and give the whole African American race a bad name.
She tells me that her people are discriminated against by the color of their fur. That made me laugh, but she was serious. She said it was difficult for the green people to get work. Okay. Sure. That's great. I'm wearing your clothes and a bikini because you made me throw out all my stuff and ruined my food and I'm supposed to feel sorry for you.
She asked me if I liked her fur color and I said it was okay.
Clothes
I went to the entrance, looking for the compartment I stowed my luggage in. She wasn't happy about that since I was trailing that slime everywhere, and kept telling me so, but I didn't care. In fact, I was pleased to finally get even.
My gloating turned out to be short lived. When I opened the compartment, I found my suitcase was missing.
I asked her where it was and she said "in a field behind NCO."
I said, "Isn't that where we are?" and asked her to open the hatch.
But she said we were in space and if I opened the hatch an alarm would sound and I'd be sucked out into the vacuum.
I said likely story, but then she asked me how it was that I floated if we were on the ground.
She said she'd show me the view outside once I was cleaned up, but I didn't want to hear it.
I tried to open the hatch anyway, so she typed something on a panel that kept it from opening.
I told her to take me back to earth so I could get my suitcase, but she said we were on a schedule and were actually near Mars right now. Then she told me I shouldn't have put my bag in there.
I tried to hit her, but she saw me trying to run at her and swam out of the way, so I ended up drifting across the room.
I spent several minutes trying to hit her. It was difficult due to the weightless environment, but I managed to catch her off guard and hit her in the stomach. I then yelled for her to get my suitcase.
At long last, she finally told me she could, but with one stipulation. If we went back to get it, she'd take me off the project and I'd be stuck with BBL and Target, and only if I'm lucky. She said my other option would be to say I was sorry and wash up and she'd "pretend like this didn't happen."
Like I said before this trip, I have nowhere else to go. I said fine, I'd shower. But I didn't say sorry, I just asked her if she had towels.
She said she had something better, and some nice outfits I could wear. I said I'd rather keep the ones I had on, but she said they at least needed to be washed and that she didn't want me stinking up the place more than I already had.
I told her that would be pretty good revenge, but I had to admit the smell was more than I could tolerate. I didn't say that last part.
I gave up and asked her to show me the clothes.
So we go into her bedroom and she takes out a box from the storage compartment. She took some items out and showed me, but everything looked gay. Bright colors, silky, stretchy fabrics, midriff shirts, feminine looking leather apparel, girly t-shirts, bikinis, dresses. No jeans whatsoever.
I asked her if she had any menswear and she said this was men's wear. I clarified and said straight men's wear. She said that straight Abreya males wore that stuff. I said I wasn't one, which got a laugh (I guess I walked into that one). Ignoring it, I asked her if she had the stuff that regular men wore on earth, like jeans and boxers and t-shirts and such. She said no.
I contemplated my options. I could wear this gay stuff from the box, or I could raid her closet and try to find something more suitable. I knew she had some dress slacks and turtlenecks. It might be a feminine fit, but so was all this other stuff.
So I asked her if I could use her work clothes.
She said she wasn't sure, and that I might get them smelly. I told her I wasn't wearing the clothes from that box and started poking around the walls, trying to find where her closet was. She finally got annoyed and opened another compartment, showing me the contents of a box of clothes. Real pants!
I tried to grab a pair of slacks, but she said I'd get it dirty, so I just pointed to them and a turtleneck and said I'd wear those.
She said okay and led me into what can only be described as a bathroom. It didn't have any of the fixtures I recognized, so I asked her how to use everything. Unsurprisingly, she asked me to disrobe. I said I didn't need her to bathe me, I just needed to know how it worked.
She showed me how to use the bulb things to make it spray soap and foam, and how to vacuum it out of the chamber. There was an oxygen mask there and she said I'd need it when all the air got sucked out. I said okay and she showed me a "drier", and how to use that instead of a towel. And then she told me to go on and shower and she'd put the clothing in a compartment by the door. Not trusting her, I said I'd wait for her to physically put them there.
I waited and she indeed put the clothes in the compartment. I checked and made sure they were the slacks and the turtleneck I asked for.
I asked her how to shut the door and she showed me. Of course, she wouldn't leave the room until I said something. But she did, and I took my shower.
It was kind of weird. The soap came out of the sprayer, and another had the water, and I had to use the mask to keep from drowning. She must have hard water, because that sprayer hurt.
I got out and tried the drier. It felt like I was in a giant sized version of one of those Dymo driers they have in movie theater restrooms. I got dry in seconds and then I went to the cubbyhole where she put the clothes.
She must have pulled a switch while I couldn't hear anything under the sprayers. Instead of the slacks and shirt, I found this drapey red shrug sweater, some green layered thing that looked like a miniskirt, and a silver bikini bottom thing.
I checked the other compartments, hoping that the clothes I wanted were in another location, but I could only find a bunch of equipment, lots of bottles with labels I couldn't read, and some horse grooming supplies.
I wasn't happy, but I was tired of fighting. Figuring I'd be in a better position to negotiate when I'm clothed rather than naked, I put on the bikini, skirt and sweater and I went out.
She looked at me and laughed and said I looked cute. I told her it wasn't funny, demanding I get the clothing I asked for.
She gave me a response that almost sounded like a script you'd use on an irate customer, understanding statements and all that jazz. It sounded fake.
I told her we're in zero gravity and a skirt just floats around me instead of concealing anything, and I still had no intention of sleeping with her.
She sighed and said she'd get me the clothes I wanted.
This time I got the turtleneck and the slacks I asked for. Once she brought them to me, I changed right in front of her, since I was already past my embarrassment threshold.
My gloating turned out to be short lived. When I opened the compartment, I found my suitcase was missing.
I asked her where it was and she said "in a field behind NCO."
I said, "Isn't that where we are?" and asked her to open the hatch.
But she said we were in space and if I opened the hatch an alarm would sound and I'd be sucked out into the vacuum.
I said likely story, but then she asked me how it was that I floated if we were on the ground.
She said she'd show me the view outside once I was cleaned up, but I didn't want to hear it.
I tried to open the hatch anyway, so she typed something on a panel that kept it from opening.
I told her to take me back to earth so I could get my suitcase, but she said we were on a schedule and were actually near Mars right now. Then she told me I shouldn't have put my bag in there.
I tried to hit her, but she saw me trying to run at her and swam out of the way, so I ended up drifting across the room.
I spent several minutes trying to hit her. It was difficult due to the weightless environment, but I managed to catch her off guard and hit her in the stomach. I then yelled for her to get my suitcase.
At long last, she finally told me she could, but with one stipulation. If we went back to get it, she'd take me off the project and I'd be stuck with BBL and Target, and only if I'm lucky. She said my other option would be to say I was sorry and wash up and she'd "pretend like this didn't happen."
Like I said before this trip, I have nowhere else to go. I said fine, I'd shower. But I didn't say sorry, I just asked her if she had towels.
She said she had something better, and some nice outfits I could wear. I said I'd rather keep the ones I had on, but she said they at least needed to be washed and that she didn't want me stinking up the place more than I already had.
I told her that would be pretty good revenge, but I had to admit the smell was more than I could tolerate. I didn't say that last part.
I gave up and asked her to show me the clothes.
So we go into her bedroom and she takes out a box from the storage compartment. She took some items out and showed me, but everything looked gay. Bright colors, silky, stretchy fabrics, midriff shirts, feminine looking leather apparel, girly t-shirts, bikinis, dresses. No jeans whatsoever.
I asked her if she had any menswear and she said this was men's wear. I clarified and said straight men's wear. She said that straight Abreya males wore that stuff. I said I wasn't one, which got a laugh (I guess I walked into that one). Ignoring it, I asked her if she had the stuff that regular men wore on earth, like jeans and boxers and t-shirts and such. She said no.
I contemplated my options. I could wear this gay stuff from the box, or I could raid her closet and try to find something more suitable. I knew she had some dress slacks and turtlenecks. It might be a feminine fit, but so was all this other stuff.
So I asked her if I could use her work clothes.
She said she wasn't sure, and that I might get them smelly. I told her I wasn't wearing the clothes from that box and started poking around the walls, trying to find where her closet was. She finally got annoyed and opened another compartment, showing me the contents of a box of clothes. Real pants!
I tried to grab a pair of slacks, but she said I'd get it dirty, so I just pointed to them and a turtleneck and said I'd wear those.
She said okay and led me into what can only be described as a bathroom. It didn't have any of the fixtures I recognized, so I asked her how to use everything. Unsurprisingly, she asked me to disrobe. I said I didn't need her to bathe me, I just needed to know how it worked.
She showed me how to use the bulb things to make it spray soap and foam, and how to vacuum it out of the chamber. There was an oxygen mask there and she said I'd need it when all the air got sucked out. I said okay and she showed me a "drier", and how to use that instead of a towel. And then she told me to go on and shower and she'd put the clothing in a compartment by the door. Not trusting her, I said I'd wait for her to physically put them there.
I waited and she indeed put the clothes in the compartment. I checked and made sure they were the slacks and the turtleneck I asked for.
I asked her how to shut the door and she showed me. Of course, she wouldn't leave the room until I said something. But she did, and I took my shower.
It was kind of weird. The soap came out of the sprayer, and another had the water, and I had to use the mask to keep from drowning. She must have hard water, because that sprayer hurt.
I got out and tried the drier. It felt like I was in a giant sized version of one of those Dymo driers they have in movie theater restrooms. I got dry in seconds and then I went to the cubbyhole where she put the clothes.
She must have pulled a switch while I couldn't hear anything under the sprayers. Instead of the slacks and shirt, I found this drapey red shrug sweater, some green layered thing that looked like a miniskirt, and a silver bikini bottom thing.
I checked the other compartments, hoping that the clothes I wanted were in another location, but I could only find a bunch of equipment, lots of bottles with labels I couldn't read, and some horse grooming supplies.
I wasn't happy, but I was tired of fighting. Figuring I'd be in a better position to negotiate when I'm clothed rather than naked, I put on the bikini, skirt and sweater and I went out.
She looked at me and laughed and said I looked cute. I told her it wasn't funny, demanding I get the clothing I asked for.
She gave me a response that almost sounded like a script you'd use on an irate customer, understanding statements and all that jazz. It sounded fake.
I told her we're in zero gravity and a skirt just floats around me instead of concealing anything, and I still had no intention of sleeping with her.
She sighed and said she'd get me the clothes I wanted.
This time I got the turtleneck and the slacks I asked for. Once she brought them to me, I changed right in front of her, since I was already past my embarrassment threshold.
Slime
She was trying to convince me that my food was flushed away into her septic tank somewhere, but I wasn't convinced. I decided I needed more information. I was looking at a dark tunnel and didn't even see my food. Furthermore, I couldn't care less if I died. I acquired a gradual desire to end my existence when I became unemployed for an extended period a couple years ago. I was unemployed for months. I laid in my bed, apathetic to life, to the point where I decided that the things I was afraid of, like dark closets and basements and darkened attics full of creepy paintings were no longer something I should fear, that I'd rather get mauled to death by a ghost or a demon or a burglar than have to face another day of joblessness.
And this is what went through my mind when I decided to climb through the hole and take a look around. I should be employed at Hallmark doing art, and I'm working at a damn call center. So what if this situation is a little unusual. I still think life sucks, so I went down in the hole.
She didn't close it up when I went in, but she did something to make the fungus on the walls glow.
The tunnel was really cramped. Only about four feet tall, I think, and I'm about six feet tall.
I didn't see it from the hole, but there was also a foot thick layer of clear slime running along the bottom. The moment I entered the compartment, I sunk into it, my clothes soaked through to my skin.
I couldn't breathe without having my ribs and arms pressing against the walls, but I didn't want to breathe too deep anyway. The smell was literally undescribable. It wasn't like any scent or odor I knew from anywhere, so I had no grounds for comparison. It wasn't like a shit smell or like dog poop or a skunk or cow poop. I don't know what it smelled like, but it made me queasy. I pushed myself ahead, looking around for my food.
What I saw ahead of me was a chamber, about three feet in height, with an oozing "pad" of something fleshy covering the floor. The "pad" was pitted all over with these cup-like holes. I looked in one and came close to throwing up.
The cups contained these little worm creatures, about the size of pipe cleaners, with little mouths on one end and sightless flatworm eyes. They squirmed in and out of these holes, and it was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in my life.
I screamed and backed up to the hole. I was okay with dying. I wasn't okay with being infected with tapeworms or having those things crawling around in my bodily orfices.
She sticks her head through the hole and said they're harmless. I said right, like tapeworms or fecal bacteria or salmonella. I told her black widow spiders might be great in a petting zoo, but I wouldn't go there, and I wanted out. I saw my food nowhere in there anyway.
I tried to push myself out, but it was difficult to do in a frictionless confined space like that. Fortunately, she pulled me back out, and I was floating in her hallway, dripping and smelly.
Of course she told me I had to take a shower, and I reluctantly agreed. So then I went back to get my suitcase.
Problem.
And this is what went through my mind when I decided to climb through the hole and take a look around. I should be employed at Hallmark doing art, and I'm working at a damn call center. So what if this situation is a little unusual. I still think life sucks, so I went down in the hole.
She didn't close it up when I went in, but she did something to make the fungus on the walls glow.
The tunnel was really cramped. Only about four feet tall, I think, and I'm about six feet tall.
I didn't see it from the hole, but there was also a foot thick layer of clear slime running along the bottom. The moment I entered the compartment, I sunk into it, my clothes soaked through to my skin.
I couldn't breathe without having my ribs and arms pressing against the walls, but I didn't want to breathe too deep anyway. The smell was literally undescribable. It wasn't like any scent or odor I knew from anywhere, so I had no grounds for comparison. It wasn't like a shit smell or like dog poop or a skunk or cow poop. I don't know what it smelled like, but it made me queasy. I pushed myself ahead, looking around for my food.
What I saw ahead of me was a chamber, about three feet in height, with an oozing "pad" of something fleshy covering the floor. The "pad" was pitted all over with these cup-like holes. I looked in one and came close to throwing up.
The cups contained these little worm creatures, about the size of pipe cleaners, with little mouths on one end and sightless flatworm eyes. They squirmed in and out of these holes, and it was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in my life.
I screamed and backed up to the hole. I was okay with dying. I wasn't okay with being infected with tapeworms or having those things crawling around in my bodily orfices.
She sticks her head through the hole and said they're harmless. I said right, like tapeworms or fecal bacteria or salmonella. I told her black widow spiders might be great in a petting zoo, but I wouldn't go there, and I wanted out. I saw my food nowhere in there anyway.
I tried to push myself out, but it was difficult to do in a frictionless confined space like that. Fortunately, she pulled me back out, and I was floating in her hallway, dripping and smelly.
Of course she told me I had to take a shower, and I reluctantly agreed. So then I went back to get my suitcase.
Problem.
Such a waste
Back to my story about what happened that Saturday a week and a half ago.
We're on the sofa, watching the "cable" thing, and she asks me what I want for lunch.
"Actually," I told her. "I brought something. How do I get my stuff out of that compartment?"
And then she giggles and says I'd have to go into the crawl space behind her bedroom and fish it out of the septic system.
Obviously, I wasn't happy. I cussed her out and told her that food costs money and there's poor people living in third world nations who would have killed to have that food. Her response was I was welcome to fish it out of her sewer and that she couldn't stomach the smell of earth food.
I told her that not everything can withstand ammonia and excrement. I said I put bread and spaghetti in there and it's not like a tin can where you can just wipe it off and not have it stink. I cussed some more and when she said it wasn't Christian I threatened to beat her up since the bible didn't say anything about it being a sin to physically assault a space alien.
When I began to think more clearly I told her that if she were a Christian she'd at least care a little something for the poor and wouldn't go about wasting food. She responds to that by saying I'm the one that put it there. At that point I screamed at her about how I wouldn't have if she had told me what I was doing instead of lying and playing like it was a storage compartment. Then I demanded to know where the crawl space was.
She led me back through the hallway, to the room with the bed that looked like a jellyfish, and into a narrow corridor off to one side of the room. I guess she could tell I was angry because she didn't try anything, she just pulled a panel off the wall and opened a fleshy partition, gesturing to it.
I looked in. What I saw was a narrow passage with slick slimy walls of that fleshy stuff. About three feet below the hole I could see a flat area leading into a dark tunnel.
I stared into there for more than a couple minutes, trying to figure out what to do. I'm claustrophobic, it didn't look too big, and the air didn't seem too fresh. In fact, there was a smell coming out of there that made my stomach ill. I looked at Sigma and she gave me this expression like it wasn't worth it.
Neither option looked that good. I could either dive down into the hole, get all smelly, and possibly get sealed up inside there forever, or I could give up and let her serve me hairy bug legs with eyes on them, being that I got a new "liver" or something now. Option A would be disgusting, possibly fatal. Option B meant playing straight into her hands, letting her taking advantage of me, and losing money.
More about this in the next post.
We're on the sofa, watching the "cable" thing, and she asks me what I want for lunch.
"Actually," I told her. "I brought something. How do I get my stuff out of that compartment?"
And then she giggles and says I'd have to go into the crawl space behind her bedroom and fish it out of the septic system.
Obviously, I wasn't happy. I cussed her out and told her that food costs money and there's poor people living in third world nations who would have killed to have that food. Her response was I was welcome to fish it out of her sewer and that she couldn't stomach the smell of earth food.
I told her that not everything can withstand ammonia and excrement. I said I put bread and spaghetti in there and it's not like a tin can where you can just wipe it off and not have it stink. I cussed some more and when she said it wasn't Christian I threatened to beat her up since the bible didn't say anything about it being a sin to physically assault a space alien.
When I began to think more clearly I told her that if she were a Christian she'd at least care a little something for the poor and wouldn't go about wasting food. She responds to that by saying I'm the one that put it there. At that point I screamed at her about how I wouldn't have if she had told me what I was doing instead of lying and playing like it was a storage compartment. Then I demanded to know where the crawl space was.
She led me back through the hallway, to the room with the bed that looked like a jellyfish, and into a narrow corridor off to one side of the room. I guess she could tell I was angry because she didn't try anything, she just pulled a panel off the wall and opened a fleshy partition, gesturing to it.
I looked in. What I saw was a narrow passage with slick slimy walls of that fleshy stuff. About three feet below the hole I could see a flat area leading into a dark tunnel.
I stared into there for more than a couple minutes, trying to figure out what to do. I'm claustrophobic, it didn't look too big, and the air didn't seem too fresh. In fact, there was a smell coming out of there that made my stomach ill. I looked at Sigma and she gave me this expression like it wasn't worth it.
Neither option looked that good. I could either dive down into the hole, get all smelly, and possibly get sealed up inside there forever, or I could give up and let her serve me hairy bug legs with eyes on them, being that I got a new "liver" or something now. Option A would be disgusting, possibly fatal. Option B meant playing straight into her hands, letting her taking advantage of me, and losing money.
More about this in the next post.
Back on Terra Firma
It went on longer than a week.
I just got back today. I've got more to tell than I've got time with all my work and stuff going on, and I want to do some normal stuff like drawing and listening to .mp3's and playing video games for once. I might not do many posts about work for awhile, either. Life is crazy, and I can't easily pack everything into one day's posting.
On Saturday, I packed a week's worth of clothing, as well as my whole BSA camping kit because I didn't know what the hell I was getting into. The lock blade knife seemed like a good idea for self defense. I also brought towels. My experience at the Conifur convention told me to not trust people to provide anything.
In fact, I mentally debated the food issue. I assumed she had something, as she'd given me meatloaf and enchiladas before, but I worried if she'd slip me a mickey and I'd end up naked in a tank of slime again. On the other hand, I realized I'd be spending a week with her, possibly alone, and she'd just as easily slip something into my food supplies, inject me with something, or douse a rag with chloroform and knock me out with that. Still not sure, and wondering if she'd run out, I packed some food from the kitchen cabinets, and grabbed some other things from the store, enough for a week or more, and then I went to the ship.
Before I left, I told my parents I was going on a week long business trip and they were impressed. If they knew the truth, they probably wouldn't be as much. I told them I was going somewhere in Kansas, but wasn't sure where. Close enough. I may have been in a tank full of slime, and it may have left me smelling like...whatever for the rest of the day, and all that other stuff, but I still couldn't accept the idea that the sea cucumber thing could actually go into space.
So anyways, I brought my suitcase and grocery bags to the usual place.
Sigma showed up at the entrance of the "ship" dressed in a short green kimono top and black leather pants with her tail curling out from the back.
When she saw what I brought, she laughed at me.
I asked her where to put my groceries and she showed me a chute-like drawer on the wall. It seemed like as good a place as any so I slid a grocery bag down there. It didn't make a noise, so I figured it was cushioned for things like bread and eggs. When I asked if more would fit in there, she made this little grunting sound like a ferret and told me it would. Her odd grin should have told me something, but I'm not that good at reading people...or whatever she is.
So, figuring it to be like the baggage chute at an airport, I put the rest of my groceries in there. I asked her if there were a way to get them out again and she grunted and said yes, so I didn't think too much of it.
Then she took my suitcase. I followed her into another room to see where she'd put it and it was a good thing I did. Instead of tucking it away somewhere, she laid it on this thing that looked like a mammoth jellyfish and rooted through everything. She threw my clothing all over the floor and the jellyfish, then proceeded to poke around in my camping supplies.
I yelled at her and told her to quit, but she didn't. When I asked her what she was doing, she said she was searching for contraband. I told her she was violating my privacy but she told me she was entitled to search my property for drugs due to the fact I signed an agreement to allow such searches when I first applied at NCO. I told her I remembered no such thing and she chided me for not reading it.
Then she found my lock blade knife. She said weapons weren't allowed onboard the Getohako, so I explained how useful it was for other things like cutting rope or cooking. She only responded by saying I didn't need it.
She set it aside and then told me I didn't need my matches or Swiss army knife, either. I tried to explain how they were harmless, but she didn't care. She took my bug repellant, and some other stuff, but I had given up arguing with her. It was pointless.
She took my stuff and put it in a locker somewhere. Then I had to pick up all my clothes. The jellyfish thing was kind of a bed, it seemed. It was spongy and flat and you could sit on it, even though it was sticky, you could see through it, and there were wiggling things on the bottom.
As I was putting the last of my clothes back in the suitcase, I saw her thumbing through my bible with a bemused expression on her face. I decided to let it be because she could use some of the lessons in there.
She asked me if aliens needed Jesus.
I said I didn't know, that they might have their own messiah and there's nothing in the bible that says anything about extraterrestrials unless you're being really creative.
So then she tells me to go into the other room to train. I took my suitcase with me, and I looked around for a place to store it. I poked around and ended up finding a pretty large cabinet thing, so I put the suitcase there. I heard a soft click and a muffled thud, but I figured it was just my suitcase falling over in the compartment.
Sigma grinned at me and pointed to the computer with the gravel keyboard. I asked her if she wanted me to work and she said no, I needed to get better at the language module.
As I studied, I felt everything shake. I asked her what happened and she said we were taking off. I asked her who was piloting and she said it's automatic and we were just going up to the station anyway. I rolled my eyes and said okay. The room had no windows, so I had no clue what was going on outside. Thinking it to be an elaborate joke, I just ignored the externals and focused on the training program.
When I had completed yet another language module, she said I could take a break, and she digs a board game out of a cabinet.
It's Solar Quest. Never thought I'd see that game again. The game she had wasn't even updated to reflect Pluto's demotion, but I didn't care. It was something to do while we waited for...whatever.
After a couple turns, she points out a spot near Jupiter and says that's where we're going. At first that confused me because I was thinking in terms of the game, but I realized she was talking about the "station" where I was supposedly going to work. I kind of laughed and said okay and kept playing.
As we were playing, she told me all this stuff, like how that thing she put in me was like a liver and I could now eat alien food without it poisoning me, and that she is different from other Abreyas because she was born with bumps on her ears and body and that it's some kind of medical condition like warts. She asked me if it bothered me. I said not really since they're not all over like that one lady at Sprint.
I guess I could have done better to make her back off I'd said it's disgusting, but I value my job, and well...there are other reasons.
I was in the lead, with the greatest amount of space property on the board, when all of a sudden the pieces started floating into the air. She laughed at my puzzled reaction and put the pieces up before they could make a mess.
That was my first clue that the thing had actually gone somewhere without a truck.
She put the game away, then she took out these things that looked like scoops, and a cluster of ring shaped hoops. We were floating at this point, so she climbed across the room by means of handlebars and crescent shaped depressions in the floor, to the "door" at the end. Her tail is very versatile. She carried a pair of nets with it, and was able to have a hand free to climb. I, on the other hand, had trouble with carrying the rest of the equipment and had to juggle.
I followed her into the hall in the room beyond, and she set up the hoops, sticking them into specially designed sockets marked with symbols. She then went into another room to change. When she came back out, she was dressed in a one piece black-yellow bikini thing, and carried a bizarre looking puck thing that was covered in feelers.
She told me the rules and we played this weird game. Apparently the goal was to throw the puck through hoops, but the hoop had to correspond to the color the puck was glowing in or it didn't count. It was really challenging, especially since she was using an extra scoop with her tail, and her feet had thumbs on them.
We played this game for a good twenty minutes or so, and it got easier when she decided to give herself a handicap by not using her tail.
When we were done, we were all sweaty and she asked me if I wanted to take a shower. I said no thanks. I really didn't think it would be a good idea to get naked there, but I figured I'd have to shower eventually.
We put the stuff up and she said I should train some more. We'd been conversing in her language frequently during the game, but I guess I wasn't fluent enough so I went through another language course, and a program that told me how to use some other computer system.
While I was doing this, she told me more weird stuff about herself. She said that all "Abreyas" had tongues like hers, that they naturally split into four parts and that their dentistry, and kissing, is more interesting because of that. When she started describing other "interesting things" their tongues could do, it quickly got too graphic and I told her I'd heard enough. She didn't quite get it so I told her I didn't want to hear about the things she did in the bedroom, and asked her to stop. She finally did, despite how she protested that it doesn't necessarily happen in the bedroom.
One of the coffee table things (they weren't really like any tables I've seen before) in the room had a hologram thing built into it, so she switched it on and I could see it playing the Discovery Channel. She offered me a sofa and showed me how to change the channel with a track ball thing attached to the arm. The menu wasn't arranged like the ones I was used to seeing, and some were in that script I saw on the training software, but most were English.
She seemed to have all the channels...on earth. Well, maybe not the local ones, but a ridiculous amount, nonetheless. I watched MTV Japan, and as I'm watching, she sits down next to me, close enough for me to feel the texture of her bikini on my arm, and she asked me what I wanted for lunch.
That's when the trouble started. More about this in the next post.
I just got back today. I've got more to tell than I've got time with all my work and stuff going on, and I want to do some normal stuff like drawing and listening to .mp3's and playing video games for once. I might not do many posts about work for awhile, either. Life is crazy, and I can't easily pack everything into one day's posting.
On Saturday, I packed a week's worth of clothing, as well as my whole BSA camping kit because I didn't know what the hell I was getting into. The lock blade knife seemed like a good idea for self defense. I also brought towels. My experience at the Conifur convention told me to not trust people to provide anything.
In fact, I mentally debated the food issue. I assumed she had something, as she'd given me meatloaf and enchiladas before, but I worried if she'd slip me a mickey and I'd end up naked in a tank of slime again. On the other hand, I realized I'd be spending a week with her, possibly alone, and she'd just as easily slip something into my food supplies, inject me with something, or douse a rag with chloroform and knock me out with that. Still not sure, and wondering if she'd run out, I packed some food from the kitchen cabinets, and grabbed some other things from the store, enough for a week or more, and then I went to the ship.
Before I left, I told my parents I was going on a week long business trip and they were impressed. If they knew the truth, they probably wouldn't be as much. I told them I was going somewhere in Kansas, but wasn't sure where. Close enough. I may have been in a tank full of slime, and it may have left me smelling like...whatever for the rest of the day, and all that other stuff, but I still couldn't accept the idea that the sea cucumber thing could actually go into space.
So anyways, I brought my suitcase and grocery bags to the usual place.
Sigma showed up at the entrance of the "ship" dressed in a short green kimono top and black leather pants with her tail curling out from the back.
When she saw what I brought, she laughed at me.
I asked her where to put my groceries and she showed me a chute-like drawer on the wall. It seemed like as good a place as any so I slid a grocery bag down there. It didn't make a noise, so I figured it was cushioned for things like bread and eggs. When I asked if more would fit in there, she made this little grunting sound like a ferret and told me it would. Her odd grin should have told me something, but I'm not that good at reading people...or whatever she is.
So, figuring it to be like the baggage chute at an airport, I put the rest of my groceries in there. I asked her if there were a way to get them out again and she grunted and said yes, so I didn't think too much of it.
Then she took my suitcase. I followed her into another room to see where she'd put it and it was a good thing I did. Instead of tucking it away somewhere, she laid it on this thing that looked like a mammoth jellyfish and rooted through everything. She threw my clothing all over the floor and the jellyfish, then proceeded to poke around in my camping supplies.
I yelled at her and told her to quit, but she didn't. When I asked her what she was doing, she said she was searching for contraband. I told her she was violating my privacy but she told me she was entitled to search my property for drugs due to the fact I signed an agreement to allow such searches when I first applied at NCO. I told her I remembered no such thing and she chided me for not reading it.
Then she found my lock blade knife. She said weapons weren't allowed onboard the Getohako, so I explained how useful it was for other things like cutting rope or cooking. She only responded by saying I didn't need it.
She set it aside and then told me I didn't need my matches or Swiss army knife, either. I tried to explain how they were harmless, but she didn't care. She took my bug repellant, and some other stuff, but I had given up arguing with her. It was pointless.
She took my stuff and put it in a locker somewhere. Then I had to pick up all my clothes. The jellyfish thing was kind of a bed, it seemed. It was spongy and flat and you could sit on it, even though it was sticky, you could see through it, and there were wiggling things on the bottom.
As I was putting the last of my clothes back in the suitcase, I saw her thumbing through my bible with a bemused expression on her face. I decided to let it be because she could use some of the lessons in there.
She asked me if aliens needed Jesus.
I said I didn't know, that they might have their own messiah and there's nothing in the bible that says anything about extraterrestrials unless you're being really creative.
So then she tells me to go into the other room to train. I took my suitcase with me, and I looked around for a place to store it. I poked around and ended up finding a pretty large cabinet thing, so I put the suitcase there. I heard a soft click and a muffled thud, but I figured it was just my suitcase falling over in the compartment.
Sigma grinned at me and pointed to the computer with the gravel keyboard. I asked her if she wanted me to work and she said no, I needed to get better at the language module.
As I studied, I felt everything shake. I asked her what happened and she said we were taking off. I asked her who was piloting and she said it's automatic and we were just going up to the station anyway. I rolled my eyes and said okay. The room had no windows, so I had no clue what was going on outside. Thinking it to be an elaborate joke, I just ignored the externals and focused on the training program.
When I had completed yet another language module, she said I could take a break, and she digs a board game out of a cabinet.
It's Solar Quest. Never thought I'd see that game again. The game she had wasn't even updated to reflect Pluto's demotion, but I didn't care. It was something to do while we waited for...whatever.
After a couple turns, she points out a spot near Jupiter and says that's where we're going. At first that confused me because I was thinking in terms of the game, but I realized she was talking about the "station" where I was supposedly going to work. I kind of laughed and said okay and kept playing.
As we were playing, she told me all this stuff, like how that thing she put in me was like a liver and I could now eat alien food without it poisoning me, and that she is different from other Abreyas because she was born with bumps on her ears and body and that it's some kind of medical condition like warts. She asked me if it bothered me. I said not really since they're not all over like that one lady at Sprint.
I guess I could have done better to make her back off I'd said it's disgusting, but I value my job, and well...there are other reasons.
I was in the lead, with the greatest amount of space property on the board, when all of a sudden the pieces started floating into the air. She laughed at my puzzled reaction and put the pieces up before they could make a mess.
That was my first clue that the thing had actually gone somewhere without a truck.
She put the game away, then she took out these things that looked like scoops, and a cluster of ring shaped hoops. We were floating at this point, so she climbed across the room by means of handlebars and crescent shaped depressions in the floor, to the "door" at the end. Her tail is very versatile. She carried a pair of nets with it, and was able to have a hand free to climb. I, on the other hand, had trouble with carrying the rest of the equipment and had to juggle.
I followed her into the hall in the room beyond, and she set up the hoops, sticking them into specially designed sockets marked with symbols. She then went into another room to change. When she came back out, she was dressed in a one piece black-yellow bikini thing, and carried a bizarre looking puck thing that was covered in feelers.
She told me the rules and we played this weird game. Apparently the goal was to throw the puck through hoops, but the hoop had to correspond to the color the puck was glowing in or it didn't count. It was really challenging, especially since she was using an extra scoop with her tail, and her feet had thumbs on them.
We played this game for a good twenty minutes or so, and it got easier when she decided to give herself a handicap by not using her tail.
When we were done, we were all sweaty and she asked me if I wanted to take a shower. I said no thanks. I really didn't think it would be a good idea to get naked there, but I figured I'd have to shower eventually.
We put the stuff up and she said I should train some more. We'd been conversing in her language frequently during the game, but I guess I wasn't fluent enough so I went through another language course, and a program that told me how to use some other computer system.
While I was doing this, she told me more weird stuff about herself. She said that all "Abreyas" had tongues like hers, that they naturally split into four parts and that their dentistry, and kissing, is more interesting because of that. When she started describing other "interesting things" their tongues could do, it quickly got too graphic and I told her I'd heard enough. She didn't quite get it so I told her I didn't want to hear about the things she did in the bedroom, and asked her to stop. She finally did, despite how she protested that it doesn't necessarily happen in the bedroom.
One of the coffee table things (they weren't really like any tables I've seen before) in the room had a hologram thing built into it, so she switched it on and I could see it playing the Discovery Channel. She offered me a sofa and showed me how to change the channel with a track ball thing attached to the arm. The menu wasn't arranged like the ones I was used to seeing, and some were in that script I saw on the training software, but most were English.
She seemed to have all the channels...on earth. Well, maybe not the local ones, but a ridiculous amount, nonetheless. I watched MTV Japan, and as I'm watching, she sits down next to me, close enough for me to feel the texture of her bikini on my arm, and she asked me what I wanted for lunch.
That's when the trouble started. More about this in the next post.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
On the threshold
After spending a lot of time thinking that Friday, I decided I can't afford to quit my job. I'm still considered unskilled labor, even though I have a degree and a prepress certificate. There's no guarantee I'll be able to get a job to replace this one if I do quit.
My brother got into an argument with my dad about staying up late and I got brought into it. "At least Chris has an excuse because he works nights." And my brother said something about how he's "worthless" and "no one wants to hire him." I realize I am one step away from ending up just like him. Honestly I don't know how to get jobs and I was lucky to get the one I got. And if it's screwed up and I end up naked in a tank of slime, I guess I just have to put up with it, because I have nowhere else to go. My brother thinks he's a nobody, but I'd be just as "worthless" and in the same exact predicament if someone decided to fire me.
I didn't touch that device Sigma gave me, or mess with the program from the CD, because frankly I really didn't want to think about what just happened and wanted to put some distance between myself and her.
Today I learned that a wireless router can work without the "main" computer you set the router up on, because my dad's computer is trash due to a virus.
I used the time off work to get some more comics done, and did the laundry.
At 2 in the morning, the "compact" started making noises. I opened it up quickly to avoid disturbing my dad's sleep.
It was Sigma, of course. After poking around for a minute, I managed to open the thing and saw her face on a screen inside the lid. She asked me if I were still going on that trip to space.
It took me a long time to answer that.
I asked her if it were necessary for the job, and she gave me this apologetic smile and said it kinda was and I sorta needed to go there if I didn't want to stay in Target and BBL. So I told her I "might" go and asked her when I had to leave.
She told me 1:00 PM, so I still had time to pack and sleep. I said fine, and then asked how long I'd be gone. She said a week.
I told her my dad's birthday is coming up this Wednesday, but she just said sorry and I really needed to do this.
I knew what I had to do. The last time I skipped work for someone's birthday the company closed its door on me forever.
I skipped on a temp job to go to my grandpa's birthday one time, and Allied Staffing refused to give me any work after that, saying they "still had egg on their faces" from the incident. My life has taught me to suck it up or be unemployable.
And so I just decided to see what I could do to make it up to my dad.
Now I must go pack.
My brother got into an argument with my dad about staying up late and I got brought into it. "At least Chris has an excuse because he works nights." And my brother said something about how he's "worthless" and "no one wants to hire him." I realize I am one step away from ending up just like him. Honestly I don't know how to get jobs and I was lucky to get the one I got. And if it's screwed up and I end up naked in a tank of slime, I guess I just have to put up with it, because I have nowhere else to go. My brother thinks he's a nobody, but I'd be just as "worthless" and in the same exact predicament if someone decided to fire me.
I didn't touch that device Sigma gave me, or mess with the program from the CD, because frankly I really didn't want to think about what just happened and wanted to put some distance between myself and her.
Today I learned that a wireless router can work without the "main" computer you set the router up on, because my dad's computer is trash due to a virus.
I used the time off work to get some more comics done, and did the laundry.
At 2 in the morning, the "compact" started making noises. I opened it up quickly to avoid disturbing my dad's sleep.
It was Sigma, of course. After poking around for a minute, I managed to open the thing and saw her face on a screen inside the lid. She asked me if I were still going on that trip to space.
It took me a long time to answer that.
I asked her if it were necessary for the job, and she gave me this apologetic smile and said it kinda was and I sorta needed to go there if I didn't want to stay in Target and BBL. So I told her I "might" go and asked her when I had to leave.
She told me 1:00 PM, so I still had time to pack and sleep. I said fine, and then asked how long I'd be gone. She said a week.
I told her my dad's birthday is coming up this Wednesday, but she just said sorry and I really needed to do this.
I knew what I had to do. The last time I skipped work for someone's birthday the company closed its door on me forever.
I skipped on a temp job to go to my grandpa's birthday one time, and Allied Staffing refused to give me any work after that, saying they "still had egg on their faces" from the incident. My life has taught me to suck it up or be unemployable.
And so I just decided to see what I could do to make it up to my dad.
Now I must go pack.
Friday, September 4, 2009
More Weird Adventures in a Call Center
http://akktri.livejournal.com/627972.html
http://akktri.livejournal.com/628382.html
http://akktri.livejournal.com/628582.html
http://akktri.livejournal.com/629241.html
http://akktri.livejournal.com/629407.html
http://akktri.livejournal.com/629617.html
http://akktri.livejournal.com/629835.html
http://akktri.livejournal.com/630229.html
http://akktri.livejournal.com/630523.html
http://akktri.livejournal.com/628382.html
http://akktri.livejournal.com/628582.html
http://akktri.livejournal.com/629241.html
http://akktri.livejournal.com/629407.html
http://akktri.livejournal.com/629617.html
http://akktri.livejournal.com/629835.html
http://akktri.livejournal.com/630229.html
http://akktri.livejournal.com/630523.html
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Laughable UFO story
This is what Phantasmo's Cheese Factory is all about. The paranormal.
For your paranormal reading pleasure, please direct your attention to the article entitled "Strange Blue Light"/"I think ufo are really" from February 19, 2003 on this page:
http://www.ufosoveramerica.com/flash/ufo_sightings.html
Revel in its amazingly bad grammar and unconvincing story. Yes, they are from Kosova (or is it Kosovo?), but still, it is terrible, and the website admin did not edit it. For four years. Enjoy!
For your paranormal reading pleasure, please direct your attention to the article entitled "Strange Blue Light"/"I think ufo are really" from February 19, 2003 on this page:
http://www.ufosoveramerica.com/flash/ufo_sightings.html
Revel in its amazingly bad grammar and unconvincing story. Yes, they are from Kosova (or is it Kosovo?), but still, it is terrible, and the website admin did not edit it. For four years. Enjoy!
Thursday, January 22, 2009
UFO theory
"Hi, I am just a teenager, but I am very interested in UFOs, extra terrestrials, etc. My school friends and I are strong believers. I have seen a ufo or two, and i was not alone when i saw each one, so i have witnesses. Many people wonder what they are doing here, and i have a theory. I believe they (aliens) are here because they signed a contract with Bally Fitness, and because they didn't allow the aliens to cancel, and because it affects their credit, i believe they want to attack. i am scared, yet fascinated by the thought of hostile beings in the universe who also have rippling muscles and tight abs. My friends and i are such strong believers because we understand that their are billions upon trillions of galaxies in the universe, and that it just isn't logical to think that we are the only life (intelligent life) in all the universe that enjoys a good workout. please send me your thoughts and opinions of ufos!"
-Tom from Los Alamos
-Tom from Los Alamos
Paranormal experience
Last February, me and my friend were out in a field in New Alaska, when we saw a giant square craft rise up from an ice sheet. It hovered in the sky for several minutes, changing colors and shapes right before our disbelieving eyes. Red hearts, green diamonds, yellow stars, and purple horseshoes. Then suddenly it rocketed off into space, leaving a trail of stars reading, "You will never get me lucky charms!"
Bizarre stories of the paranormal, story 3
Location. Ahmedabad, India
Several boys riding their bicycles on their way to school claim to have seen two short, very pale white figures hiding behind some bushes. They claim the little figures had onion shaped heads, with large black sparkling eyes. One of the witnesses states he became ill after seeing the creatures and had to go home to "recover." His mother says he spent the day playing his X-Box.
Several boys riding their bicycles on their way to school claim to have seen two short, very pale white figures hiding behind some bushes. They claim the little figures had onion shaped heads, with large black sparkling eyes. One of the witnesses states he became ill after seeing the creatures and had to go home to "recover." His mother says he spent the day playing his X-Box.
Paranormal tales
Location. Zenica, Bosnia
A bizarre individual that said his name was "Mirsad" visited local UFO
investigator Rudolf Bosnjak, at home. The stranger spoke in a slow
monotone and appeared to be in a trance like state. He spoke about the latest line of Tupperware products and how the bible states that the earth was created in literally 168 hours, then gave Bosnjak a copy of the Watchtower and a photograph of his naked wife.
A bizarre individual that said his name was "Mirsad" visited local UFO
investigator Rudolf Bosnjak, at home. The stranger spoke in a slow
monotone and appeared to be in a trance like state. He spoke about the latest line of Tupperware products and how the bible states that the earth was created in literally 168 hours, then gave Bosnjak a copy of the Watchtower and a photograph of his naked wife.
Astonishing Tales of the Paranormal
Location. Calama, Chile
One night, a 4-year old girl was sleeping in bed and had a nightmare. Terrified she ran yelling for her mother, who was surprised to see that the child's hair was standing up as if surrounded by a current of static electricity.
One night, a 4-year old girl was sleeping in bed and had a nightmare. Terrified she ran yelling for her mother, who was surprised to see that the child's hair was standing up as if surrounded by a current of static electricity.
Bizarre stories of the strange, part 2
Location. Kingston Springs, Tennessee
The witness was just preparing to go to bed, when he heard a very loud
noise over the house. Thinking it was a low helicopter he looked out
the window and saw nothing. The noise was deafening and all of
the sudden it stopped. Later in the early morning the witness was
suddenly awakened by a presence getting into bed with him. He felt the
heat next to his body, and he was totally unable to move. Moments later
the blanket started to slowly come off his shoulders, and he saw an alien smiling down at him. The creature reportedly said, "This is for the good of the planet" and "don't worry, I'll use protection." The next moment, his pants came off.
The next morning, he awoke with a sore buttocks, a mysterious rash, and an intense desire to buy womens' shoes at the GAP.
The witness was just preparing to go to bed, when he heard a very loud
noise over the house. Thinking it was a low helicopter he looked out
the window and saw nothing. The noise was deafening and all of
the sudden it stopped. Later in the early morning the witness was
suddenly awakened by a presence getting into bed with him. He felt the
heat next to his body, and he was totally unable to move. Moments later
the blanket started to slowly come off his shoulders, and he saw an alien smiling down at him. The creature reportedly said, "This is for the good of the planet" and "don't worry, I'll use protection." The next moment, his pants came off.
The next morning, he awoke with a sore buttocks, a mysterious rash, and an intense desire to buy womens' shoes at the GAP.
Re-encounters of the third kind
When a person reports more than one UFO story, I feel it lessens the likelihood of it being even remotely true. A person reporting that he was struck by lightning is less credible when he says it happened to him a second time. The most credible UFO story is like a hit and run. They don't want to be found, so any encounter with them would be a mistake that the aliens wouldn't want to repeat. This is all to say that if you go to a website and have the same guy posting more than one "true story" about being abducted or seeing an alien, it's too ridiculous to be believed without some credible connection to the previous event.
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