Omelette
(Buckle up, Spanky. This is a long one.)
-hey, tell him about the guy who was in here the other day.
-what guy? There's lotsa guys, it's a bar.
-ha, bloody ha. The end of the world guy, you know.
-oh, him. Yeah, so on Thursday-
-Wednesday
-whatever. He comes in, sits at the end of the bar and orders-
-you're gonna love this part
-will ya let me tell the fucking story?
-sorry
-anyway, he asks for a bottle of whisky. Straight away I figure he's from the council or the cops or something, so I give him the line.
-"local licensing laws prohibit the sale of alcohol in such volumes at this establishment, patrons are encouraged to drink responsibly"
-you've memorised it?
-I hear it often enough.
-anyway, then he says "ok, give me a pint of whisky"
-that's not even the funny bit
-will you shut up and let me tell it? I say, sorry sir,-
-"local licensing"-
-yeah, he heard you the first time. Ok, says the guy, how about fifteen double whiskies. I'm expecting some friends.
-I love that line, "I'm expecting some friends", I'm going to have to try that one.
-you ain't got the charisma to carry it off.
-that hurts. I've got charisma, I just don't bother using any on ugly bastards like you.
-so the guy starts drinking. He's all tweed suit and leather elbow patches, makes a face every time he drinks a shot like he's not used to it.
-nah, it's the cheap paint thinners you mix into the booze.
-you're barred.
-again?
-so I do the bartenderly thing, like you see in the movies, ask him what's up.
-this is the scary part.
-he just looks up, like he hasn't slept in a week, and says "they won't believe me". Not "you", "they". Like it doesn't matter if we believe him.
-yeah, most drunks start their stories with "ah, you wouldn't believe me if I told ya" and then tell you about how they was abducted and anal probed.
-he doesn't want to hear about your fantasies right now. Anyway, he starts babbling about conferences and government committees and the establishment, how he told them all and now it's too late. Says the Egg is going to Hatch.
-just like that, audible capital letters and all.
-takes a while, but I eventually get the story out of him. Hey, he's paid for fifteen double whiskies, I figure I owe him a few minutes of my time.
-you're a fair man.
-thank you. You're still barred.
-bastard.
-so he's got this theory that that Earth is a giant egg, laid by some space turtle, and now it's ready to hatch. Yeah, like I said, he didn't care if we believed him or not. Kinda scary. I know what you're thinking - if it takes four billion years to hatch, how did these turtles ever evolve?
-I don't believe in evolution. It goes against God.
-hey, ain't you supposed to be in church?
-you know they won't let me back in there.
-anyway, he had a theory to support that too. You know how the universe is expanding-
-doesn't say that in the bible.
-doesn't say a man should spend his whole day sitting at a bar drinking his body weight in beer every day either.
-we each interpret the scriptures in our own way.
-so it's not just space that's expanding. It's time as well. So what we would measure as four billion years now, four billion years ago would have seemed like a lot shorter time. And the further back you go, the quicker time went. So you could get billions and billions of years of time in the space of a few hours back at the start of it all.
-still makes no sense to me. More beer might help.
-if more beer helped you understand stuff, why ain't you a genius? So, the punchline is that he's calculated from all our recent earthquakes and stuff, that the Earth is done and it's going to hatch, eat the sun and then swim off to find the other space turtles.
-this is the scary part. The other scary part.
-he reckons the Earth will hatch soon. Real soon. Tuesday.
-nutjob.
-absolutely. He was convinced though, figured there was nothing left, he'd tried telling everyone.
(inspired by Tessa's clairvoyant ipod)
-hey, tell him about the guy who was in here the other day.
-what guy? There's lotsa guys, it's a bar.
-ha, bloody ha. The end of the world guy, you know.
-oh, him. Yeah, so on Thursday-
-Wednesday
-whatever. He comes in, sits at the end of the bar and orders-
-you're gonna love this part
-will ya let me tell the fucking story?
-sorry
-anyway, he asks for a bottle of whisky. Straight away I figure he's from the council or the cops or something, so I give him the line.
-"local licensing laws prohibit the sale of alcohol in such volumes at this establishment, patrons are encouraged to drink responsibly"
-you've memorised it?
-I hear it often enough.
-anyway, then he says "ok, give me a pint of whisky"
-that's not even the funny bit
-will you shut up and let me tell it? I say, sorry sir,-
-"local licensing"-
-yeah, he heard you the first time. Ok, says the guy, how about fifteen double whiskies. I'm expecting some friends.
-I love that line, "I'm expecting some friends", I'm going to have to try that one.
-you ain't got the charisma to carry it off.
-that hurts. I've got charisma, I just don't bother using any on ugly bastards like you.
-so the guy starts drinking. He's all tweed suit and leather elbow patches, makes a face every time he drinks a shot like he's not used to it.
-nah, it's the cheap paint thinners you mix into the booze.
-you're barred.
-again?
-so I do the bartenderly thing, like you see in the movies, ask him what's up.
-this is the scary part.
-he just looks up, like he hasn't slept in a week, and says "they won't believe me". Not "you", "they". Like it doesn't matter if we believe him.
-yeah, most drunks start their stories with "ah, you wouldn't believe me if I told ya" and then tell you about how they was abducted and anal probed.
-he doesn't want to hear about your fantasies right now. Anyway, he starts babbling about conferences and government committees and the establishment, how he told them all and now it's too late. Says the Egg is going to Hatch.
-just like that, audible capital letters and all.
-takes a while, but I eventually get the story out of him. Hey, he's paid for fifteen double whiskies, I figure I owe him a few minutes of my time.
-you're a fair man.
-thank you. You're still barred.
-bastard.
-so he's got this theory that that Earth is a giant egg, laid by some space turtle, and now it's ready to hatch. Yeah, like I said, he didn't care if we believed him or not. Kinda scary. I know what you're thinking - if it takes four billion years to hatch, how did these turtles ever evolve?
-I don't believe in evolution. It goes against God.
-hey, ain't you supposed to be in church?
-you know they won't let me back in there.
-anyway, he had a theory to support that too. You know how the universe is expanding-
-doesn't say that in the bible.
-doesn't say a man should spend his whole day sitting at a bar drinking his body weight in beer every day either.
-we each interpret the scriptures in our own way.
-so it's not just space that's expanding. It's time as well. So what we would measure as four billion years now, four billion years ago would have seemed like a lot shorter time. And the further back you go, the quicker time went. So you could get billions and billions of years of time in the space of a few hours back at the start of it all.
-still makes no sense to me. More beer might help.
-if more beer helped you understand stuff, why ain't you a genius? So, the punchline is that he's calculated from all our recent earthquakes and stuff, that the Earth is done and it's going to hatch, eat the sun and then swim off to find the other space turtles.
-this is the scary part. The other scary part.
-he reckons the Earth will hatch soon. Real soon. Tuesday.
-nutjob.
-absolutely. He was convinced though, figured there was nothing left, he'd tried telling everyone.
(inspired by Tessa's clairvoyant ipod)
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