Belly Jurant's bar is as seedy as they get; in fact, if it were any seedier, several of its more anomalous patrons would be pecking the floor (if they'd managed to disengage themselves from the barstools). The bar itself was built on an asteroid somewhere in the Bellycoase System, and recently, in an effort to economize production and increase distribution, every Friday during happy hour, the bar is put on automated systems control and is miniaturized to the size of a digital watch face. This has several serenely positive and irreparably damaging effects. Because the entire facility has been shrunken, the libations needed to fill the miniscule taps, bottles and polycarboxidylacatate steins is exponentially less, and is usually administered via syringe by the janitor at the space port in which the restaurant docks. The change in size is also very beneficial to those up-to-scale beings who wish to get totally pissed in an extremely short amount of time. You see, the reduction in size of any type of matter is a tricky thing, due to the mere fact that it is impossible- unless excess matter is deducted during the process. The matter transference beams used to transport people into the bar usually take equal amounts of matter from all portions of an organism, including those higher functions which manage thinking processes, instill tact in speech patterns, and regulate bladder control. Other than this process hurting quite a lot, there are many other side affects. Because a sizeable portion of one's "higher functions" are dropped off in the coatroom before one enters the main bar, getting smashed extremely quickly and telling a swarm of follicle twanging Nargareths that they are your best friends and yes you know they'll find the right women someday is not uncommon. Later on, if you have enough brain cells left to even think about leaving the bar, getting the matter you were in possession of before you did what Geracticus of Nimbus has ranked as one of the 50 most idiotic things to do is a rather tricky business. You know how it is with coatrooms in bars: people leaving their hats, people throwing up in other peoples' hats, people having the same puce colored sweaters, or similar cashmere ascots, or eight-fingered gloves that look alike, and accidentally taking someone else's. The upstart of this galactic jumble is that you may emerge with someone else's higher processes and someone else's hand or tentacle cupping your chin or scratching your head with perplexity.

Zaphod Beeblebrox had gotten through numbers 1-45 on Geracticus' list, as well as a myriad of Pan-Galactic Gargleblasters, and was just making friends with a swarm of creatures at Belly's who seemed rather interested in his body hair. He'd come to the conclusion, after surreptitiously completing number 12 on the list (sneaking into the women's locker room on Adjudicatus Prime, the planet of sue-crazy lawyers), that most of the universe ran on perfunctory patterns which amounted to absolutely nothing. And since this was perhaps one of the more intelligent thoughts his splayed and spliced brains had come across in a while, he decided to conform to a pattern of his own: that of getting totally inebriated, doing something extremely stupid, then repeating the process until he died or was heralded as the second coming of Zarquon.

"It's not like we're having a party or anything babe," Zaphod's other head gurgled at the bean-like creature sitting to his left who seemed acutely aggravated at once. "Do you know how much smarter I am than you?" it demanded with helium-like fervor, and then tried unsuccessfully to pour a drink through a small blowhole on what one might say was its backside. Zaphod retracted his head for a moment, then in true Beetlegeusian fashion breathed a large gastric eruption across what he thought might be the creature's face. "Hey, you are some wet blanket, man! If you were any wetter, you'd have a species of mildew growing on you! What's the deal, lima?" He tried to muster a very pensive and nurturing look on his face, but only succeeded in making his other head look at himself in the mirror and giggle.

"THE DEAL?!" The bean jumped up onto the bar stool and sprouted a single green stem abruptly from its orifice. "The deal, my two-headed lummox is that I have just been forced from blissful abyss into this dismal expanse of dust and flesh, and have assumed what one might say is an ideal status: as a prince among my people, perhaps some of the most intelligent beings in this galaxy, I have my choice of fine Poidriffian mates, receive advanced education in all aspects of life, and drive a really nifty blue beamer."

"Freow! That is a wibbly deal man!" said Zaphod, trying half-heartedly to mimic enthusiasm. His other head, which had received less than a third of his now miniaturized faculties, was crushing Deborian nuts on the sticky bar with its chin. "The problem," continued the pot-bellied bean, "is that I, along with all my other brethren, are insignificant little pieces of bee dung!" "So why not," Zaphod made a motor sound with his lips and shot his hand through the air, "emancipate your sorry self? You know, go out and see the world, have a really wild time..." Zaphod caught his other arms lifting up someone's dress and heard his other head saying "I'm the presdint orv th'yooonverse baby" and smiled. "Emancipation is not practical," the Poidriffian raved on, "when you are only 2 NANOMETERS TALL!" Zaphod stopped what he was doing and narrowed his eyes at the now utterly annoying thing that he wished would go away very soon. "Hey man, stop bustin' my collective chops here!" Hey mulled over his third Pan- Galactic Gargleblaster from this particular establishment. "At least your not from Earth lima-"

"What did you say?" The bean seemed to perk up, if beans have any capacity to do so.

"I said at least your'e not a stinkin' ape-descended earthman," Zaphod got up from the barstool, sensing a fight was close. He had had the third arm installed for instances such as these, and had also found it rather useful in Beetlegeusian tennis, in which live tennis beasts are thrown at you at tremendous speed from all sides, and you must fend them off using only a stiff drink, a Kill-o-Zap Blaster, and something called a racquet that no one ever really uses. The bean seemed to be thinking extremely intensely; suddenly it righted itself. "You will take me to this Earth place immediately."

"Why not," Zaphod mused.

At the moment, he had nothing better to do. Besides, if he got hungry he could always make a soup with the damned thing. With some coaxing, he got the bean into his pocket, and surveyed the sloppy list he had hurriedly scribbled on his hand of awfully stupid things to do. Everything had been checked and crossed off so far accept for one thing. The mother of all stupidities, the crème de la crème: written in big friendly letters from the back of his wrist all the way up to his elbow joint were the words END IT ALL WITH A BANG: GO INTO A BLACK HOLE.