One Day Arthur, Ford, and Zaphod All Walked in to a Bar
Leah: Ford
Penny: Arthur and Zaphod
Ford was standing on the bridge of the Heart of Gold. Or some sort of control room at the front. Or whatever the thing was called. Perhaps he should look it up.
He looked carefully at the tiny screen that showed the endless fathoms of space.
They had to get that fixed. It gave him a headache. Zarking improbability drive.
Zaphod strolled across the ship purposefully and pushed some buttons. This was almost completely for effect as Zaphod had long ago made sure that all buttons were turned off (if this made any sense.) It was also to make him look cool. "Eddie! To the nearest bar in the Galaxy!"
"Righty-o!"
"Those buttons don't work," said Ford offhandedly. He looked at the screen again, clutched his head, and sank back into one of the moderately comfortable chairs.
"A bar sounds good. Alcoholically induced headaches are always much better. Or worse, either one."
"Of course those buttons work!" said Zaphod hastily. "Only, uh, they are, uh, programmed to recognize only my fingerprint." This sounded fairly reasonable and reasonably cool to him.
Zaphod removed the plastic wrap off of a garbage can and put it back. He used the plastic wrap as a nifty hat.
"I feel ready to partee."
"They don't work," repeated Ford calmly, "You told Eddie to stop them from working yesterday. Very, very loudly so that it could be heard over the entire ship."
"I re-worked them."
Ford decided not to argue with Zaphod. He'd never get anywhere.
"If the improbability drive can create anything," he decided to say, "Why are these chairs only moderately comfortable?"
"Who knows? Pass the Spam singles," Zaphod added, having clearly sold out to Spam. He grinned. "You can't have any because they are just totally tasty. I don't want to share." One of his heads winked at the camera.
"Where'd the camera come from?" asked Ford, "And we don't have any Spam. It's disgusting." He reluctantly rose from the moderately comfortable chair.
"What I wouldn't do for a comfy chair."
"Just play along, wouldchya?" Zaphod muttered to Ford.
"I bet you could make a great tasting comfy chair out of SPAM!" he said loudly.
"Perhaps," said Ford, "It would be quite soft. It'd probably come alive and eat you. Remember when they came out with that living Spam? 'The Spam that eats you before you eat it?'"
Arthur entered to test Leah's theory. "Did someone say Spam?" he asked curiously, "I used to eat Spam all the time. It brings back memories of my childhood." He grimaced as he remembered his childhood.
"There you are," said Ford, "You can be in a commercial with Zaphod. And nobody cares about your childhood. So if you're going to go off on a tangent, just to fill up space and test Leah's theory, who, by the way, I have never met, or even heard of, I'm not going to listen. Has anyone got any Spam earplugs? The ones that burrow deep into your brain and absorb your lungs? I could use a couple."
"Leah from the Ooblex Crush?" asked Zaphod interested. "That lady--thing is a photon of a lot of fun to party with." He quickly resumed his endorsement.
"If I had Spam earplugs I wouldn't give them to you! I'd keep them for myself! I love Spam!" Both heads winked at the same time for the camera.
"Are you endorsing a product?" asked Arthur. "Aren't you on the run from the law?"
"No reason not to earn a little side money," said Ford, "He was rolling in cash from that commercial he did for Granter's Joobnuts. 'The best nut for when you're on the run from the law'. We had enough to go to a bar and party. Which is what we're trying to do now."
"Seems like a bad role model to me," muttered Arthur.
"No way!" said Zaphod surprised, "I'd love any little kid like me! I loved me as a little kid! I'm thinking we'd better start landing and getting with the partying so that I can get away from What's-his-name and relax with some girl."
"Okey Dokey, guys!" said Eddie on cue. "Weeeeee're going in for a landing!"
"Oh, good," said Ford, "I can't wait to go and get some sort of drink. Do we have the money yet? Or are we just going to get really drunk, then run away like we usually do?" He prodded the chair, then, finding that it was still only moderately comfortable, decided not to sit down.
"You've got bad chair problems," said Zaphod calmly, "Don't worry about it Froody Ford, I got us covered."
At that moment, the ship's doors opened revealing the most fancy upper crust spaceport imaginable. Even Zaphod's jaw dropped.
"And this is just the outside!" chipped in Eddie helpfully, "Inside it's so incredibly fancy, they have to charge 1000 Altarian dollars an ice cube to break even for decorating it! Impressive, huh?"
Zaphod gulped. "Looks like this is going to be the most expensive bar runaway I ever did, Eddie," he said, his voice getting dangerous, "Exactly WHY did you take us HERE, exactly?"
"This is the nearest bar to where we were when you said 'Take us to the nearest bar!'" said Eddie, doing a rather bad impression of Zaphod's voice.
"So we're going with the plan?" asked Ford, "Won't that bring more of the Galactic Police after us? Is Arthur coming? Because that might change our plan somewhat." He shook his head, patronizingly.
"He wasn't exactly... into it last time. Didn't he burn a part of his brain out with one of the drinks?"
"That REALLY hurt," said Arthur, indignant, "And then you expected me to run!"
Zaphod sized Arthur up.
"You're right, Ford. We'll have to carry him."
"On second thought," said Zaphod reconsidering, "Let's just leave him here to die."
"Lifty," said Ford, "So, we're still going in? Can you use your previous presidential status to get us in? Because unless we get some quite snazzy clothing, they'll probably turn us away from the door."
Arthur suddenly felt very self-conscious of his dressing gown.
"Relax, I'll just tell them it's the latest style," said Zaphod confidently.
"Follow me," he said suavely and strolled up to the door.
"Alphoso, my man, our regular table please," he said to the doorman, quickly reading his nametag.
"Right this way, sir," said the waiter, his eyes closed in a snooty fashion.
Ford snickered quietly to himself.
"I told you it would work," he whispered conspiratorially to Arthur. He raised his nose and tried to look rich.
"Did you?" whispered Arthur. He'd forgotten. In contrast to Ford, he had ducked over trying to look as invisible as possible.
Zaphod winked at them. "And this is the part where we give him the slip," he said slickly and did just that, strolling up to the bar.
"Give me a bottle of the most expensive stuff you've got. And six ice cubes." The nice thing about planning to steal drinks is you don't have to worry about what anything is going to cost.
"I'll have what he's having," said Ford. He then decided to be original.
"Plus three more ice cubes."
This is what the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has to say on the topic of ice cubes. If you're going to have a drink, it says, it has to have ice cubes in it. The first being ever to order their drink 'on the rocks' was given a statue in the main hall of 'Drinks Is We'.
The ice cube is widely acclaimed as the best way the water industry ever figured out how to stay in business. The slogan of the water industry is, "If the best things in life are free, why do you pay for water?". This may have been why the industry began to drop after alcohol was invented.
The Awpar people of the Grat star system once began a religion on the worship of ice cubes.
Their theory was, it's water, and it's gone hard. It must be directly from God. And so they vowed to only ever eat ice cubes. They died soon after, as water was their only natural poison. The remaining people went on to form their own atheist religion.
They also died out, from overpondering their oxymoronic existence.
"These are some good ice cubes," said Ford blissfully, "No wonder they're so expensive."
"Yeah, excellent," agreed Zaphod.
"I'll take seven more," he added to the bar tender, who raised his eyebrows with dignity.
"I'd like a small water," said Arthur, finally summoning up the courage to order.
At this point, it may be prudent to say one or two things about the bar in which they were sitting at this moment. This Ice Pub is the single most incredible undertaking ever undertook in the whole history of the universe. It began when Joe Starkopfski dared to ask, "Hey, wouldn't it be nice to get drunk in a clean environment for once?" It was agreed that it would be nice and nicer still if it was a rich one. And so Starkopfski and his drinking buddy Stan, sold their houses and most of their clothes, hired a couple of ritzy interior decorators and the Ice Pub was born. Many celebrities have endorsed the Ice Pub but most famously by Zaphod Beeblebrox who said, "When I'm not on the run from the law, I like to relax with a pretty girl in a fabulously expensive setting." These words were eventually voiced over by a professional voice over guy, as Zaphod's words were far too slurred to quite get the message across. Surprisingly, Zaphod doesn't remember this.
"Is that a challenge?" asked Ford, "Alright, I'll have EIGHT more." He raised his eyebrows at Zaphod.
"Going to join in, Arthur?" he asked, without lowering his eyebrow at all.
"I-I'll have two ice cubes," said Arthur nervously, "Please."
"Ten for monkey man," said Zaphod and without missing a beat, "And ten more for me."
"Twelve more," said Ford, "And one of those little umbrellas."
"Seventeen more," said Zaphod, who was a little tipsy, and swallowed five at once. "Heyyyyy... They have pretty good quality girls in this joint. I'm going to try my luck with that chick."
Arthur looked at the ten ice cubes crammed in to his tiny glass of water and felt very nervous.
"No fair," said Ford, pushing his eyebrow down with some difficulty, and quaffing his potent, ice-cubey drink, "You-You've got two heads to drink with." He giggled. It didn't take many ice cubes to make Ford drunk.
Ford turned to look at the being Zaphod was pointing at.
"I think that's a... guy..."
Zaphod found this very funny and laughed loudly.
"HA HAH AHA HA HA! I knew tha..." He quickly swiveled around and began talking to Arthur. "Hey beautiful, that's a nice dress...." and wandered off.
Arthur was growing increasingly doubtful of their ability to escape the proper authorities-- much less carry him with them.
"I wonder what's in those ice cubes..."
"Water," said the bartender, "It's what's in their drinks you should be concerned about. In this place we take our alcohol seriously." He began cleaning a diamond glass with a silk handkerchief for effect.
Ford slumped backwards in his chair and began to crunch his ice cubes loudly between his teeth.
"I've got water stuck between my teeth," he said, exceedingly amused. He looked around, blearily.
"Hey Arthur, this is a nice place," he said, speaking to an extremely expensive potted plant.
"Erm, what exactly IS in their drinks," asked Arthur slightly panicked.
"Well, you know Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters?" asked the bar tender in a low voice.
"I still have some vague memory from my experience with them, yes," said Arthur shuddering.
"Well, that's three of 'em," said the bartender pointing to Ford's drink.
Had Arthur been Ford (sober) he would have put his oven mitt on his head and prepared for battle.
Only, he wasn't Ford Prefect, he was Arthur Dent so he decided to go back to the ship and hide. Unfortunately, when he got there, he found the ship being heavily guarded and probed by Galactic Police.
"Oh, great," said Arthur. And cried.
"You know, Arthur," said Ford cheerfully to the plant, "You're looking greener than usual." He squinted at the plant and realized it wasn't Arthur.
"Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else." He stood up and swayed across the bar.
In his drunken mind, he was going on an epic, great adventure to search for Zaphod and Arthur who had obviously been kidnapped by a couple of Jubanese life forms.
He'd also made up an entire history behind the word 'great'.
It was like a jar of pickles, he thought, but with lots and lots of shrimp. He intended to use this definition to gain the trust of the Jubanese, and then he'd use a handy Kill-O-Zap gun to kill them both.
Zaphod and Arthur, that is.
He tried to make sense of this and decided that it all had to do with lemon juice.
Meanwhile, Zaphod had taken it into his head that a lampshade would be really funny at this time and also probably get him a lot of dates. He bumped in to someone, grabbed them, and looked at them steadily for a long time. Eventually he determined that it was not a lampshade at all but Ford Prefect.
"LAMPSHADE!" he yelled loudly, hoping someone would get the point.
"A lampshade is really important in enshhhuring my fffuture coolneshh and dateshhh," he informed them.
Fortunately this attracted Arthur's attention and he was able to go tell his two friends about his discovery. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to take it very seriously. One of Zaphod's heads, which had had a little less to drink than the other attempted to assure him.
"Don't worryy, we'llll juss shteal a shpace shhip like we did lasht time."
"Last time," said Arthur not feeling at all assured, "we almost crashed in to a sun!"
"Mustard," said Ford weakly, slightly shocked by being grabbed and shouted at. He composed himself in time to hear Arthur's comments.
"But wow," he said, "What a great concert it was. I think we should rush the Heart of Gold and beat up all of the police. We can do it."
"We've got the power of MUSHROOM!" he shouted excitedly, pounding Arthur on the back.
"Ow," said Arthur weakly.
"Donnn't you worry, buddy, we'll steal a better shhhip this time," said Zaphod. "An' when my Spam commershial payment comesshh through, I'll buy you a new dresshh!"
He placed the lampshade on his head that a waiter had rushed to give him. He was flailing around quite a lot and they were very worried he might break something expensive. Which would be an easy thing to do in this place.
"HA HA HA!" he said, pointing to his head. "Funny," he explained.
"I think," said Ford, and then forgot what he was going to say. He decided to say it anyways.
"I think that we should..." Almost... Coming...
"Get sober. For fighting the terrible, terrible Galactic warriors of DOOM." He had obviously not been listening to Zaphod at all.
"Now that I have my lampshhhade," said Zaphod, "We must go forward!" And strolled out of the restaurant. Some might find it hard to ignore someone with two heads, one of which was wearing a gaudy orange lampshade. Those people clearly weren't snobs because if they were, they wouldn't notice anything.
"G'Day to you Sir," said the doorman, nose in air. Unfortunately, Galactic Police weren't snobs.
"I'm sober now," said Ford, but he wasn't.
"Aha ha ha! We will constrabulate them! And then we'll ask them to find out what it means!" He grinned shakily at Arthur.
"This is FUN."
"No it isn't," pointed out Arthur. "You're just drunk." And since Zaphod was looking very interestedly at a piece of paper on the sidewalk saying, 'THIS would be a good escape ship,' Arthur decided to pick the ship himself. He pushed both of them towards a somewhat user friendly looking ship and hoped they would know what to do from there.
"Hey, wow, a SPACESHIP!" said Ford. He had reverted to a somewhat human brain-stage. A somewhat drunk human.
"Hey, this is crazy! Maybe we'll meet some aliens!" He prodded the side of the spaceship, and gaped as the hatch slowly opened.
"Wow!" he burbled, and climbed in.
"Oh thank heavens," mumbled Arthur and quickly went after him.
Zaphod looked at the open hatch and then at the well organised hoard of policemen heading for him. He decided it would probably be really much more fun to go in the ship and close the hatch. So he did. He even locked it too to show off-- in case there were any ladies present. Now Arthur pushed them towards the control deck.
"Watch the lampshade," said Zaphod sternly.
"Hey, DIALS!" said Ford, "And buttons!" He turned around.
"Whoa, Zaphod. You've got TWO HEADS. And one of them has a lampshade on!" He poked one of the heads in the eyes to make sure it was real.
"Hey, and the other has a PlasticWrapHat! That's in vogue!"
"Lifty, huh?" said Zaphod proudly, ignoring the eye poke, because he was so cool. He casually leaned on one of the control panels.
"Ahh!" cried Arthur. "I can't take it anymore!" and pushed a button. Luckily, the button he pressed was the 'hijack the ship and get going already' button which had been installed just in case of emergency.
With a 'FOOM', the ship took off. A few police ran up to the ship and shook their fists, not wanting to shoot at it because it belonged to the very rich thief, Rtrrejhhrekuarafawfhruarkjawevkjwaygruwayefrkaeyfrweyvfkwavef. He had become really rich because he would ask people to pronounce his name, and then he'd steal their money while they were preoccupied.
Ford eagerly pressed a random button.
"Hey, wow, man!" said Zaphod, recovering slightly from his drunkenness (after all, he had drunk enough for 'one' but was actually two--kind of), "This ship is full of money! With this kind of dough, I could subscribe to all kinds of magazines!"
Just then, the ship turned left and released a colourful yet deadly fireworks display due to the 'turn left and release a festive pyrotechnics display' button Ford had pressed. The fireworks conveniently disposed of the millions of Police crafts that had been following them and the left turn skillfully avoided something dangerous.
"Wow, Ford, you really helped me save the day!" said Zaphod.
"What?" said Ford, "Did I win the race?" He passed out, finally. He had a very silly look on his unconscious face. A look that said 'I'm dreaming about bananas'.
The ship spiraled around, and shot into outer space. They began to travel away from the bar. Another ship, that was unidentifiable in the miniature screen, took off from the spaceport and followed them.
It exploded and they lived happily ever after.
Yes, we're insane.
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