The Random Adventures of Ford and Arthur
A Morning at the Museum
Arthur woke up in what might have been the oddest of positions. Gradually, his eyes came open to reveal a normally unseen sight: the underside of a couch. It certainly wasn't a glamorous underside and it made him wonder… Actually, it hurt his head too much to wonder and he eventually gave up on the idea.
Progressively, he tried to get out from his position only to discover two things: The first being that the couch must have been a tall one to allow such activities like, for instance, somebody sleeping under it. The second was that he couldn't move very far because someone or something was using one of his legs as a pillow and the other as a teddy bear.
Not at all realizing who it was that occupying his legs (though not in the sense that most of the readers are probably thinking of… pervs), he decided that the logical action was to reason with him/her/it.
"Um, excuse me?" He called.
"..." Was the closest thing he got to a reply which was really none at all.
"Hello?" He called again, this time a little bit louder.
"…"
"Well!" Said Arthur, with annoyance, partially because the being wasn't responding and partially because of the overwhelming headache he had from what he assumed was a hangover.
He decided that the correct thing to do was to kick it. So he did.
"Gugh…!" Groaned the being, hanging on to the teddy bear leg tighter.
Finally realizing exactly who this particular being was, Arthur started in surprise, causing him to hit the underside of the couch with his head. Ignoring this, he questioned, "Ford?!"
"…" Replied Ford, not replying.
"Ford!" He said, kicking Ford for the second time.
"Hmmmaaggg…. What?" Roused Ford. Though Arthur couldn't see him, he could bet that the man had not bothered to open his eyes.
"You're cuddling my leg."
"What?" Said Ford, sounding, though only slightly, startled.
"My leg." Stated Arthur, plainly, so that even the probable extremely hung over Ford could understand. "Let go of it please."
"Whaaa….?" Said Ford, shifting. "Oh." Promptly, he let go of Arthur's legs. "Sorry." After a moment of silence he added, "Arthur, you seem to be under a couch."
"So I gathered."
"You might," Said Ford. "consider doing something about that."
"I might." Replied Arthur. "But I've decided that I've nothing better to do, you see."
"Well, that's reasonable." Ford said, standing up and looking around. 'What an odd place to wake up at…' He thought.
Arthur suddenly had a thought. "Ford," He called, causing Ford's own train of thought to get completely derailed. "Where the hell are we?"
"Why do you ask that?"
"Well, I just suddenly realized that neither you nor I have a couch like this."
"Ah," Said Ford, plainly. "You're right."
"About what?" Asked Arthur, a bit taken aback.
"I don't have a couch like that."
Arthur just shook his head in reply and moved to get up from under the couch. When he finally got out, the sight of a rather dark, large room greeted him along with the sight of Ford looking around with the little light that was coming out of the burning match in his hand.
As his eyes adjusted further to the dark, he realized that the room with filled with random pieces of furniture, art and other items of little significance, set up like a gallery of some sort.
"Why's it so dark in here?" Mumbled Arthur, standing up.
"I assume," Observed Ford, obviously taking this question seriously. He looked up. "it's because the lights are off."
"Oh. And where the hell are we?"
"It appears to be a gallery of some sort." He looked down and studied the couch and then the plaque next to it. "And this appears to be William D. Boyce's couch."
"Who?"
Ford shrugged. "Dunno." He moved to a rather plain looking chair. He squatted and reached under it and retrieved a very familiar item. "And I've just found my satchel underneath-" He interrupted himself to look at the plaque. "Under Francesc Eiximenis' kitchen chair."
"Odd."
"Very."
Together, they took a tour around the large, dark room looking at the odd bits of useless and rather random items, none of which provoked any astonishment or interest of any kind.
"Henri Rol-Tanguy's glasses."
"David Bomberg's vase."
"Shepard Kollock's printing press."
"Gene LeBell's mattress."
"Mattress?"
"Yes."
"Robert C. Turner's goldfish bowl… with goldfish."
"Alive?"
"Not really."
"Douglas Adams' typewriter."
"Who," Started Arthur, stopping. "are these people?"
Ford shrugged again and gave no answer.
"And," Arthur continued. "why are we here?"
Ford looked like he was about to reply when the lights turned on.
The simple action of adding light to the environment caused two things for Arthur and Ford. One was that their headaches returned in full force with reinforcements and two was causing their eyes to believe that they were being jabbed with a burning stake by Odysseus.
When they finally stopped screaming, cursing and twitching on the floor, they looked up, abet painfully, to see a rather large, burly, and upset security guard.
"What are you doing here?" The guard demanded.
Arthur sat up and said brightly. "I was wondering the same thing myself."
All Ford said was, "Not too loud, I have a headache."
"What are you doing here?" The guard demanded again.
The two on the floor looked at each other. "Not very bright is he?" Asked Arthur.
Ford stood up, straightened out his blazer and said, very diplomatically and professionally, "We don't know. We just woke up here."
"You randomly woke up in the 'Museum of Underappreciated Persons' and you don't remember what you are doing here?"
"That about sums it up."
"'The Museum of Underappreciated Persons'?" Said Arthur, curious.
"Let me guess." Guessed Ford, sardonically dead pan. "M.U.P for short?"
"This," Explained the guard, spreading his arms as if he were preaching about something glorious. "is a museum dedicated to people that the world doesn't appreciate even though they should."
"That explains why we never heard of these people." Realized Arthur, running a hand through his hair thoughtfully.
The guard looked annoyed at this. He dropped his arms. "The point is that you should have heard of these people."
"But we haven't." Pointed out Ford. "So this museum is really pointless."
"How many people come here each day?" Asked Arthur.
"Well," The guard sputtered, embarrassed. "About… two." He admitted.
"Pointless." Repeated Ford.
Arthur turned to look at Ford. "Oh great, of all the places to break into and sleep in while drunk, we pick the most pointless.
"It certainly sounds like us."
The guard sighed. "This is the first time I've ever had to do this but I'm afraid I'm going to have to kick you two out." And he did.
He grabbed both of them by their jackets and bodily dragged them (Arthur kicking and screaming while Ford just commented on how he'd never come back again with this kind of service) to the door, almost tripping over William Wilson Hudson's coffee table in the process. He pushed them out with such force that they ended up piled on top of one another on the street.
"Hmph!" Shouted Ford to the guard as he stood up and waved a fist at him. The 'hmph' and the fist were both ignored by the guard as he slammed the door.
"I read a book similar to this." Arthur commented, standing up himself and dusting himself off.
"Oh? And how did it end?"
"They got kicked out of the museum."
"Ah."
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of Museums:
"The most interesting and non-informational or educational museum in the galaxy is the Museum of Rare Oddities on the world of Halpox VI.
The government of the Seven Worlds of Halpox, in order to salvage the crashing economy (due to an incident that involved a box of cigars, bubblegum, a few discriminating accountants, Zaphod Beeblebrox and a many rounds of Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters) decided that a tourist attraction may help bring in some money until they came up with a real plan.
The location of their tourist attraction would be the whole of Halpox VI. So, they wiped out all life on the planet, scrapped everything down (ex: houses, buildings, swimming pools, trees) and built the largest and the now-known to be the most interesting museum ever created.
Inside, you can see things like the fattest being in the universe (fed 6,487 times daily and takes up a whole football field sized room), the strange and exotic paintings of the Tyolg people, the wildly beautiful multi-colored lights of splendor and dignity, the largest bar in the universe (taking up a fourth of the planet) and various other items."
It also points out that there really is no point in going to any other museum as the one of Halpox VI will most likely have all of the items in the, anyways.
The Encyclopedia Galactica has this to say on the subject of Museums:
"A museum is a building, place, or institution devoted to the acquisition, conservation, study, exhibition, and educational interpretation of objects having scientific, historical, or artistic value."
This continues to add to the fact that the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy sells far better than the Encyclopedia Galactica.
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A/N: Disclaimer: Don't own squat... (sigh)
This chapter is a bit random because I just had an idea and ran with it. It worked out alright. I got the random people by going on Wikipedia and hitting the Random Article button and putting in people that were born a fair time before 1975. I did accidently get Douglas Adams via the button and had to add him.
I would also like to point out that I described Ford in the first chapter as brown haired and he's supposed to be ginger. When I wrote that piece of the story it was late and I really wasn't thinking straight. But, I was thinking of the David Dixon version as I was writing and since I'm basing my character of Ford off of him (and Arthur based off of Simon Jones - duh), I'm just going to leave it. So that's that.