The Random Adventures of Ford and Arthur
Transformers
Ford was tired of waiting for Arthur. They'd agreed to meet at Ford's apartment at eight. It was currently eight thirty-two and Arthur had yet to show his face. Ford was to order the pizza and Arthur was to bring the beer.
That was most likely the real reason Ford was tired of waiting.
He went to the phone to order the pizza, Arthur or no Arthur.
Arthur appeared at the same time as the pizza. At eight-fifty, Ford answered the door to a hopeful looking pizza man and a disgruntled Arthur, both in conversation.
"I'm not going to be a pizza boy forever." Said the boy to Arthur, not noticing Ford who was staring at them awkwardly. "I'm going to be an actor."
"Oh?" Said Arthur, sounding completely disinterested. He was holding a pile of papers about half a foot thick and two six packs, both looked heavy.
Ignorantly ignoring Arthur's tone, the boy added excitedly. "Yes! On Broadway!"
"Uh huh."
"Arthur!" Said Ford desperately, grabbing Arthur's arm and pulling him in. "Where the hell were you?!"
"Well…"
"Never mind!" Ford interrupted and shoved Arthur in. "How much?" He demanded on the delivery boy.
"T-twelve sixty." Stuttered the boy nervously.
Ford rushed inside, grabbed a ten and a five, rushed back and threw it at the boy. "Keep the change." He grabbed the two pizzas from him.
The boy barely had time to say, "Thank you, sir!" Before Ford slammed the door on him.
"Ford?" Said Arthur, trying to put his load down. The other man rushed up and grabbed the six packs, setting them down on the table in front of the television with the pizzas. "What is the rush about?"
Ford hurriedly plopped himself down on the couch and turned on the TV. "Casablanca is on at nine!" He started channel surfing for the right one.
Arthur groaned and sat down next to Ford. "What is with you and that movie?"
"I never get to finish it!" Ford got to the right channel and slowly relaxed. He turned to Arthur. "What are the papers?"
"Paperwork." Explained Arthur. He set down the papers and pulled out a pen from his pocket. "That's why I was late – my boss told me I had to fill these out. When it was his job to do in the first place!"
"Yeah, yeah, very interesting." Said Ford disinterested. "Shush, the movie is on."
Arthur rolled his eyes, grabbed a beer and started working on the stack of papers.
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of neighbors:
"Neighbors," it says. "are people or beings who live the immediate vicinity of wherever/whenever it is you live. There are many different kinds of neighbors and the most common are the nosy, pushy, disrespectful, and irritating in everyway kind.
Occasionally, there are nicer neighbors, but that is usually only if you live three or more miles away and see them once every two months and then only in passing.
However, neighbors generally can pull together in a family sort of way whenever there is any sort of tragedy. Through this, neighbors can become friends but this is rare and most times happens if one or the other knew each other before one or the other moved into the neighborhood.
The worst neighbors are on the world Naploon Devi. The norm for house separation there is about two centimeters. Due to this, many neighbors there end up fighting over property lines. This includes fighting over weeds, lawn gnomes, trees, and where each person's galactic mega puppy can do its business.
The fighting over there had caused so many problems that the planet declared a war against itself. The only problem is that nobody is on the same side. Each one person has declared war against everybody else on the planet.
The war(s) is(are) still waging."
The Guide also points out that the article on neighbors is useless due to the fact that hitchhiker's have no permanent point of residence and therefore don't have any neighbors.
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Ford was getting excited. The movie was finally almost to the part that he always got interrupted at. He looked at Arthur who was working on the paper work. "Arthur, have you ever seen the whole movie?"
"Yes." Replied Arthur, not looking up. "Including the ending. Want to hear it?"
"No!"
Ford grabbed another beer and stared at the TV excitedly.
Arthur looked up at Ford and rolled his eyes. Ford got excited about many things: beer, ladies, astrophysicists, flying saucers and throughout all of that his fascination with Casablanca was by far the weirdest.
He remembered Ford's theory that there was some sort of anomaly in the universe and whatever it was it seemed to affect how Ford never managed to finish one particular movie and always got interrupted at exactly one particular part. When he'd brought the theory to a physicist, the physicist laughed at him and Ford walked away, dubbing it the Out-to-get-me theory.
Shrugging the thought off, Arthur tried to focus on the paperwork in front of him.
Next to him, Ford was squirming with anticipation. "Almost there…"
BOOM!!!!
The power flicked off, taking the TV, the lights and the air conditioning with it.
"NO!!!" Ford jumped up and shook the TV. "It's the Out-to-get-me!" He cried, falling to the ground in despair.
Arthur flinched at the lights going out. Due to this and a burst of wind from an open window caused the papers to be strewn across the room. Most of them ended up covering Ford on the ground.
"AH!!" Shouted Arthur, irritably. He went to gather the papers but halfway through decided it was pointless and threw them on top of Ford with the others.
He sat back down on the couch. "What just happened?"
"Dunno…" Mumbled Ford dejectedly from under the pile of paperwork.
Arthur walked up to the open window and pointed outside at a post. "Wasn't there a transformer there?"
Slowly and a little bit depressed looking, Ford got out from the papers and moved over to Arthur.
"Yeah…" He muttered. "Right there..."
"Where'd it go?"
They turned to look at each other before immediately turning and rushing out the door. On the way down the stairs of the building, Arthur tripped, causing Ford to trip over him and both more or less rolled down to the street.
They hit the street hard. Slowly and painfully, they got out of the dog pile to stand and dust themselves off.
"I assume," Commented Arthur. "that is why parents don't let kids run down the stairs."
"Hmmm…" Ford ignored him and looked around as all of his neighbors from his building and down the street all moved outside to see what was wrong.
Arthur went to look at his car, a broken-down looking Vega hatchback that was parked across the street from where the transformers used to be. It looked untouched.
Shrugging, he turned in time to see an elderly Hispanic woman arguing with Ford.
"Prefect, what did you do this time?!"
Ford gave her the 'innocent' look. "Me?"
"Yes!" She started. "The last time the power went out it was because of you!"
"I didn't know that the generator wasn't water proofed!" He defended himself. He pointed to the post. "And besides, they transformer blew!" He pointed at himself next. "How could I cause that?!"
"I don't know but you did!" She scurried away angrily.
"Yeah, well I missed the last half of Casablanca! So we both got punished!" He shouted to her retreating form.
Arthur strode up to him. "Has anyone found the transformer?"
Ford looked around and shook his head. "I doubt it. We'd have heard about it." He turned and looked at Arthur's car. "Huh." He said, making Arthur a little worried. He gestured to it. "Have you checked your car?"
"Yes. It looked fine." Arthur said, carefully.
Ford moved carefully around Arthur's car and stopped, studying it. He contemplated how Betelgeusians actually have several senses that were better than humans'. Due to this Ford had exceptionally better night vision than Arthur and could see clearly what was the matter with Arthur's car.
"What's the matter with my car?" Asked Arthur, trying to figure out what Ford was staring at.
"The hatchback window." Said Ford. "Touch it.
Arthur tried and found that where the window was supposed to be, there was nothing. He leaned inside the hatchback and gasped.
The transformer was inside his car.
Arthur quickly moved out of the car and walked around it, trying to study every detail. There was no dents, no scratches… the only thing to indicate that the transformer had flown in there was that the window was missing and that it was actually in the car.
Ford reached inside and grabbed the transformer. "Hot!" He cried and dropped it back on the seat. Instead, he used his hands to measure it and brought his hands back out and compared it to the hole where the window used to be. "Perfect fit." He told Arthur.
"Odd."
"Very."
Arthur looked at the crowd of Ford's neighbors that were still looking for the transformer and someone to blame (Neither Arthur nor Ford knew that the crowd had already elected Ford for the honor). "Should we tell them?"
"Alright." Ford jumped up on the hood of the Vega. "Neighbors!" He called, drawing the attention of the crowd. They looked at him angrily. "We have found the transformer! It's in Arthur's car!"
They stared at him then at Arthur. "You stole the transformer?!" Someone shouted.
"Uh…" Was the only thing Arthur could think of to say in reply.
"When the thing blew it flew in Arthur's car." Ford explained.
"Oh…" The neighborhood seemed to sigh at once.
"Odd." The same person shouted.
"Very." Replied Arthur and Ford together.
Slowly the crowd dissipated as the neighbors went back to their homes. Ford got off of Arthur's car and started walking down the street.
"Where are you going?" Arthur called after him.
"To rent Casablanca!"
Arthur wondered if he should remind Ford that the power was still out.
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A/N: Disclaimer: I would not be writing fanfiction if I owned anything.
This story is based on something that happened to my dad. He was doing his homework and the transformer blew and ended up in the hatchback of his Vega in exactly the same way described in the story. Interesting. Well, maybe not.
Reviews would be appreciated... flames would not.