Adventure 2 Know - Story-a-long the A2K way

"Well, I appreciate that." Er, I, said, "But it may be beyond help. The company didn't buy enough lunches for everyone and I'm concerned that someone might take a bite out of my left buttock. And I need that."

"Left buttock?" inquired Slappy, popping up like a meerkat.

"With cocktail sauce." said Reyn sleepily.

"Cocktail." snickered Bi-Polar Bear. "Sauce."

Just then, the A2K pets showed up. Roland, Screech, Maddy, Dolly, Nermal and the rest. The dogs all sat down and thumped their tails in unison. One long thump, one short, then another long one.

"Hey, that's Morse code!" yelled Calamity Jane. "But, wait, it's in Latin."

"I can help you with that." said George, putting down a soccer ball. "Hmm. E pluribus unum. Out of many, one."

"That must mean it's time for group sex." offered Dadpad. "Oh, wait. Not that. Anything but that. I'll watch. No, uh, I'll be disapproving. Yes, that's it. Fair dinkum and all that." he said hurriedly when Mumpad appeared.

"No, no, wait." said Letty. "I think it means if we all sing together, we'll finally get out. But what should we sing?"

"You will probably not agree with me, Letty" said Bi-Polar Bear, "but I am a professional musician. I have a great idea for a song. I am still thinking about jespah's 'take a bite out of my buttock' line. 'Piece of Ass' is a phrase that is in every song I have written for my band."

"But it's much better when Kicky sings it, with Slappy and Gus (my duo) as back up... are you willing to give it a try??

"Try? Why, Try's my first name.", said Tryagain. "Of COURSE we'd be willing to give it a try."

'Uh, you're not invited." replied Bi-Polar Bear. "We already have our band."

"Oh no", cried TTH, "I knew this would happen. Tryagain left once because he felt he wasn't wanted and now you're doing this to him again!"

"Actually, that's not quite true", began Tryagain --

"Yes, it is! I knew it! You're just like me - underappreciated!" moaned TTH.

"Uh, NO! I'm NOT just like you and let's just leave it at that!" replied Tryagain firmly.

"Yeah", leered Slappy, "Your boobs are bigger! snort ... snort... slurp!"

"You can always count on BPB and Slappy to scare people away," said wandeljw in a smug, pat-oneself-on-the-back manner. "Tryagain and TTH you both have my approval and I beg you to join us."

"Not unless EVERYbody wants us!" cried TTH.

"Wait a minute! Don't be so hasty, TTH" cautioned Tryagain.

"Oh go back to your stupid Trivia Games and Riddles!", yelled TTH.

"That's it... you're off my Christmas List", promised Tryagain, angrily.

"Is 'angrily' the same as 'in an angry way?' asked Yoong Lait.

"Uh, about this g'd band!" began BPB

"Apparently I sing like a nightingale", put in MaBarker. "Want me to sing you a tune?"

"BPB wants you to audition naked, you cute little nightingale," Slappy interjected.

Slappy's interjection was followed by an ejaculation....from NickFun: "Any gal that wants to audition get over here now!"

"The auditions have turned into the casting couch." said Lightwizard. "Why, I remember back in the earlier days of Hollywood, ole Gabby Ratzenhofer had quite an eye for the ladies, but not just for the obvious reasons."

Everyone sat around in a circle, crosslegged. Someone started a fire until they realized that Lightwizard was sitting in the middle of the circle. A large bucket of softened water was provided to douse Lightwizard, who continued as if nothing had happened. "As I was saying, Gabby liked the ladies, and one of the reasons was that he was a cross-dresser. He looked quite fetching in a plaid skirt and lilac chiffon blouse, but the shoes! Don't get me started on the shoes!"

"What's wrong with the shoes?" asked honey_rose_cr.

"Shoes for industry!" yelled SealPoet.

"Dammit, I still haven't heard enough about the left buttock." mutter BPB.

"That anything like the left underwire? I've been away, you know." said stoat.

"Not unless you are from Slovakia." said dagmaraka.

"Hey, where's that song you promised?" asked sozobe.

"Yeah! YEAH!" yelled everyone. The crowd threatened to get ugly.

"Okay." said Bi-Polar Bear, grabbing a mike that djjd had set up for him. "Check. Check. Sibilance. Sibilance. Check. Check." musicians hastily assembled behind him -- panzade on guitar, Setanta on the spoons, Letty on harp, littlek on harmonica and many more. "To the tune of 'Camptown Ladies'."

Bi-Polar Bear began to sing. "A2Kers sing this song"

A thundering chorus behind sang, "Doo-dah, doo-dah!"

"We've been posting all day long
all the doo-dar day ..."

"Excuse me! I hate to break up this little party, but I have an announcement to make. Long ago I broke a vow and I'm sorry about it but life goes on, you know? I just wanted to come clean so I can post in these relationship posts." stated Chai.

"Jeez Louise! Let's start over..." began BPB grumpily, frowning at Chai. "Ah one and a two..."

"Wait!" cried baddog1. "I don't like that song. In honour of all my posts on the subject, can you play Broken Vow, by Josh Groban?"

"NO!" roared BPB. "I'M the musician and I'LL decide what to play!"

"Well, can you play Rabbits Don't Come Easy?" asked dlowan. "It's a favourite of mine."

BPB's face started getting beet red and he began spluttering.

"What's the matter? You're not drunk are you?" asked Osso, nodding at everyone.

"Look, you Drama Queen Nikki Six you!" spluttered BPB. "I'm allowed to have a little fun, aren't I?"

Just then CI walked into the room. "Okay, okay... everyone who's attending the SF gathering line up on this side. I want to make sure everything's in order and you all have each other's phone numbers and whatnot. Francis? Oh, there you are. Mame? I see you're here. Georgeob1? Good. CalamityJane? Where is she? Anybody seen CJ?"

Just then, there was meowing from the corner. All of the A2K cats (including the human variety -- cyphercat, happycat, margo etc.) were meowing in Morse code.

"Wait, wait it says, it says ..." said Dutchy, "All your tuna are belong to us."

"All your tuna are belong to us." repeated everyone, over and over again, hypnotized by the cats' rhythmic meowing.

Someone produced a tiny sprig of catnip, and a riot broke out.

"Dutchy, you are attributing too much meaning to the simulated language of the cat ladies," opined fresco. "You would have better luck applying linguistic analysis to Millsberry chat!"

"Fresco, you are the one that makes no sense," said NickFun. "Have you ever tried to talk about everyday stuff? Those cat ladies are cute and Millsberry kids like shrimpy and toogood could tell us a lot about getting through mazes and portals."

"You mean we gotta ask the 13-year-olds for directions?" complained onyxelle.

"Yes ... thirteen ..." said agrote, with a wicked glimmer in his eye.

"Agrote, why not talk to OmSigDavid about his plan to seed the stars with human, er seed?" suggested blatham.

"That's brilliant!" exclaimed wandeljw.

"What's brilliant?" asked fishin.

"We can, heh, this will work. Here, hand me those tools. Anyone handy with astrophysics?" asked wandy.

Raprap stepped forward. "I'll see what I can do, but I'll need rosborne's help. Uh, what are we doing?"

"We're building a spaceship." explained wandy.

"Will it seat everyone?" asked squinney. "Some people might not be so comfortable sitting next to each other."

"We'll see." said wandy cryptically.

"I get to paint it!" volunteered boomer.

"It'll need drapes!" yelled msolga.

"And we'll all need snacks!" added BBB.

"I hereby throw in my entire supply of tinfoil hats to use as raw material. They keep out the alpha waves, you know." jes said.

A huge pickup truck arrived, and the unloading of tons of tinfoil hats began.

"Do you need an icepick?" asked edgarblythe.

"No. We just need someone who knows what they are doing, edgar!" Wandy was being smug and sarcastic again.

"Apologize to edgar, Wandel," said Occom Bill.

"Or what, Bill? I would have told edgar the same thing," said Bi-Polar Bear.

"Is Wandel your bitch, BPB?"

BBB and Butterflynet quickly separated the bickering men and told everyone to get to work.

Someone -- maybe it was Dutchy -- got the bright idea to harness the capybaras and have them do most of the heavy lifting. Bella's baby was, of course, exempt from this menial task.

"Hmm, you know it's going to be A2K's fifth anniversary tomorrow." sighed jes.

Just then, a huge cake was wheeled in, with enormous lit sparklers. It said "Happy Fifth Birthday, A2K!" And just then, out of the cake popped the following A2Kers:

woyio, who was covered in letters spelling HAPPY BIRTDAY, Montana, Slappy who was trying to look down Montana's blouse, Dys, cicerone imposter, and clycoptichorn.

"Hey!", yelled ma11, "you're missing an "H"! Here!" And she deftly threw woyio the letter.

"Do you need an icepick, too?", yelled edgarblythe.

"In olden times, birthday was often spelled without an 'h'", began Setanta. "Yes, dear, we know", interjected ehBeth quickly. "That was during the middle of the Late Ages, when King Stephen and Maud were fighting for the realm." "No, no", argued Setanta, "It was during the late period of the Early Ages when ..." he stopped, distracted by Montana who had taken off her clothes and was about to straddle a yellow tractor.

"Go baby, go! Plow them fields!" yelled a drunked gus from the back.

"I -- I never knew farm equipment could be so, so compelling." said Reyn.

bigredsshop's jaw had dropped and small puddle of drool was beginning to form.

"During the Hundred Years' War, uh," said Setanta, who was suddenly distracted, "um, something, uh, happened."

Montana had the attention of all the men. Even Setanta could not find the right words to say. Gus and the men of the Marlboro Thread were even more impressed by Montana's expert handling of farm equipment.

Lash, Eva, JPB, sozobe, squinney, and jespah were the only people concentrating on the real task which was to escape the mazelike portal so that littlek could remain innocent and uncorrupted.

Lash was particularly upset that Mame and Dagmaraka were egging Montana on. Lash told Mame, Dagmaraka, and Montana that they would never become A2K "power women" if they continued to pander to the men.

Onyxelle finally spoke out: "It is redundant to use 'innocent' and 'uncorrupted' in the same sentence. Who has been botching the narrative on my thread?"

"Well, it's not completely redundant, as you could be innocent (as in of legal charges) but not uncorrupted, like if Bugsy Siegel was charged with the Lindbergh kidnapping. He'd be innocent of that but certainly not uncorrupted." said joefromchicago.

"He speaks with parentheses!" exclaimed Piffka.

"And occasional square brackets, too." assured joe.

"L7." said Stray Cat.

"Rocket's almost ready!" announced Eva. "Just needs the finishing touch."

"Porn. It needs porn." said Slappy. He grabbed a copy of Missile 3 Maidens and tossed it in the cockpit. "Heh, cockpit." He snickered.

"Who's gonna help me get this -- ooh -- farm -- uhhh -- equipment into the big, smooth rocket?" asked Montana, gyrating with every syllable.

All of the guys got up and the rocket was loaded in record time.

"Never underestimate the power of a nekkid woman to get things done." said Montana.

"Wimmins! Dang, I forgot to hang the shelves!" said fishin.

"No time for shelves! Let's go!" yelled dagmaraka. She turned the ignition. The rocket sputtered and died.

"Wait, wait, I don't understand it." said Lash. "It's the perfect blend of paint, softened water, tinfoil (from hats), parentheses, dog treats, catnip, the rainforest, Vegemite and a copy of The Wall."

"You forgot the Nutella!" said Phoenix, hastily tipping it into the rocket's huge gas tank.

The rocket roared to life and the fasten seatbelt came on.

"Okay, let's see if this baby can break the sound barrier!" shouted Kicky.

"Or, we could go for a leisurely spin around the universe, sip on some tea, contemplate the niceties of life..." countered Noddy.

"Yes" chorused the women of A2K. "Only no tea for me, please" said Montana. "I have some stuff I drink that I bought at Bulk Barn."

"Bulk Barn!" exclaimed Farmerman. "Yes, let's go there! Does anyone have any bags?"

"I have some under my eyes" said Mame.

"Put two teabags on them and the swelling will go down", advised squinney. "See how useful tea is?"

"We're getting awfully close to the SF meet" said dagmaraka. "I still haven't bought a ticket, so maybe you could drop me off at cicerone's place. I believe he's in San Jose."

"Well, if we're all getting a free ride, I'll go, too!" cried Eva.

"Yes, yes! Let's all go!" agreed Nickfun.

"Who's driving this beast?" asked Phoenix.

"I am" replied wandeljw and hamburger, simultaneously.

Setanta protested. "Wandel rarely knows what he is doing. Hamburger is only useful when he is taking care of my dog and ehBeth's dog. Let Intrepid fly this thing. He fantasizes all the time about being Captain Kirk."

"God is my co-pilot," said Intrepid.

This pronouncement tore a hole through cyberspace and everyone was shocked to hear Frank Apisa's voice: "That was weak, even for you, Intrepid!"

"We must be getting close to the portal," said Intrepid. "I hope there aren't any more surprises like that one."

The stars came into view, and everyone oohed and aahed at the constellations. "There's the great capybara." said gus a little tearfully.

"There's the Saturn dealership where I bought my car." said jes.

"There's the moon over Miami." said Pantalones.

"And there's Uranus!" snickered Slappy.

"I swear, if I ever have to hear another Uranus joke, someone's goin' out the airlock!" threatened McGentrix.

"Daddy has a Harbor Seal
It's cosmologically famous
but even it has to admit
it cannot lick Uranus" SealPoet recited.

littlek spat out her coffee. "Now that I'm a teacher, you guys have to realize that that doesn't really rhyme."

"Rhyme, shmime!" said Phoenix. "Look out for that .....!"