Sometimes I miss the old days -- like, when someone new joined the company, he had to spend ten minutes in the anti-grav simulator, then usually another twenty cleaning up the mess he'd made. They never figured out why we always called them in for this right after lunch. Suckers.
Or, if you really wanted to see veins popping out, all you had to do was look at your screen and quietly whisper "Oops". No matter how noisy it might be in that room, everyone heard "oops".
But it just got to be too much after a while. Folks complaining about the costs, about the lack of any real return on investment -- or, as they liked to put it, "Where's the ROI? Where's the ROI?" Idiots. We gave the world Tang -- what more did they want?
So, like I said, I left -- grabbed the pension offer, sold the house and the van and the truck, bought a boat, sailed to the Caribbean, and never looked back. But you know how it is: once you get the space bug, there's no cure. So for the last five years, I've been building this little beauty right here. We're sending her up tomorrow, so tonight's the night for a little party down. And believe me: she'll make it. She's nothin' but wall to wall premium-class rocket booster that usually sends things fifty times her size into orbit. When this baby goes up, she's goin' seriously up.
So tonight, we send her off with a little beer and a little tequila mixed in. Inside, there's a Jimmy Buffett CD and some local flora, just in case anyone out there comes across her.
Yeah, it's kinda nice to think that some day, some alien out there's gonna be singing Margaritaville. Here's to that!
