Friday, March 23, 2007

Bonus Post: My New Swim Trunks are No Merry Marvel

Next week's post will be on Tuesday instead of Monday, so I'm giving you all an extra, early post this week. After all, it's the polite thing to do.

blockboylightning



Don't you just hate it when this sort of thing happens?

Still confused? It's a long story, but here goes. Remember when I said Weight Wizard had faked his death again? Well, I tracked him down to the space spa on the light side of the moon, where he'd finagled a job operating the cellular trim ray. His name tag said "Lorenzo LaFontaine" but I could tell it was him, even behind the eyepatch and the cheesy fake mustache. Well, the first thing I did was to rip that mustache right off his face, and that's when I saw that it wasn't fake, and after he stopped screaming and we got most of the blood sopped up, I hustled his sorry ass out of there and we had a man-on-top-of-man talk. Weight Wizard confessed that he'd faked his death this time not because he had fallen out of love with me, but because he'd developed a hopeless shopping addiction and he was up to his eyeballs in debt. (I'd wondered how he'd been able to afford all the crap he was always hauling back to our swing-a-delic pad, like the fossilized brain-globe and the radio-controlled saucer made of real spectrium and the kangobronc-skin pants and the android replica of Noel Coward. Turns out he couldn't!)

Since the sweet l'il degenerate couldn't help himself, I forcibly enrolled him into a five-step program. I suppose I should explain here that the decisive disproval of the existance of God back in 2737 (Haw! Eat it, Immanuel Kant! Also, I suppose I should have prefaced this with a "spoiler alert.") knocked seven steps out of most addiction-recovery programs. It's a real time-saver! The only downside is that when you die, you're swallowed by a black nothingness. I hope you're all okay with that. Aaannyway, on one of my conjugal visits to the treatment center, Weight Wizard gave me these really cool-looking swimtrunks he'd made for me in metal shop. They're based on a costume I had designed for Lightning Lad (but which he was too chickenshit to wear) and they had this nifty gold-plated codpiece deal. They were pretty snazzy, and they fit like a glove.

So I decided to show off my new togs down at ritzy California Island (located some ways off the coast of Nevada) and I don't mind telling you I was getting a lot of envious looks! Sure, I had to wear a shirt because I'm prohibited by Presidential decree from entering the water with a bare torso -- all the back hair I shed when I swim forms this Sargasso-Sea-like mass and it traps dolphins and sea turtles, not to mention the occasional Olympic swimmer -- but I still cut a fine figure if I do say so myself. I was having a space whale of a time flirting with this brutally handsome lifeguard when suddenly, out of a clear blue sky, a ginormous lightning bolt zapped me right in the crotch! YEEOW!!! Not only did it sting like a mo-fo, but it seared my junk clean off!

You heard me.

Luckily, like all the men of my home planet of Amadus, testosterone is generated by pretty much every cell of my body. So I'm as manly and hairy as ever. More so, actually, since my body's overcompensating for the loss of my "stuff." Anyhow, at the hospital they fitted me with a hydraulic prosthesis. It's cutting-edge technology, studded with vacuum tubes, and you can program its action with a punch card, and to get it started you just pull a little lever on the side, like on a slot machine. Oh, and I can't forget to replenish the oil reservoir every three hours or so, or else it starts smoking like a son of a bitch. Still, I'm a little bummed about having a robotic dingus. I mean, first my pinky toe and now this! Sizzling comets, at this rate I'll wind up looking like Tharok before I'm thirty!

Now, where was I--? Ah, yes. My hospital visit. While the brawny physician's assistant was spending a suspiciously long amount of time adjusting my prosthesis, the doctor held up a still-smoldering scrap of metal from the trunks' codpiece and said, "Why in space would a smart young man like you go to the beach with duralim swim trunks?"

I believe my exact reply was something along the lines of "You have got to f***ing kidding me."

I don't know why Weight Wizard acts out like this. It's like he wants me to be filled with rage. Or maybe he's still harboring some resentment about my putting him in that program, or maybe he's bitter because he'll never be able to grow another mustache, ever, ever again. Yeah, probably that last thing. Well, the two of us are going to have another "talk" when I see him again -- a good, long, painful, debilitating "talk." (I'll let you all know if there's anything left of him.)

Next Tuesday: Gender Reassignment Challenge: Mantis!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

!

Hang in there BB. And thanks for the belated Spoiler warning. It's the thought that counts!

Is there something I'm missing, or is 31st-century prosthetic wangdoodle technology rather...well, backward? Is it to forestall an epidemic of "frivolous" operations or what?

Jon the Intergalactic Gladiator said...

Can't you just clone a new peter? I'm just asking, you know.

Steven said...

Geeyargh! That sounds painful!

More importantly, what happens when you activate your power? Do you turn into a wall with a pneumatic pump?

Bill S. said...

I apparently have priority issues, because I find myself wondering how much an android replica of Noel Coward costs.

Jeremy Rizza said...

Chawunky: In my far-flung era of the late 2960's, the average "home computer" is about the size of a garden shed, so I'm just happy I didn't wind up looking like Captain Pike from "Star Trek." And I can't remember why transistors and circuits fell out of fashion. I think they caused brain cancer or something.

Jon: Do you know how much one of those things costs? I'm not made out of money. Why do you think Lightning Lad is schlepping around with that robot arm of his. His backwards, inbred family of redneck dirt farmers can barely scrape two credits together.

Steven: Thank you for your sympathies, and no, it just vanishes like the rest of my limbs. But it's fun to imagine, isn't it?

Bill S.: They're about the price of two android replicas of Dorothy Parker.

Anonymous said...

A little lever on the side, like a slot machine?

...............

So if one pulls the lever, what the hell can be expected? They do have a way of making sure the "urine" dispenser and the "quarter" dispenser is separate, right? RIGHT?

Scipio said...

Ah, now that's the Blockade Boy I've been missing... .

The saddest part is, I didn't have to click on the link to get the Duralim joke!

Jeremy Rizza said...

Crowded House: That's what the punch cards are for, silly! Of course, if I go out drinkin' and accidentally leave my punch cards at home, I'm pretty much screwed.

Scipio: Yeah, that is pretty sad. But if it helps ease the pain, I'll try to pepper some of my design posts with saucy tidbits from the haywire tilt-a-whirl that is my personal life. (You're welcome!)