Grin and Bare It

One of the perks for regulars at Think-A-Holic Lounge is having your birthday recognized by the management and also by other regulars. Like, back in September, when I walked into the Lounge on my birthday for a shot of the ol' elixir and a single bubbly chaser, it was on the house. That means Angus McCloud, our big-ass head bartender who's also the ghost of a dead Scottish poet, paid for my drinks. But so did some of the other lounge lizards and, before I knew it, I was full of think-a-hol and happy thoughts.

The other night, however, this jasper (see pic) from a galaxy far, far away strolled in and a lot of jaws dropped. We though this rude and crude dude was streaking through the solar system in his birthday suit just for kicks. But Angus set us straight and then set this oddball up with a double shot of think-a-hol and a schooner of brew.

Angus called this nude nerd Birfday Boy and the word was soon out that, if you don't have anything to hide, there's no use trying to cover it up.

What Dreams Are Made Of

Concluding this little story, Angus McCloud’s limo driver was giving me a tour of what looked like Earth sometime in the distant future. Since I was dreaming, I didn’t know it was a dream. I thought the sun had actually entered into the Red Giant phase, a phenomenon that often occurs whenever Yellow Dwarf stars like our sun expend their fuel. The sun would eventually grow and grow and consume Earth and the entire solar system before it died out. But, what puzzled me more than anything in this dream-turned-nightmare, was that the limo driver suggested that there was something I could do about it.

“Well,” I told the driver, “if you think there’s something I can possibly do about all of this, tell me what it is.”

“I’ll tell you,” he said in an accusatory tone of voice, mixed in with that Middle-Eastern accent that was beginning to get on my nerves. “I’ll tell you what you can do, Mr. Bugos.”

“Spit it out,” I urged him.

“What you can do is...” he began.

And then I woke up.