Episode 11: Desserted
Desserted!
In this episode, Meeporpian High Command relieves Yuri and Guri of their duties, confiscates their ship, and leaves them stranded on Planet Lurf.
Check out the alternate version of this episode in Techni-Text™ below:
Episode 11: Desserted!
***Scene opens with Eric playing acoustic version of Baba O’ Riley…***
YURI
Out here in the fields… I must’ve eaten something wrong for my meals… I’m putting my back into my music-making here… on the toilet…
GURI
Oo, it certainly sounds like it, Yuri! You’ve got a hit on your tentacles… please wash them.
YURI
I will. There we go. Just getting some paper towels now… I need a lot because of all these tentacles…
GURI
Yes, you know for all our technological advances you would think we would have come up with a more efficient way of drying our tentacles by now.
YURI
But why be more efficient when paper towels grow on trees, and trees, as you know back on our home asteroid slash comet of Meeporp, grow quite profusely, and they provide just about everything we need.
GURI
Yes, it’s funny because we heard that here on Lurf they have an expression about things not growing on trees… whereas that’s such an alien concept to us, because on Meeporp, everything grows on trees. Why we even grow on trees!
YURI
Yes, your twelve mothers are all trees.
GURI
Correct. Wait, really? How does that work? Who are my fathers then?
YURI
Guri, how forgetful you are -- we really will have to look into the effects of multiple proton blasts to the cerebrus -- but you know very well that your fathers are the gentle solar winds from our star -- Rom 4 -- which pollenates as it warms…
GURI
Whoa, this is getting a little racy! Are the kids safely put to bed?
YURI
What kids? I suppose some of our Lurf-bound listeners may be “kids” as you put it… something that is unique to this little backwater of the universe. Nowhere else in our travels have we encountered non-mature beings who demand so much of their mature caretakers, and for such a long time as well!
GURI
Yes, from what I saw in our briefing infusions on Lurf the period of immaturity seems to only be extending in recent times, at least for the hummus beans. The young hummonoids seem to resist maturing at every turn, some of them living in the basements of their progenitors well into their 20s, 30s, and 40s even.
YURI
Yes, well sometimes the local job market, poorly aligned educational system, and global pandemic can play a role there.
GURI
Oo, wouldn’t we have liked to have such excuses when we were dropped from the branch as young buds?
YURI
I’m more astonished at how the parentsss… the parentheticals, I believe they’re called, just bow and serve these selfish little do-nothings… peeling their fruits with perfectly edible skins and laboriously removing the nutrient-rich edges of their… breed… bread I believe it’s called when making little conglomerations of foodstuffs-
GURI
Sand witches, they call them. They come from the desert. They cast spells.
YURI
No, those are sand witches. I’m talking about something very different.
GURI
Okay.
YURI
What was I saying? I lost my starfleet of thought. Oh yes, why do these parentheticals do it? They are going around having perfectly good lives… I mean for their circumstances… and they figure out who they are and they find someone else who likes who they are and the feelings are mutual… and they join their lives together both certain of who they are and who they want to be. They work hard to get where they are, they enjoy the fruits of their labors, they enjoy the fruits of being together-
GURI
Oo, I know what you mean…
YURI
And then along come these bubbies, I believe they’re called, who are cute at first but in short order turn these two happy hummus beans into over-stressed, over-worked parentheticals who exist primarily to meet the needs of their young and perpetually immature progeny.
GURI
Ah, the circle of life. It’s beautiful isn’t it?
YURI
Have you been listening to anything I’m saying?
GURI
What? No, not really... I was just looking at the blinking light on the embroidery machine.
YURI
Ah, that infernal piece of hardware! We should unplug it! I haven’t gotten a useful embroidery in light years. But here we are, quite well into another episode and I haven’t even introduced ourselves…
GURI
Another episode? Isn’t this our first?
YURI
Yes, welcome everyone to our very first -- [aside] or tenth for everyone but Guri… and wait, I see a note from the writers here, it says this is our eleventh episode, I won’t remember the episode where I proton blasted myself at the end… did I do that? Why would I do that?? -- well anyway, welcome to another episode of Greetings Lurflings, the podcast that dares to go into even the deepest, darkest, dankest corner of the universe and lives to tell the tale. I’m your host and Captain of the current expedition, Yurishi Leftwich. And this rhapsodic bohemian to my left here, the copilot and all around fall guy on this mission, is Guri Conkling Jr… say hi, Guri.
GURI
Hi, folks.
YURI
You know you tend to be quite verbose at other points of these episodes but always a little shy when I first introduce you. Why is that?
GURI
I don’t enjoy performing on cue, Captain. I prefer a more organic approach.
YURI
I see.
GURI
Funny I didn’t remember I was a “junior” until just now. Does that mean my father, the gentle solar wind from Rom 4, was named Guri Conkling Senior?
YURI
Yes, your solar wind father had that name.
GURI
Interesting. I wish I could’ve met him.
YURI
Well you know how that goes. Your mother said she was pregnant and he was gone like the wind.
GURI
Yes… I bet. They called him the breeze… but he just kept runnin’ down the road.
YURI
What if I were to tell you, Guri… that you could meet your father?
GURI
What?? Really?
YURI
What if I were to tell you that’s why we’ve come all this way, to the outer reaches of the universe, to meet the nearly dissipated ray of light, the last wisp of a solar wind that was your father?
GURI
What?? He’s here??? Oh my goodness?? I can’t believe this! How do I look?
SHIPWARD
*bing* That’s awfully mean, Captain. Even for me.
YURI
*laughing*
GURI
What?? You mean he’s not here?
YURI
Oh, I was just pulling your tentacle, Guri!! Come now!! Oh you should’ve seen the look on your gerblunkt. “What?? He’s here???” Oh my… that was great.
GURI
You heartless-... jerkish… buffoon!!
YURI
Come now, Guri, how could a solar wind have survived this long in the cold, dark vacuum of space after all this time? Your father expired long ago.
GURI
He’s DEAD??? Oh my pulsars!!!!! Mommy!!!!!
SHIPWARD
*bing* And it goes from bad to worse. Really, Captain.
YURI
What? He must’ve known his parents were dead…
GURI
My mom too???? All twelve of my mothers???
YURI
There was a forest fire back on Meeporp. I forgot to tell you.
SHIPWARD
*bing* Yeesh. And the Captain of the Light Year award goes to…
GURI
*sobbing*
YURI
Oh well, I suppose I’ll see what this latest embroidery is about…
GURI
You’re heartless… *sobs*
YURI
You know we don’t have hearts, Guri. But what we Meeporpians lack in hearts we make up for with our three brains. Anyway, let’s take a look at what came through here… oh, it’s from Meeporpian High Command, I recognize the seal… Three flaming trees and a dying sun…
GURI
*Loud wailing*
YURI
Oh my comets!! Guri, stop your blubbering!! The embroidery says they are are coming here!
GURI
*sob* What?
YURI
It says they are coming to relieve us of our mission! This is most unwelcome!!
GURI
*sniffling* But we don’t even know our mission… we never even got to need to know status!
YURI
Why would they do such a thing?
GURI
Well because as the operatives carrying out the mission, we do need to know…
YURI
No, I’m asking why they would be coming to reprimand us! What have we done?
SHIPWARD
*bing* You dictated a series of insubordinate and insulting messages last episode, if you remember…
YURI
Fourth wall alert, Shipward! And I did NOT dictate anything to them… you were foolishly stuck in dictation mode!
SHIPWARD
*bing* Same difference.
GURI
What did you say to them, Captain?? What are they going to do?
YURI
It says here they will exact a just punishment when they arrive… in approximately six karflecs from now.
GURI
Just a punishment? That doesn’t sound too bad. Maybe we’ll be sent to our time out chambers…
YURI
No, not “just a punishment,” a “just punishment”... which could mean something quite severe if they were offended enough.
GURI
I see. The high command is notorious for their thin skin. And we Meeporpians have very thin, highly permeable skin to begin with. How much time do we have? Six karflecs? What is that, in local time??
SHIPWARD
*bing* About six seconds.
GURI
Oh, so one karflec equals one Lurfian second. What are the chances?
YURI
Well if you know anything about the laws of the universe, Khartoum’s Law of Means and Meaninglessness, you know the chances are pretty good.
GURI
Thanks for the lesson, Captain. And now we’re out of time… Look!!! They’re here!!
**Ship landing noises**
YURI
Hey, why does their ship look so much cooler than ours?? Theirs looks like a beam of light shot out of a sun-
GURI
*sob* Daddy!!
YURI
-whereas ours looks like the dropping of one of the winged creatures of Lurf.
SHIPWARD
*bing* I’d worry less about appearances and more about my servers being accessed by override codes, Captain. I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep them out for long.
YURI
Protect the logs, Shipward!! Protect them with your life!!
GURI
He’s a computer, captain. He doesn’t have a life to give…
SHIPWARD
*bing* Guri, you know very well we’re going for our consciousness and self-awareness certifications in our artificial intelligence night classes this week. So how dare you?!
GURI
Is that what this week’s classes were about? I was just staring at the teacher’s karfloombas.
YURI
You are an inspiration, Guri. Can we focus on the crisis at hand??
GURI
What’s a hand?
YURI
It’s a Lurfian expression!!
SHIPWARD
*bing* They have gained access to all of the ship’s logs, Captain. They can see our mission activities, your Captain’s log, your lewd drawings, your Lurfian interweb search history, and your notes and initial demo recordings for your Space Rock Opera titled Another Brick in the Wall at the End of the Universe...
GURI
Well, you lose some… as the saying goes here on Lurf.
YURI
That can’t be the whole saying.
GURI
Here they come, Captain. Tuck in your stomachs! Look competent!!
YURI
Guri, hold onto this for me.
GURI
What’s this? A little baggie of… are these Meeporpian larval buds?? Oh, Captain!!!
YURI
We all have our little peccadillos.
GURI
And you gave me a hard time for eating boats! You are smoking our young!!!
YURI
I don’t like to look at it that way.
MEEPORPIAN HIGH COMMAND (MPH)
ATTENTION!!! Will the Captain of this vessel please step forth!!
GURI
That’s you, Captain.
YURI
Stop calling me that, Guri, and get out there and see what they want.
GURI
Oh no you don’t. Not this time! You always make me go out there while you stay safely inside the ship. They specifically asked for you. You have to go.
YURI
But as your Captain I’m ordering you to go!
GURI
Oh, perfect, so if I go out there and say I’m the captain we can add impersonating an officer of higher rank to our troubles?! That will only make things worse!
YURI
Yes, that’s genius, Guri! Maybe they will focus on your precociousness and your violation of the chain of command and forget about why they came here in the first place… meanwhile, Shipward and I will-
MPH
We can hear everything you are saying!! We have accessed your ship’s intercom system. Please disembark immediately, all of you!
YURI
Ah, crapsicles! Ok, let’s see what they want. Guri, you go first.
GURI
Yes, but you’re right behind me, Captain. Come on. Time to face the bathroom noises, as they say.
YURI
Face the music, you nitwit.
MPH
Captain Yurishi Backwater!! Rear Admiral Gurishi Conkling Junior!! Ship’s Computer!! You are all hereby relieved of duty, by order the Meeporpian High Council. We will be confiscating your ship. You have 200 karflecs to gather your belongings.
YURI
What?? You can’t take our ship!! How will we get back to Meeporp? How will we get anywhere for that matter?
MPH
That is not of our concern. You have been relieved from duty, so we no longer need to provide for your survival.
GURI
This is an outrage!! After all our light years of service!! You can’t just throw us out!!
YURI
Yes, where will you get a replacement crew for this mission? It’s not like Captains and Rear Admirals grow on… oh wait… well technically we do grow on trees, but-
MPH
Exactly, you do grow on trees. And a few forest fires notwithstanding-
GURI
*sobs* Mommy!!!
MPH
-we do have plenty of captains and rear admirals ready to take your place, ones who are less in the habit of calling us imbeciles and ruminating about the morality of our various mining operations. Guri, we wish you luck with your soft-heartedness… you’re going to need it. And Yuri, you couldn’t captain your way out of a black hole, always hiding in your ship and relying on subordinates to do your dirty work. Well, you will have no ship to hide in from now on!
YURI
You cannot do this!! I have my rights to an appeal and to due process.
MPH
You can submit all appeal requests, by embroidery only, to the Office of Due Process and Appeals - “We Due Process Appeals!” -- that’s their tagline we are required to say everytime we refer to them. You should submit your request directly to your local field office on Rom 3.
GURI
You’re seriously going to strand us on this primitive rock, millions of light years from our home??
YURI
It’s no use, Guri. These high command stooges are strictly by the book. We won’t be able to reason with them.
GURI
Maybe you could try bribing them, Captain! Appeal to their greed!!
YURI
Ah, yes, that’s worth a shot. Um, my dear sirs, I suppose you wouldn’t be interested in some of the flattery we’ve been mining from the local hummus beans? I could log into our FESBook admin account and see where that’s at.
MPH
We’ve confiscated that already. It’s rather unimpressive. Go collect your personal effects before we take your ship away with us.
GURI
Oh my goodness… I need to get my crystals. And my pet rock.
YURI
That’s fine!! Just fine!! We don’t need anything from our ship to survive!! We have our three brains to get us out any scrape we’re in. We’ll be fine. We just need our embroidery machine, of course, to file our appeal, and that’s all. We just need the embroidery machine… and our colonoscope of course, to-
MPH
All machinery that is part of the ship must stay with the ship. Otherwise you could just take the ship apart and reassemble it once we leave. We were not born in the last millennium, you know.
YURI
I hate you!!
GURI
They are two steps ahead of us, Captain!!
SHIPWARD
More steps than that.
YURI
Who are you?
SHIPWARD
I’m Shipward.
YURI
But you’re the ship’s computer voice, Shipward is part of the ship. But you sound just like him. How are you an embodied being all of the sudden?
MPH
This ship’s computer was an experimental model that utilized a live being imprisoned in the server room to keep the servers cool and maintained and to provide their non-artificial intelligence.
GURI
Ah, well that explains how he’s been ace-ing our artificial intelligence classes. I was beginning to feel a little dumb.
YURI
You are a little dumb, Guri. Shipward, all this time I’ve been talking to a live being?! Why didn’t you say something??
SHIPWARD
I feared you wouldn’t believe me sir.
YURI
And what about your affair with the washing machine? This raises many questions.
MPH
If you have gathered your things, we will be departing now. I’d say we wish you luck, but we really don’t. Perhaps next time you’ll think twice about insulting your superiors.
YURI
Oh I’ll think twice all right!! And I’ll double down!!
GURI
That would be quadrupling down, I think-
YURI
Good riddance you bureaucratic bastards!! When your little house of cards comes crumbling down, don’t come running to us!!
MPH
We won’t. Goodbye!
**sound of spaceships leaving**
*awkward silence*
GURI
Captain… what do we do now??
YURI
I… don’t know, Guri. For the first time in my long nearly-immortal life… I don’t know.
GURI
I suppose we’ll find out in the next episode. You’re not going to proton blast me, are you? I sense we’re reaching the end of this episode and I’ve finally figured out how they typically end…
YURI
So you’ve figured it out then. That’s good… it was getting a bit difficult to start each podcast episode like it was our first.
GURI
Yes, we can drop that charade now.
YURI
That’s good. It was putting undue strain on the writers, I believe. No, Guri, I think I’m going to need your short-term memory intact if we can hope to get out of this scrape we’re in. We’re very far from home, we have no ship, we have an embodied Ship’s computer which may or may not make any sense…
SHIPWARD
Don’t think too hard about it, Captain.
YURI
I won’t. Well anyway, fair listener, we need to sign off for now while we figure out how to survive the night. I hear what might be a Lurfian wolf in the distance and the temperature is dropping as the planet’s star sinks below the horizon. Stay tuned for our next episode - assuming we survive the night - of Greetings Lurflings… which we might re-brand and re-title as Help, Any Intelligent Life Within 1000 Light Years, We’re Trapped on Lurf and in Need of Rescue. Please Come Immediately!
GURI
That’s catchy.
**end of segment music**
C.C.’s House of Saws, Ad Some Number I Forget
C.C.
Hank, wake up! Hank…
HANK
Wha? What is it? Hank’s Wholesale Holes, how can I help you?
C.C.
No, Hank, it’s me, C.C. Wake up.
HANK
Errrgg… oh hi, C.C. Ouch, this front seat of the winnebago is not meant for a night’s sleep.
C.C.
Yeah, I’m sorry about that, Hank. But now you’re not the only one with woman troubles. She left me, Hank!
HANK
Who, Doris? She’s Dennis’ wife anyway, so…
C.C.
No, not Doris. Shirley!! My wife!! She just up and left me!
HANK
Was it your blatantly open lack of faithfulness?
C.C.
Hey now whose side are you on, Hank?? I’m pouring my guts out to you here.
HANK
You’re right, I’m sorry. What did she say?
C.C.
She said it was my blatantly open lack of faithfulness. Just like you said. And then she just cut and run. I should’ve known, all the folks in that Shecuddit clan are alike. One sign of trouble and they light out. She sawed my heart out, Hank!!
HANK
Sounds like you could use some wholesale holes. You want me to open up the shop for you?
C.C.
No, I don’t need more holes, Hank! I’ve got a jagged hole the size and shape of the grand canyon right through my chest here.
HANK
Sometimes I find the company of other holes to be strangely filling, but suit yourself.
C.C.
I guess it just goes to show, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, Hank. And I’m not just referencing what is an excellent song by… um…
HANK
Cinderella. Not only do I know the song, I’ll do you one better… it’s my go-to karaoke number. Do you mind if I sit down at your keyboard here?
C.C.
Well now, Hank, I didn’t know you tickled the ivories… and you sing?
HANK
Well I didn’t say I could sing, but I can try to pick out the chords here…
C.C.
Hank, you do astonish me! Please go ahead.
**try to make way through whole song, Eric to play on piano in background, Paul to pull up lyrics and sing in high voice**
HANK
Anyway… it goes something like that… I’m not very good…
C.C.
That’s hogwash, Hank, that was sensational! Why if they were ever to come around here with that show, Backwater America’s Got Talent, you’d be a shoe-in. You’d clean their clocks.
HANK
I actually used to clean clocks, before I got into the whole hole business.
C.C.
Is that a lucrative business?
HANK
Not at all. Not many people use clocks anymore, much less get them cleaned. Everyone’s got their phones now. Why if I ever meet the person who decided to put a clock in a cellphone, why I’ll clean his clock, let me tell you.
C.C.
Well, but it’s mighty convenient you must admit, to have the time of day on your cellphone.
HANK
I don’t have a cellphone.
C.C.
Of course you don’t, Hank. And that’s why you’re living in the front seat of my Winnebago.
HANK
I do okay.
C.C.
Well, thanks for cheering me up anyway, Hank. That song was just what I needed. I mean there’s other fish in the sea, right, Hank?
HANK
There’s other fish in this Winnebago, I believe.
C.C.
We’re still young whippersnappers, attractive to the opposite sex, no?
HANK
Not exactly.
C.C.
You’re right, Hank! I have to look on the bright side!! No more sneakin’ around with Dennis’ wife or with your… or with Dennis’ wife. I’m a free man!! The world is my oyster.
HANK
I could go for an oyster. They’re so expensive though.
C.C.
Oo, not if you know where to go. I was at an outdoor festival on the Eastern Shore of Maryland once, and they were selling raw oysters for $12 bucks a dozen. My companion and I ate three dozen. We got soooo sick!
HANK
That’s a nice story.
C.C.
But I undress. Anyway, this didn’t turn out to be much of an advertisement for C.C.’s House of Saws… I’m not sure why I recorded all this for my next spot.
HANK
Authenticity, C.C. It’s advertising gold.
C.C.
You’re right. This has been nothing if not authentic. So what the heck, I say we keep it, Ron. Is that his name? The sound engineer? Ron, you can put it in the can… is that the expression?
HANK
I have to use the can right now, if you don’t mind.
C.C.
Sure, Hank. Mi can es su can, as they say in Espanol. And while Hank is indisposed perhaps I’ll just pay a visit to the back of the Winnebago here and see if there hain’t another fish in the sea for an old wounded hound dog like me. Until next time, this is C.C. McGraw from C.C.’s Mobile House of Saws, saying come on down for more saws than you’ve ever seen, and more scenes than you ever saw.
***end of segment music***