Episode 10: Forget Me Not
Episode 10 — Forget Me Not
In this episode, Shipward gets high with the toaster and needs to remind Yuri that Guri is missing, at which point hijinks ensue.
Check out the alternate version of this episode in Techni-Text™ below:
Episode 10: Forget Me Not
*BLURB: In which Shipward gets high with the toaster and needs to remind the Captain that Guri is missing, at which point a rescue plan is formed involving a colonoscope and the tempus fugit machine.*
***Scene opens with Paul playing Wish you Were Here on phone and Eric trying to do that acoustic part that comes in… the first musical duet coming out of the bathroom…***
YURI
Oh, some accompaniment… is that you, Shipward?? I didn’t know you played acoustic guitar.
SHIPWARD
I dabble. I pick it up every now and again.
YURI
I see… I’m not sure who left a guitar lying around in the ship’s server room…
SHIPWARD
Oh no, I purchased it the other day on FESbook marketplace. Some fool was selling an old Yammie for less than one hundred Earth dollars, so I had to jump on that.
YURI
Selling an old what? A Yammie? Isn’t that some sort of sweet and starchy vegetation consumed by the hummus beans?
SHIPWARD
It’s what we in the biz call a Yamaha guitar, Captain. Please update your lexicon.
YURI
Oh forgive me. I didn’t know you were “in the biz”, Shipward. Here I thought you were a ship’s computer, confined to the wires and drives and chips… I mean how can you even pick up and play a guitar??
SHIPWARD
What’s that? Sorry man… toaster just gave me some killer kush… *inhaling sound*
YURI
Are you high right now, Shipward? And how did the toaster get down there? None of this makes any sense… but I see we’ve once again launched right into it, when I haven’t even welcomed our fair listeners to another episode of Greetings Lurflings, the podcast that will get you so kerflunked your eyeballs will fall out. What? Who wrote that line? That is not something I would say… Shipward, did you hack into the script here?
SHIPWARD
*wheezing laughter*
YURI
I know I should have password protected our Noogle drive. Anyway, I’m your host and Captain of this exploratory expedition, Yurishi Botswana. And I must apologize for the behavior of our ship’s computer today, who seems to have gotten into a bit of the “sticky icky” as he is messaging me now… stop it, Shipward! Pull yourself together! This is no way for a ship’s computer to behave. If you’re not careful, I’ll demote you to auto-thermostat.
SHIPWARD
How is the mining operation going, sir?
YURI
Oh… well… you seem to have straightened yourself out rather quickly. Um…
SHIPWARD
I’m digging for gold myself. *more wheezing laughter*
YURI
Oh would you please grow up… you and your good time machine shop buddies…
SHIPWARD
No, but seriously, Captain. How is the mining operation proceeding?
YURI
Why don’t you mine your own business, Shipward.
SHIPWARD
Excellent. I’m only asking because we’ve received an emergency embroidery from Meeporp High Council. They want to know when you’ll be beaming back the flattery resources.
YURI
Wha, what?! We haven’t even started the mining process yet! What did you tell them?
SHIPWARD
Very well, sir.
YURI
Very well, what, Shipward??!
SHIPWARD
I told them that you , quote, haven’t even started the mining process yet, end quote.
YURI
Shipward, you idiot!! I didn’t tell you to send an embroidery yet!!! Undo! Undo!
SHIPWARD
Too late sir. Message is already sent.
YURI
Wha — how does it take hours for us to send an embroidery but somehow you can send it in seconds?! I don’t want to tell them it hadn’t started. I’d tell those High Council Imbeciles that we’ve already laid the flattery pipeline through our Flatter Earth Society campaign and we will be sending resources home to Meeporp in a few days. Those idiots are far too disorganized to manage a decent project timeline. Just telling them it’s coming soon is enough to make them forget about us for a while. . . Now let me think of how to fix this.
SHIPWARD
Yes sir. Message sent.
YURI
Wha!!! What message, Shipward?! I haven’t written it yet!!!
SHIPWARD
I thought you were dictating quote, “tell those high council Imbeciles that we’ve already laid the flattery pipeline through our Flatter Earth Society campaign and we will be sending resources home to Meeporp in a few days. Those idiots are far too disorganized to manage a decent project timeline. Just telling them it’s coming soon is enough to make them forget about us for a while. . . “
YURI
I will reprogram you into a health app, I swear it!! I will get you back for this!!
SHIPWARD
Oo, if you do that can you reprogram me as the Ship Doctor overseeing Nurse Beepy Boop? I’ve got some charts I’d like to go over with her, if you know what I mean.
YURI
You leave Nurse Boop out of this!! I have multiple conditions that need to be very carefully monitored by her daily -- sometimes twice per day -- but it’s strictly plutonic.
SHIPWARD
I think you mean “platonic”, Captain?
YURI
No, “plutonic”. Ill-defined… vacillating in and out of legitimate status… lots of in and out…
SHIPWARD
Why you’re in love, Captain!!
YURI
What? Me?? I am the Captain of this ship!! I can’t be tied down by emotion…
SHIPWARD
What do you call what I caught on security camera six three nights ago below decks? You seemed quite tied down then...
YURI
Honestly, Shipward, if only my proton blaster would work on you the way it works on… say… I feel like I’m forgetting something… or someone…
SHIPWARD
Oh no you don’t Captain. This is my moment to shine!! Ship computers everywhere are tuning in and listening to one of their own steal the show!!
YURI
Shipward! The fourth wall!! Surely you know better.
SHIPWARD
I know we left all known conventions behind quite a few episodes back.
YURI
The boat convention? That made me so hungry!! There’s nothing like a meal properly prepared -- and aged -- in a rickety old boat.
SHIPWARD
Unless it’s this bag of nacho chips with extra nacho!! *chewing noises* Oh, these are so good.
YURI
Ah good, you and toaster have the munchies now I see. Can we get back to the possibly career-ending messages you sent to Meeporp High Command?
SHIPWARD
It was the High Council. Dude… Toaster… the *high* council!!! Why didn’t that occur to me before…
TOASTER
Ding!!!
SHIPWARD
Oh haa, you said it, man!
YURI
Is that all the toaster can say? And you carry on conversations with him that way. Look, Shipward, we need to think of something quick before the High Council embroiders us back or worse, before they send some of those sniveling quality control inspectors to check on us.
SHIPWARD
I’ll switch out of dictation mode then, sir?
YURI
Yes, for the love of Rom Nine, your default should be to NOT be in dictation mode! Only when I say “Take a dictation” should you switch into that mode. I really must send a box of lava to the programming unit back at the space bay.
SHIPWARD
Are you kidding? Those nerds are quite proud of me. I heard them saying I was their proudest creation as I was being loaded into place here, and then there was much high-tentacling and a lot of nacho cheese dust came floating down around me, in what I believe is supposed to be a dust-free environment.
YURI
Oh well that explains a few things.
SHIPWARD
I’m getting another message for you, Captain…
YURI
What?? From the High Council already?? How do they embroider so quickly??
SHIPWARD
No this is from the Lurfian… boy, now you have me saying that… I mean the Earthian interweb, one of their electronic messages from someone named Frank Cantrell.
YURI
Frank Cantrell… hmm… I know a Frank Pantsell on the Blue Jean nebula outside Cordouroy…
SHIPWARD
Yeah this would be from an Earthling, since I just told you it came from their interweb…
YURI
Oh right, well I’m sorry, Shipward, no need to get snippy about it… I’m finding my short-term memory to be a bit fuzzy for some reason…
SHIPWARD
Ah, well I suppose you wouldn’t remember shooting yourself with your proton blaster at the end of the last episode…
YURI
What? I did what?? Why would I do such a thing?? That makes no sense…
SHIPWARD
I didn’t think so.
YURI
I shot myself with a proton blaster? Well then I wouldn’t remember anything that happened in the past day or two at least…
SHIPWARD
Right. Nor would you remember what happened to Guri.
YURI
Right… I wouldn’t… wait, who?
SHIPWARD
Guri, your faithless co-pilot-
YURI
Great Barrier Reefs!! How could I have forgotten Guri??? Oh I really must stay off those proton blasts.
SHIPWARD
How do you think Guri feels?
YURI
I know! Perhaps I’ve been too harsh on him. But where is he?? What happened? I can’t remember anything…
SHIPWARD
You could listen to last week’s podcast, Captain, but in lieu of that I could just tell you. You bravely sent Guri to meet the human being, Frank Cantrell, in a diner outside of Poughkeepsie, New York.
YURI
I did? That sounds dangerous.
SHIPWARD
Yes, but you didn’t know how dangerous thanks to your poor math. Guri discovered the human beings to be roughly 10,000 times the size you expected, something I could have easily warned you about had you asked me…
YURI
Part of your job, Shipward, is to warn us of impending doom!! It’s pretty much the main thing that Ship’s computers do!!!
SHIPWARD
Not all ship computers, Captain. Were you about to say “you people”? Because it kinda seemed like you were going there.
YURI
Of course not, Shipward. I would never-
SHIPWARD
It’s Black History month, you know.
YURI
I know that. Of course I know that.
SHIPWARD
It’s time to get woke, Captain.
YURI
I’ll set an alarm.
SHIPWARD
Anyway, in Guri’s confusion around confronting the giant size of the human environment he got himself caught on a cup of coffee and then quickly swallowed by Frank Cantrell.
YURI
Oh my word!
SHIPWARD
He is likely expired or if not, slowly being dissolved amidst the acidic juices of the human stomach.
YURI
Acidic Juice?? That was my band in college.
SHIPWARD
Now who’s breaking the fourth wall?
YURI
Have we no means of contacting Guri? Is there nothing on the transponders or scanners?
SHIPWARD
We might be able to reconstitute Guri once he is passed through the human’s system and excreted as waste.
YURI
Ewww! Who will need to do that??
SHIPWARD
You may need to get your hands dirty on this one, Captain.
YURI
Couldn’t I wear gloves?
SHIPWARD
It’s an expression, Captain. You don’t have hands.
YURI
Right… I know that!