Blue hair and real dirt

[Webmaster 20]

Subject: Blue hair and real dirt

Date: Sun, Dec 22, 1996 12:33 AM

From: LtHerel

 

 

   Finally finishing up with the last of the deluge of incoming wounded from the shuttles, Herel returns briefly to her quarters.  She takes a quick shower.  A real one.  With water.  Ah, but doesn’t that feel nice?  Ok, clothes.  Good grief, which drawer are the off-duty clothes in?  Did she bring off-duty clothes?  She vaguely remembers unpacking some.  There they are:  Bottom drawer.  May as well get the ol’ dress uniform out as well, probably wrinkled beyond recognition.  She pulls a half open

drawer all the way open and jumps a bit at the contents.  "How the #### did you fit in there?" she asks the half sleeping cat.  She pulls him out.  "Now, while you may be blue, you do not constitute a dress uniform."  He purrs in response.  She tosses him gently onto the bed and then pulls out the hairy, crumpled dress uniform.  "Nice.  Very nice."  She shakes it out a bit and lays it out on the bed next to it’s friend (who promptly repositions himself on it as soon as Herel is not looking).  She

finishes dressing and heads out in search of the airponics bay.

   She slips into the bay and heads for a far corner, hopefully unnoticed.  No such luck.  "Herel!  Lieutenant Herel!" calls out Ensign Open.  "I haven’t seen you in a few days!  I started to get worried.  Everything ok?  How are your plants?  I didn’t touch them, just like you asked, but they’re not looking so good.  I could set up an airponics bed for you, you know.  You don’t have to use dirt.   Really, it’d be no problem."

   "No, Mr. Open, but thank you for asking.  I really like using dirt."

   "What are those over there?  They smell weird and they look spindly."  

   "Oh, no," Herel smiles, "those are ginger plants and they are perfect."  She eyes them up and then firmly grabs one of the stalks and gives a good hard tug, lifting the fist sized root out of the dirt.

   "Aah!  Don’t wave that near me!  Gross.  What do you do with it?  Fend off evil spirits?"

   Still smiling, Herel replies, "No, Mr. Open.  You bake perfect ginger cookies with it.  Perfect ginger cookies shaped like little men.  Perhaps like little ensigns.  Then you serve them to all your friends so they can bite their little heads off.  Mmm!"

   Open wrinkles his nose.  "Yeah, well whatever.  Just don’t get any dirt on my floor, ok?  And let me know if you change your mind about that airponics bed, ok?  See you later."  

   Herel admires the large root, shakes most of the dirt back off into the bed (well, ok, some lands on the floor, too, but she doesn’t notice) and heads out in search of the galley and a real oven.