Freak-tastic.

Aw, c’mon Mitch! You’ve got at least three electron microscopes to your name. Can’t we just use one of them for our experiment? One little one?

Damn these scientists and their ethical codes of conduct! Yes, that’s right — I did indeed make reference to ethics and Mitch Macaphee in the same sentence. Far be it from me to ever suggest that our resident mad doctor (or as you say, “daktari“) has constrained himself to purely ethical behavior through the course of his long and spotted career. No, no — I’m referring to this annoying internal code that scientists maintain between one another. It’s kind of like a secret handshake. In fact, with respect to Mitch and Trevor James Constable (another member of the scientific contingent here at the Cheney Hammer Mill), it is a secret handshake. (Honest — they really will not let us watch them shake hands. It’s kind of… unnatural…)

Why do we want to play with the shiny, pretty, candy-like electron microscope? Well, if you’ll recall last week’s episode (and there’s absolutely no reason in the universe why you should), the entire Big Green contingent was on a hunt for water. Potable water has become rather scarce here at the mill, what with the recent drought, earthquakes and sandstorms we’ve been experiencing. And then there’s that other thing… yeah, right. We haven’t paid the water bill in 18 months. That may have had something to do with it, as well. Anyway, there were several plans circulated, some of them involving divining rods (my idea), some involving acts of plant-like ingenuity (the man-sized tuber’s idea), some involving mayhem and hooliganism perpetrated against our unsuspecting neighbors (the evil anti-Lincoln’s brain child) — none of them seemed quite the thing. Then Marvin (my personal robot assistant) had one of his notions… and frankly, it was a cracker.

No, no — not that kind of cracker. And not Robbie Coltrane, either, so don’t even go there. I mean kind of a … well… not bad idea. You see, Marvin pulled a tiny fragment of knowledge out of one of his microscopic electronic brain units — it was something he read somewhere about a certain amount of water residing in every object, every cubic inch of air, every club sandwich. It may be an extremely minute amount of water (as in the case of the club sandwiches over at Bolanders’s deli… I swear, they’re made of real clubs!), but because it is everywhere, that water may amount to a significant amount… perhaps enough to fill a pool. If only we could see it. Ergo, electron microscope. Point the sucker at some water-bearing object (Lincoln), and start sponging it up. Simple, right?

Well… maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. I’d still like to borrow Mitch’s microscope. No particular reason. Well, there is one. Our neighbor is watching re-runs of Daktari, and we don’t have a telescope, so… you know…

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