Last night's out-of-this-world phone call.

Thursday night (actually Friday morning). 1:30 a.m. I've sent the final pages to the plant, just sitting at my desk waiting for the clearance call.

RING RING. It's the outside line, not the plant.

RING RING. OK, I pick it up.

"Daily Grunt Sports, Starman speaking."

(agitated caller)

"Look out the window, man!"

"Look at what?"

"The space station is about to collide with the moon!"

Deep breath.

"Uhh what makes you think that, sir?" :

"BECAUSE I CAN LOOK OUT MY WINDOW AND SEE IT, GODDAMN IT! I'M TELLING YOU IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN!!"

"Are you sure that's the space station, sir?" (Carefully listening for giveaway smirk or chuckle. No dice. This guy is dead-dog serious.)

"OF COURSE I'M SURE IT'S THE SPACE STATION, I'VE SEEN THE SPACE STATION BEFORE, I KNOW WHAT THE SPACE STATION LOOKS LIKE, GODDAMN IT!!"

"Hang on a minute sir, let me take a look."

Just for fun, I look out a window, and sure enough, there's the moon. And sure enough, there's the planet Jupiter, which does slightly resemble the space station, right next to it.

"OK, sir, I took a look, and I can tell you that's the planet Jupiter next to it."

"Oh no you don't, don't give me that crap, that's the cover story NASA puts out to cover up when the space station goes down in flames. That's the goddamn space station, and it's gonna crash into the moon!!!!!"

(barely able to keep from busting out in hysterical laughter) "You do know, sir, that the moon is 240,000 miles away, and the space station never gets higher than 300 miles from earth?"

"Don't give me that!! I know what I can see with my own eyes!! Now give me the phone number for NASA!!"

"I'm sorry sir, we don't have NASA's direct line on our office speed dial."

"Jesus Christ, I'm gonna call the TV station. Maybe they know a real news story when they see it."

"You go ahead and do that sir. Good night sir."

The phone rings. It's the plant. Pages are done. I can go home.

I head out to the parking lot, glance up at the moon, and Jupiter too.

 

Find the guy who called, and ask him where he gets his weed.

Then go buy some of it.

 

I love that his first thought is to call the local newspaper, though. My generation would just write a blog post about it.

 

You should have picked a random number out of the phone book and given him that when he asked for NASA's number.

 

Only at the Daily Grunt...

 

You didn't remake A1?

You had a winner either way. Either the space station or Planet Jupiter collided with the moon...

 

That's the probelm with you lazy reporters!
You wouldn't know a story if it crashed into the moon, which by the way cost my kid a scholarship!

 

Hey, Jupiter tries just as hard as the space station.

 

Yeah, Jupiter collides with the moon "the right way."

 

This thread (10x) > than all the layoff threads.
Thanks for the chuckle Starman.

 

That's a helluva lot better than the guy who called last weekend to ask how many dimples are on a golf ball.

 

I'd probably skip that brand of weed. Probably has a bit too much crystal meth added, for flavor, I suppose.