Episode 64: Happy Gornday

After throwing away his fifth cheap Ferengi “barely used” recorder off FleetBayTM, Lt. Commander Georgie “Rainbow” LaGrange was relieved to hear that he had finally been given access to the Gornucopia‘s built-in personal recorder system. Granted, the only reason they didn’t let him in earlier was that everybody on board had forgotten the password. As he spent months hacking the system, LaGrange caught himself wishing that Gorn ships came equipped with sticky notes.

“All right,” he said with a sigh. “Let’s see if this works.”

Without bothering to collect his thoughts, he went ahead and hurriedly pressed RECORD before he got locked out. Again.

“Georgie’s Personal Diary, first entry on the ship’s recorder. Having personally found out how good the encryption is on this thing, I officially have no qualms recording my thoughts here.

“So, where to begin? Oh yeah…

“A while back, I ran into an officer who is a really big fan of my old podcast about books. I didn’t even know it was available out here. He asked why I stopped producing new episodes, and I explained that I couldn’t anymore after the transfer from the Secondprize. He was disappointed, but said he was honored to meet me, and would I sign his GornPodTM? This is the first time anybody’s ever asked me for an autograph, and I have to admit I was nervous. He was so excited about it, though, so I did it, but my hand was shaking so much I probably gave him a signature that wouldn’t pass for mine under an official Fleet scanner. Two weeks later, I was assigned to help the team whose job it was to hack into the computer so they could use all the password-protected stuff they’d been living without since before I got here. And that’s the thing that has taken up the bulk of my time these days. There’s no doubt in my mind that it was his idea.

“This one’s for you, Steve.

“I don’t know how they did it, but a few of the guys from the Engineering crew found out yesterday was my birthday. I’ve been trying to figure out what stardate it is ever since I got here, but apparently, somewhere aboard this ship, there’s a Gorndate-to-Stardate converter that I’m not aware of. Long story short, they figured it out, and now I know where the phrase ‘a real Gorn birthday’ comes from.

“Now I wasn’t aware that cleaning the mess hall was something that was ever done around here. I’d long since gotten used to the layers upon layers of unidentifiable foodstuffs everywhere. It’s cool, though, I mean, it’s your floor, you can leave it as messy as you want. But I gotta say, I just about had a heart attack when I walked into the mess hall, and it looked like it had never been used. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I didn’t have much time to bask in it, however, because of my next near-cardiac-arrest: a very loud horn-like instrument blaring over the intercom, followed by Captain Justin proclaiming, ‘LET THE FESSSSSTIVITIESSSSS COMMENSSSSSE!

“I’ve never been one to start — or even participate in — food fights, but I have witnessed quite a few in my life. But all of them… combined… pale in comparison to what went on after that announcement. First off, I just want to say that I’m relieved that that’s what the cannons in the mess hall are for.

“The rest is a bit of a blur, but what I do recall for sure is being given a new metallic apron with an arrow pointing up, and what roughly translates to CAKE HERE in English written below it. There was also something about hitting the chairs in the correct numeric order, or I have to start over. Or something like that. Regardless, either I’m getting rusty on my Gorn numbers, or you guys have lousy handwriting, because I kept getting dragged back to the start so many times, I was sure I was gonna lose an arm. Or two.

“After it was all over, I lamented that I didn’t know in advance what I was supposed to be doing, but Susan said it’s more fun for it to be a surprise. More fun for everybody else, I guess. Those cake-bullets were tremendous, by the way. Totally made the experience much better once I learned I was supposed to catch them, not avoid them.

“As I sat there recovering, I also noted that only a small percentage of the mess on the floor was actually cake. That was when the Chief Chef, Lawrence, explained that only one of the cannons is used for cake-bullets. The rest just shoot out what would have been dinner had a birthday party not occurred on that day. Which is a shame, really. I was really looking forward to the buranga-lasagna. Looking forward to eating it, that is, not dodging it.

“All in all, I think I can truthfully say that never in my life have I been put through such a traumatic experience for the sake of a birthday party. Now I know why everybody gets a week off for it. I may need to spend some of this time in Sick Bay. For now, though, I’m just going to lie in bed and hope my muscles stop aching before I run out of pain medicine.

“I’m so looking forward to my next birthday.”