Moon Spiders

Right about know, you may be askin yourself why in the known and unknown multiverse would you need to go to the moon to make what amounts to a simple telephone call? Sure, there's all sortsa advanced physics involved and I don't know a whole lot about advanced physics, or any physics for that matter, but ain't you, meanin me, Pat, really just pickin up a cb reciever and contactin your ol pal Douggy? To which I would respond, first of all, if your addressin me in your question, you ain't askin that question to yourself. That is, if you ain't traveled through space and met up with alternate versions of yourself. If you had, and you was me, you would be askin that question to yourself. Q.E.D. I was askin that very same question myself to, well, myself. And the answer that I gave me was, first of all, ain't no Pat O'Neil in the known universe what knows a whole lot about physics. Apparently, many of us didn't ever pay attention after the sixth grade because we was too busy makin up excuses about why we wasn't able to be at school any day we would possibly have a test. Despite that, I explained it to me the best I could. Turns out, the call is travellin faster than light through a whatchmacallit in space. This is only possible because the squimonk from all over got together and fixed the whozawhatsits to respond to the thingamajig but Clan Platypus has this thingy in the sky that blocks the other thingies from goin right and so the whole thing gets all messed up. To go around that, we Pats have ourselves a big ol' moon base that's been disguised to look just like the moon. The was done with a kind of pointy doohicky that had some knobs. Then, they used a different pointy thing to make the whatchamacallit open up wherever they want it to. Now that it's all set up, all ya gotta do it turn a couple knobs and the computer does the rest. I'm sorry for gettin all technical on ya there. I just couldn't really think of a simpler way to say what was goin on.

I gather there was some big problems buildin that moon base, too. I ain't never been to the moon on the Earth I come from, so I don't know if it was just here or if it's everywhere, but the moon is infested with moon spiders. No big deal, you say, just go on down to the local Ace hardware store and buy some spider repellent. But hold on there, Mr.I-know-what-they-keep-in-the-hardware-store, don't be jumpin the gun. Them moon spiders is as big as a train; and I ain't talkin about one of them tiny toy trains that bald men with too many kids spend all their time buildin in the basement, nor am I talkin about them weird midget trains you see at the zoo that was desinged so only kids could fit in it even though their parents, or perhaps uncles, are expected to ride the train with the kids "for the kids' safety" and the parents, or uncle, have just drunk 64 ounces of iced tea with lunch because there was only a Thai restaurant next to the zoo and no parent, or uncle, of that kid is going to order anything less than the hottest food because who wants their son, or nephew, to grow up orderin food like a girl and so there's the parent, or uncle, wedged into this tiny little seat with his knees goin straight up his nose and feelin like his bladder's about to explode and, after seein all them snooty otters splashin around it the water and havin a good ol time, the parent, or uncle, gots to get up and run to the bathroom, but can't get his legs outta the tiny train seat and he's sittin there thinkin he's about to have an accident (which is much worse for a kid to see than watchin his parent, or uncle, orderin mild food) and so, to avoid this tragedy, he kicks his legs straight our from under him, punches through the bottom of the train car and takes the whole train with him into the bathroom for the fifteen minutes it takes to get rid of all the iced tea. The moon spiders are definitely bigger than that kind of train, and I would appreciate it if you would not bring up zoo trains again after what happened with me and Uncle Marty.

No, them moon spiders was as big as a real, genuine, honest to goodness train. They was smart as a whip, too, for spiders. Usually, spiders ain't that smart. When I was a kid, I had this pet spider named Timmy that lived in a little box in my room. Timmy was always eatin crickets and spinnin webs and doin all those other things spiders do. Sometimes at night, I was woken by the sounds of Timmy crying, but I could just yell, "Be quite, Timmy!" and he would. I was never too good in school, as I may have mentioned. I just never really had the attention span for it. My worst subject was math. Them numbers never did make any sense to me. So I'd always try to get Timmy to do my math for me. He did pretty well until I got into sixth grade or so and we started multiplyin and dividin fractions. I was pretty angry at Timmy for sinkin my school career. I figured the least he could do after all them crickets I gave him was to help me a little with my math. He kept tellin me he'd never learned fractions because he hadn't been in school when they taught that. He tried makin it up to me by teachin me math. He'd wait until I got home every night and then he'd spend an hour tutoring me. I think that was a happy time for Timmy because he almost never cried at night anymore. Then, one day, just like that, the police showed up at the door and took Timmy away. They told me some lame excuse about him not really bein a spider, but actually bein a little boy in a spider costume that I'd mistaken for a real spider. I think they just wanted to take my pet away. I did get a bit of consolation for losin Timmy, though. Right after that, I got to change schools and go to this new one where I didn't have to do any math I didn't want to or nothin. It was a great school and we had ice cream every friday if everyone used the bathroom for its intended purpose all week. It never stopped me missin my old spider Timmy, though.

Thing is, these moon spiders was way smarter at math than Timmy ever was. Other me told me that they had their own counting system based entirely on eights, cause they had eight limbs. Also because they had eight limbs, their national game was crazy eights, and they's wild about that game, lemme tell ya. It's on teevee almost every weekend. But I'm getting off topic. I guess their unique counting system allowed them to discover all sortsa math and physics that the Earth never got to. Sure, they prolly would've, but the whole planet went and got itself hooked on meth instead. If they wasn't all hopped up on the goofballs, I have no doubt that these Earth people could have whipped them spiders in their distended hairy butts when it came to science and engineering. After all, look at all the crazy stuff I saw before. And they built that when they were on the meth! Imagine what they can accomplish without it. But I digress. These spiders, with their whacky eight counting system, dug cave systems all through the center of the moon to collects atoms and neutrinos and whatever else kinda crazy space junk went flyin through there and used quantum computers to connect themselves to these atoms using what they called "string theory" so they can, at any time, see what them atoms are doin and even swap place with them if they want. Like I said, them spiders is smart as a whip; a whip with a PhD.

None of this was discovered until the squimonk and the Pats had built their skyships to travel back and forth between the moon and Earth. They wanted to be able to disguise the ships real quick in case Platypus tracked them or whatnot, but they still wanted to give a big ol' finger to the Clan, so the Pats designed their ships to look like pirate ships because, as everyone knows, pirates and ninjas are mortal enemies. If they needed to, they could set down in the ocean among the floating piles of junk out there and hide out with no one ever being the wiser. They built themselves a whole fleet of space pirate ships and were busy relocatin to the moon when they saw their first spider.

I ain't never had the experience myself, but I imagine that havin a spider the size of a train suddenly materialize before you is fairly vexin. Their first response was to start firin, but they didn't hit nothin but vacuum. Which is to say, they didn't hit nothin. But the simple act of them openin fire irked off the moon spiders somethin awful. They'd been watchin what was happenin down on the Earth. They knew it was a bunch of tweak junkies down there and thought that the junkies had built themselves some ships and brought their soul destroyin powder with them to offer to the moon inhabitants.

Word about this went out pretty fast; partially because it was the most excitin thing to happen on the moon since teleportation was discovered a hundred years before, and partially because they moon spiders communicated with each other through telepathy. They didn't attack the Pats and squimonk right away. The moon spiders was a peaceful lot and they preferred runnin away instead of fightin. Once the squimonk started to implement their plan to build the moon base, well, that's when the fightin started.