[Slite]

Blackout at Adrian's

Stumbling out of the temporal vortex two things struck me instantly. First, it was pitch black. The second, was of course one of the resident water fowls that connected with my forehead with a solid "THWACK"

Muttering about stupid ducks I quickly assumed a somewhat more ground hugging posture, as in, dropping to the floor and crawling in the direction of what I assumed was the Bar.

All of a sudden I felt something soft and furry next to me. At Adrian's soft and furry however is not necessarily a good thing. I had a quick flashback to the time KennyC had gotten totally schnockered and by accident opened a time portal filling Adrian's with tribbles.

Yeah, tribbles are real; Gene was at Adrian's that night and got the idea from there. As to getting rid of them however, he got it all wrong. The only effective method involves the use of a copy of Abba's Greatest Hits, A MkVI Atomic Welding Torch, A gerbil and a bucket of Sauce Béarnaise. But the exact procedure is something I really don't want to go into. Or even remember to clearly. It's THAT kind of memory, you know the ones. Those that run away from you screaming in terror when you try to access them.

So while trying to be as unobtrusive as possible I ventured a soft "Hello?"

"Oook!"

"Adrian! What the heck is going on?"

"ook oook ook"

"No shit Adrian, I certainly noticed it is pitch black in here"

"ook oooook ook"

I sighed; of course I should have known that the R&D department of Montsnmags Inc was involved in this somehow.

"They did WHAT?"

"oook ook ooook ok!"

"I sure hope you had 'words' with the original Marc?"

"Ook!"

"Good, so how long before those twits at R&D get a leash on their pet singularity and we get some light back?"

"Oook ook!"

And just then, the lights came back on and everything was back to normal. Well, normal by the standards of Adrian's anyhow.

Seems like some moron at the R&D department had brought a pocket-sized black hole with them that had been triggered by entering the bar.

Adrian looked less than pleased as he picked himself up off the floor and headed over to a group of guys in white coats. They looked very nervous as they spotted Adrian swooping down on them. Can't say I blamed them for that though. If Adrian was after me, I would curl up in fetal position and think of a happy place. I still woke up screaming "I will never touch a Nerf Vulcan EBF-25 again!!! I promise!!!" from time to time.

Adrian stared at the poor guys who looked more and more nervous by the millisecond. Suddenly he snapped his fingers and with a soft *POOF* the R&D guys were gone. I felt like inquiring as to where was not a good idea and instead headed over to the Bar.

Marc handed me a triple ZCD with a smile and a nod.

"Guess you need that" he said more like a statement than a question.

And I did. Downing the glass in one huge gulp before remembering what it contained. But I was forcibly reminded by the feeling of suddenly having a brain that was 8 numbers to large for my skull, but a bunch of pixies was working hard to reduce it to normal size with the help of angle grinders and electric guitars. I was pretty certain that at least one of the little guys was using a pampered chef's mandolin as well.

With a shudder I turned back to the bar, held up a finger, not trusting my vocal cords to produce anything even close to making sense and got another ZCD from the Marc, a single this time. Zipping it, I felt my innards shift back into their accustomed places, sighed and slid onto one of the barstools and placed the glass in front of me.

"Thanks" I said when I finally had oriented myself back in to the current (and hopefully correct) space-time continuum.

"No problem" the Marc said and sauntered off to serve one of the other guests.

I contemplated going for a walkabout before remembering the last time I had done so at Adrian's, I'm still a bit unsure about exactly how I ended up in the girls showers at the Walla Walla University gymnasium. But that’s one of those little things you have to expect when frequenting Adrian's. I had a heck of a time finding my way back though, since it turned out that Walla Walla is one of those places that only have an exit from Adrian's. Come to think of it, I never DID get a satisfactory explanation from Adrian as to why exactly that exit happened to lead to said shower-room. In light of that unpleasant "incident" I decided that it made more sense to just stay where I was and enjoy my drink.

Suddenly there came another muffled *POOF* from behind me, and as I turned I spotted the poor guys from the R&D were back. Well, at least in their physical forms. They did not look quite the same though. For one thing, on every one of them their hair had gone white. And there was a distinct look of mind numbing terror in their eyes. I'm pretty certain I heard some low whimpering as well. Needless to say, they exited Adrian's pretty rapidly.

"Where did you send them?" I asked Adrian before I even considered if I really wanted to know the answer to that or not.

"Ook!" Adrian stated.

"Really? Dude, that’s just mean"

"Ook Ooook!"

"Yeah, I know, I know.... But hell, Adrian... Meatball day at IKEA?"