Radio Bantik:
Days in the Life of an Alpha Geek

I’ve reconstructed, as best as I can, a random conversation that occurred in the elevator today. Bearded Gent is someone who works in my building, but whom I’ve never spoken to before today.

Bearded Gentleman: Hey, you have connections. Can you get me on the space shuttle?

Me:What?

Bearded Gentleman: The space shuttle. Can you get me on it? I want to get out of here.

Me: I don’t have those kind of connections. Although I used to work with some guys from Jet Propulsion Laboratories. But that was ten years ago.

Bearded Gentleman: See? I knew you knew people. So can you get me up into space?

Me: For good? Because if you’re not interested in coming back, I’d recommend the Russians, not NASA. The Russians are pretty good at leaving people up in space.

Bearded Gentleman: No, I want to come back, eventually. After things settle down. If I didn’t want to come back, I’d talk to the Chinese. There’s no telling if you’re coming back or not after you’ve been strapped into a Chinese rocket.

Me: I guess we’ve left our share of living things in space, too, though. Monkeys, dogs– ants, even. Wow. We shouldn’t be worried about alien invaders at all. We should be worried about breeding a really pissed-off race of monkey-dog-ant hybrids out for revenge.

After our exchange, Bearded Gentleman did not get on a shuttle, or even a train, but a cab.