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RMS Humbug and
RMS Humbug and RMS Tiny Invite You To Their Maiden Voyages!
On September 22, a day that looks, smells, and tastes like any other day – which, for that matter, it probably is – an “ordinary” person much like yourself (maybe even yourself?) finds in the back of their cupboard a five-year-old mayonnaise jar. The nutrition facts label reads as follows:
Vitamin B12 – 2%
Vitamin Z564 – 26%
You, random but lucky person, are invited to the maiden voyages of the RMS Tiny and the RMS Humbug, two cruise ships belonging to the Ridiculous Management of Seagoers (RMS) Company! Isn't that awesome? It starts on October 10, so you have lots of time to pack! Isn't that even awesomer! And it's completely FREE*! Please RSVP by October 5. Anyone who wishes to join after October 5th but before October 10 has a lot less chance of making it onto the ship on time. Anyone attempting to board the ship after October 10 will find that the ship has already left, and I am afraid that under no circumstances can we pick up latecomers.
Cheesiness – 41%
Corniness - 22%
Good Old Random Humour – 5555555555%
Logic - (-111%)
Vitamin A+ - 4.67%
The person squints to read the fine print (the finest print they've ever seen) at the bottom of the label:
*This may or may not include certain expenses, including but not limited to: food, accommodation, extreme trauma counselors, staff, my new billion-dollar fridge, etc. NOTE: Some of these expenses may seem entirely unrelated to the subject at hand, but let me assure you that, when viewed from a holistic point of view, they are all completely necessary.
-Your Future Captain,
The Ominous
ANOTHER NOTE: Any complaints, questions, forwarded expenses, or wishes to sue may all be sent to John F.Q. and CaptainRead of the Cricket Chatterbox!
ANOTHER NOTE: We here at RMS Co. believe that there are two possible reasons why the Titanic sank. One is that it had such a huge, grand name that the sea serpents got angry and told the iceburgers to “let 'em have it broadside!”. Of course, as you all know, iceburgers don't have very good aim, so instead of “having it broadside”, the Titanic was rammed from the front, causing the deaths of millions. The other is that everyone thought it was unsinkable, and so we all jinxed it and of course it just had to sink after that. This is why we have built the RMS Tiny and the RMS Humbug. The former ship will be completely unsinkable because of its unassuming name, and the latter will be a test to see if we were right. The RMS Humbug has been equipped with all the sorts of things that superstitious sailors think contribute to the angering of sea serpents and the sinking of ships, and it will probably be sunk almost immediately.
AND ANOTHER NOTE: When everyone has boarded the RMS Tiny (no one will want to go on the RMS Humbug, we are certain), their names will inexplicably appear in Pandora's Fedora, owned by your captain, The Ominous (that's me!). A “murderer” will be drawn out of it, and the game will begin! From then on, those whose names are drawn out of Pandora's Fedora will “disappear”, unfortunate “victims” to the will of the hat.
YET ANOTHER TEDIOUS NOTE: This was inspired by T.O.N.'s Ski Lodge Murder Mysteries(TM), and we here at RMS Co. sincerely hope that it is different enough to avoid any copyright issues. To be sure of this, there is a rather severe plot twist that we can't tell you a single thing about. We will not use the Ski Lodge, nor any of the characters from it, and we will attempt to use our own style of writing, no matter how much we may be unconsciously influenced into doing otherwise because of the sheer awesomeness of the Ski Lodge. "Days" will be written whenever possible during the busy schedule of The Ominous, and you can hope to expect from one to three of them per week. Everyone who signs up may post their view of the "day," but please wait until you've read whatever The Ominous has written before doing so, and because of the severe yet unknowable plot twist, your memories will be wiped once you die, so there are unfortunately no ghosts. If you really want to, dreams or hallucinations are allowed.
The person snorts dismissively. “Some silly, outdated advertisement or conspiracy meant to get more people to eat mayonnaise! Well, it certainly didn't work very well...” They think, staring at the uneaten mayonnaise jar for a few seconds, and then throwing it over their shoulder into a garbage can and inadvertently causing a snowstorm in Italy.
DINGALING! DINGALING! The phone rings. You pick it up, wrenching your gaze from the scattered tea leaves in front of you that had just produced the story above. “Hello?”
“Good evening. This is Super Mayonnaise Incorporated, business partner with RMS Co. We have been looking through our records, and it has come to our inattention that the five-year-old mayonnaise jar you just now allegedly threw over your shoulder was never sold, stolen, or even brought into existence in the first place. It does not exist, and neither does your house, no matter how real it may appear. Furthermore, you do not exist. We deny everything, and have lawsuits in place to make sure you do not claim otherwise. In fact, I am talking to thin air right now, because you do not exist. Neither does your telephone. Goodbye, thin air, and thank you for your co-operation.”
Before you can speak, the line goes dead. Now thoroughly mystified, you decide to thwart reason and pack your bags to wherever it was that the ships were supposed to leave from. Not that there had been a location mentioned anywhere in the story your tea leaves just told you, but you still think you have an idea of where to go. You hope.
submitted by The Ominous, age unknown, mysterious
(September 22, 2014 - 7:25 pm)
(September 22, 2014 - 7:25 pm)
Spiffingly done, Ominous! My British accent was top-hole and jolly accurate! Can't wait to find out who the murderer is, what what?
(December 15, 2014 - 4:01 pm)
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(December 20, 2014 - 4:06 pm)
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(December 24, 2014 - 11:20 am)
Come on guys, especially the ominous, please post something and buoy up this post!!!!!!!!
(December 21, 2014 - 10:49 pm)
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(December 28, 2014 - 9:50 am)
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(December 30, 2014 - 8:13 am)
Alien sightings are just as common as Bigfoot sightings, and sea serpents are just as common as the view out your window! Loch Ness monsters are nothing to the big guy circling the RMS Tiny, so look carefully, passengers, and you will be certain to see him!
-The Ominous
Day 5 aboard The RMS Tiny:
The day began with the above note from The Ominous being shouted through a loudspeaker across the ocean. “Alien sightings are just as common as Bigfoot sightings, and sea serpents are just as common as the view out your window! Loch Ness monsters are nothing to the big guy circling the RMS Tiny, so look carefully, passengers, and you will be certain to see him!”
Everyone ran up to my deck and crowded along the railing, trying to get a view of a sea serpent. Little did they know that the sea serpent as right behind them, slowly circling me and wondering if it would win in a fight against this long metal beast that had invaded its territory. Seeing George keeping lookout from my crow's nest, it decided otherwise and went to look for a goldfish to bully.
“There it is! I think I see it!” Danie yelled excitedly. “Oh wait, that's just a goldfish.”
“Oh look! It's over there!” CaptainRead pointed behind me. “Nevermind, that's just Roderigo, trying to eat the goldfish.”
“I see it! I see it! That has to be the sea serpent! There, behind that cloud!” Squeak stared upwards with a pair of binoculars in his hand. “Oh, it's just a flying ship that looks a lot like the RMS Tiny. Couldn't be anything important.”
Disappointed, the CBers all trooped below decks for lunch. “So what are we having for lunch?” asked Brookeira. Aldo was too busy baking a giant inflatable cake to answer, so he reached up onto a shelf and handed the CBers a cookie jar. Aldo hummed busily, and the CBers munched their cookies busily. Aldo reached up to another shelf to grab the salt, when his gaze rested on a perfectly round delicious meatball in a bowl of spaghetti on the shelf. Time slowed down. It was all coming back to him now. The dubious butler. The large and suspicious wall ornament. The villa in the south of France. And the words, “You're fired!” echoing in his ears. Aldo fainted dead away, his face as white as chalk.
“Oh no, he's fainted! Get the smelling salts!” yelled Magic.
“Well, there's normal salt,” Curio volunteered.
“That'll have to do!” Everinne grabbed the saltshaker and poured it over Aldo's head.
Bookbug started to panic. “It's not working! Somebody, go get Glennis!”
Somebody ran frantically out of the room, leaving Nobody to deal with the distressed CBers. There was a long dramatic pause, during which Nobody was completely ignored, and the CBers struck dramatic poses. Somebody ran back into the room with Glennis hot on his heels. She was chasing him with a broom. “I don't like Somebody's and Nobody's getting in my way! Get off this ship!” Somebody and Nobody vanished, and Glennis noticed Aldo on the floor. Her expression changed completely. “Is he okay? I'll go get some water.”
Suddenly, I was very bored, so I changed the setting, the costumes, the lighting, the music, and the script, hoping to spice things up a bit!
Bright lights gleamed into the CBers' eyes. They looked at each other, and saw that they were all wearing jester costumes! Medieval music played in the background, and Maplesyrup found that her head was stuck in the window of a a small mud dwelling. BookWizard was stuck in the chimney of the same dwelling, and Winter Firefly was frozen in the middle of striking a horror-struck pose. She fell to the ground in a heap in front of the mud dwelling's doorway.
A little greenish man with ears that looked a little bit like a house-elf's peered out of his mud house. "Doing what, in my window, are you?" he asked Maplesyrup. Then he stared up at BookWizard. "Chimney sweep, you look like not!" His gaze fell to Winter Firefly. "Losing I must be, my sight! My doormat, like a CBer it looks!"
"Yoda? Why does your nose look so...distinctly familiar?" Forrest asked suddenly.
Yoda put a hand up to his nose. "Certainly not Aldo in disguise, I am! Certainly not! Teach you the way of the Force, I must!"
Then, out of the mist, dark hooded figures came riding. Strange eerie screams billowed from the mouths. Black Riders! One whispered hoarsely to the others. "Yodaaaaa. Dagobah!"
Yoda looked around frantically. "No, no! No Yodas here! In the Shire they live, over that hill!"
One Black Rider looked at another one. "I told you the address was wrong! You can't trust that old Gollum!"
"But, but it was Smeagol who gave me the address! 7777 Yoda's Place, Dagobah, The Only Homely House!"
Another figure in black robes (with a strangely familiar nose) appeared, walking out of Yoda's dwelling. After pulling Maplesyrup and BookWizard out of their precarious positions stuck in Yoda's house, Darth Vader turned to Yoda. "Quit messing around, we have to finish the scene where I get rid of you. Quickly, before George Lucas changes his mind again! Remember the time he decided Leia had to be eaten by Chewbacca!"
"CUT! CUT! That was absolutely horrible! What fool brought all these sandmen in here?" A tall man with a distinctive nose strode into sight, holding a megaphone.
"Hey! They aren't sandmen! Those are Black Riders! And what fool brought a strangely green hobbit onto my set?" Another man with a distinctive nose came out of the mists.
Forrest had a sudden thought. She looked at Yoda, then at the two directors, then at Darth Vader. “You're all Aldo! But that's impossible!” George's face loomed out of the mist, and he explained. “This is all a dream, induced by the stress of Aldo fainting. You can wake up now!”
The CBers all woke up. They were on the floor, and Glennis splashed a bucket of cold water on them. “You're timing's all wrong! You should have done that before we woke up! Now we're just wet!” Glennis burst into tears and ran off. George picked up the unconscious Aldo and carried him out of the kitchen, saying, “I never did understand cleaning ladies.” To the CBers, he said, “You should make your own lunch today.”
“I'll make bread!” Indigo volunteered.
“I'll make salad!” said John F.Q.
“I'll make cookies!” Madeline decided.
“I'll make a mess!” yelled Danie.
All was chaos in the kitchen. Indigo happily made bread. John F.Q. happily made salad. Madeline happily made cookies. And Danie happily mixed together baking soda and vinegar, muttering the words “Mess! Mess! Mess! Mess!”
Danie suddenly knocked over a giant package of baking soda onto the floor, and then “accidentally” poured a ton of vinegar on top of it. Foam bubbled up from the floor and covered the steaming cookies. A wave of foam tossed the fresh bread onto the ceiling, and the salad was eaten by Bugs Bunny before the foam could get to it. Within minutes, the CBers were swimming for their lives in the vinegar and baking soda wave, when suddenly a dark shape swept below them. A gigantic fin arced the top of a foamy wave. A sea serpent suddenly reared it's head above the foam and caught sight of Danie. “Mama!” It yelled, and it hugged Danie in the only way that sea serpents can hug, by squeezing her in its coils. The serpent dragged Danie down below the foam, which dissipated as quickly as it had begun. There was no sign of Danie or the sea serpent. Far away in the Mediterranean, an unwary goldfish suddenly felt the water taste vinegary, and a sea serpent looked around the water sadly. “Mama didn't make it!”
Rest in Peace, Danie. Rest in Peace.
(December 30, 2014 - 1:05 pm)
*clap ad cheers for the starwars fandom* haha that was awesome!
(January 3, 2015 - 4:51 pm)
This is time the death didn't hurt quite so much. I still goose-stepped around the weaker floorboards for days afterwards, but I was pretendng to myself that I was toughening up. Truth to be told, I still cried mysef to sleep sometimes. That also could of been me yearning after Roderigo, but the fact that another CBer would never see the light of day again...
Mostly I am ignoring the fact that there at least a hundred weasels all around, and-
"Hey! Get off! That's mine!"- they are stealing my favorite pair of socks, the one with treefrogs all over it- "Didn't you hear me before? Get. Off. Now!"-I'm sorry, I must be going.
*Sounds of hollering fade into distance*
(December 30, 2014 - 3:10 pm)
After the Black Riders incident, I decided not to hand over the Ring. After all, Sauron doesn't have a good dental plan.
(December 31, 2014 - 10:43 am)
You said it! I also heard he's not insured against dragonfire, heroic CBers with curtain rods, or loss of both limbs due to a pack of angry Chihuahuas. Really, how unprepared can you get?!
(January 16, 2015 - 6:45 pm)
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(December 31, 2014 - 8:10 am)
I guess I got a dream. From Danie, of course.
She says: I'm sorry Tommy the sea serpent. I'm not the best swimmer. I will miss you. *sniff sniff*
Well, I least I don't have to be put on a spinning wheel every day.
She also says: At least I died an honorable death. I mean, who doesn't get to die from being sufficated by a sea serpent? Who is your long lost son? I mean, really. It's splended way to die.
Well... She's kinda right. But whatever. At least I'm not dead!... Well, actually, I'm dead in CAMM, but that's the least of my concerns.
Toddles! And a happy new year :)
(December 31, 2014 - 12:34 pm)
You think you won't get put on a spinning wheel? I THINK NOT! You forget my friend, Pister&BLASTER are your...friends...?
(January 3, 2015 - 9:58 am)
Top top top. TOP tOp ToP. Top top top. TOP tOp ToP. Top top top. TOP tOp ToP. Toppity toppity top top. Good day to you, Ominous.
(January 1, 2015 - 11:25 am)