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RMS Humbug and
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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)
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(March 27, 2015 - 10:16 am)
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(March 30, 2015 - 3:45 pm)
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(April 4, 2015 - 4:30 pm)
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(April 5, 2015 - 4:01 pm)
(April 5, 2015 - 4:01 pm)
Emergency TOPeration, with a last-minute subplot to get The Ominous' attention! Battle stations! Battle stations! Divert all root beer power to the forward piggy banks! See if you can salvage any extra lithium ion batteries from the Labyrinthine Storage Basement! Stand ready to drop aft inertial damping fields! Prep the Minecraft TNT! Get all stinky socks off the bridge! (Wait a sec, I think that's my problem, mine are the only stinky socks here...) I need a status report on the flying broomsticks, asparagus, and Rube Goldberg machinery, pronto! I know the Mountain Dew levels are nearly maxed out, but at least try to cram a few more caffeine tablets in there! You two, get me an ordinary European dragon and as many field hockey sticks as you can find! We've gotta get this show on the road in three...two...one...
(April 5, 2015 - 7:54 pm)
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(April 7, 2015 - 1:43 pm)
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(April 8, 2015 - 8:04 am)
Another Random Minisode:
The Ominous's Editor paused from her writing. She had heard a noise and looked out a window. Oh no, wait, it was just a trick of the light. There was no window. She turned around and saw The Ominous's Secretary leaning over the latest story from the RMS Tiny. “How much did you read?” demanded The Editor.
The Secretary jumped back, a terrified look on his face. “Oh, nothing much! Just something about a ring and The Ominous and the end of the world! Please don't don't turn me into anything... unnatural!”
The Editor narrowed her eyes. “You must have read quite a bit, otherwise you wouldn't be quoting the misquote from that last story. Out, now! You know you're only here to answer the fanmail!”
The Secretary stuttered, “Bu – but it's positively swamped back there! What with all the spam from those Guinea Pigs... actually, that's all there is, just spam. Nothing interesting at all! I've been so bored that I've started sorting it out alphabetically. Please don't make me go back, I'll go more insane than I am right now!”
The Editor pointed at the door. A door which I'm very sure is not a trick of the light. “No excuses! You can't possibly go more insane than you are right now!”
The Secretary sadly slumped out into the hallway. In the hall stood an old man with a cloak and a long, long beard. The Secretary was about to pass the old man when he mumbled croakily, “Do you have a hall pass?”
“No, I was only just hired yesterday. Don't worry, I'll get one soon.”
“THEN YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!” The old man's cloak billowed in the moonlight, even though there was no moon. It was Gandalf.
Sorry, but that's where this minisode ends. I'm afraid I was momentarily blinded by Gandalf's billowy moonlight, and couldn't see where The Secretary ran after that. I also can't explain the whimpering sound in the closet for the next two hours, or why The Secretary resigned the next day. It seems that Gandalf has tamed his Balrog. So sorry for keeping you all waiting, the next day will come tomorrow!
Sincerely,
The Ominous
(April 15, 2015 - 8:36 pm)
toptop!
(April 15, 2015 - 9:11 pm)
ToPtOp!
(April 16, 2015 - 6:59 am)
Day 8:
With the help of a beach towel, some old mayonnaise, an infinite improbability drive, and that spying giraffe I told you about earlier, the RMS Humbug managed to reboot the universe back to the point just after Squeak was disintegrated into a herd of white mice, to an improbability factor of simply impossible.
-The Ominous
The G.B. mopped his brow and sighed happily, surveying his prisoners. “Now that's over, I can neutralize the rest of you!” He brought his flipper down on the button. Nothing happened. “Oops! Wrong button!” He looked around and found the red button, and lowered his flipper towards it, then hesitated. He wondered why he had the vague feeling that he had forgotten something. Wasn't something supposed to interrupt him and remind him of something important? Oh well, if it was important he'd remember later. He slammed his flipper towards the button in excruciatingly slow motion.
His flipper smashed onto the button, almost breaking it. A loud electrocuting BZZZT noise sounded. The CBers fell limply to the ground, pink hippopotamuses danced the hustle around their heads. Much more entertaining than seeing stars! Curio mumbled, “That's not how you do the disco!”, and then fell unconscious. The G.B guards dragged them down a hallway and pushed them into a completely empty room.
There was absolutely nothing on the walls, except for the door. The room was so empty that your usual kind of emptiness looked full compared to it. It was so extremely blank that the at-present blank minds of the unconscious CBers looked positively chock full of thoughts compared to the blankness of that room. It was so --
I have abridged this part of the RMS Tiny's account because it just went on and on and on about emptiness, saying that the emptiness of the blank space in the C Minor galaxy looked absolutely not-empty compared to the emptiness of that room, and if I dare say so myself, the C Minor galaxy is very empty. It's probably so empty that emptiness looks empt -- oh no, it appears to be contagious! I'll stop now.
-The Ominous
The CBers were flung into the empty room, which turned out to be not so empty with them in it. The CBers lay there, unconscious and dreaming of pink elephants, for quite a long time. The G.B.'s took the opportunity to have a well-deserved nap.
After a while, the CBers woke up. Before they could even think about escaping, a loud flushing noise filled the previously very empty room. A blue porta-potty materialized into the now practically jam-packed room. The occupant of the porta-potty stepped out, and the room was now absolutely jam-packed with eleven CBers and one Time Lord. The tall man had very large ears.
He yelled, “Rose! I'm here to rescue you!” Then he looked around at the CBers. “Oh dear, wrong time period.” He turned back to go into his time machine, and then stopped. “Bother, I guess fixing the chameleon circuit caused more trouble than it was worth! I'll have to go at it with a hammer again.” With that, he stepped into the porta-potty and slammed the door. The CBers were silent with surprise. A loud clanging noise came from inside the time machine, and it turned into a can of soda.
Forrest finally found her voice. “Wait, can you rescue us?” No one answered. “Well, in that case, I'm going to have some of that delicious-looking soda!” She reached for the can, but it materialized before she could grab it, showering her in green powder. “Again? Seriously?”
“Yeah, you'd have thought whoever was writing this story would have run out of green powder by now!” yelled BookWizard. The rest of the CBers looked at her.
“Are you okay? You know that this is real, it's not like it's a story or anything. No one's writing this down.” said Winter Firefly.
“Oh, oops. Never mind. I suddenly had the urge to break the fourth wall,” BookWizard said.
Brookeira looked around. “What are you talking about? This room is circular, there's only one wall.”
“I didn't mean that! Oh, nevermind.” BookWizard said.
There was a moment of silence, and then Maplesyrup piped up. “So, don't you think we should maybe try to escape or something?”
Before anyone had time to reply, the door was smashed to smithereens from the outside.
The dust cleared, and there stood Aldo, brandishing a frying pan that was bigger than his head. Before anyone could say anything, Glennis rushed in, promptly swept up all the dust and rubble, replaced the door, and fixed the broken window (also known as a visual sideport) that they had crashed through as they broke into the flying saucer to rescue the CBers.
“You saved us!” yelled CaptainRead.
“Yes.” Aldo replied.
“Where's George? I would have thought he'd be here to help rescue us too !” asked Madeline, looking around.
Aldo said, “Which George? There are quite a lot of George's aboard the RMS Tiny, you know. George Lucas, George the Conqueror (I don't know why everyone thinks his name was William, it's definitely George), George the little mouse living under the floorboards, and Jorg the Captcha!”
“The George who showed us around this ship when we first got on,” said Madeline.
Aldo scratched his head. “I really don't know. I was just about to start baking my croissant flambé cake when the RMS Tiny shuddered, and the flying saucer landed. I went to look for George, but couldn't find him anywhere, so I grabbed Glennis and here we are!”
“Didn't you check his room?” asked Indigo.
“I hadn't thought of that! Let's do that as soon as we've finished escaping.” Aldo turned around and led the CBers out the door of the now swiftly emptying room.
BLEEPBLEEPBLEEPBLEEPBLEEP!!!
The alarm, which had a bit of a cold and so couldn't manage the usual ring, sufficed with a very very loud bleeping noise. The sounds of G.B.s waking up reached the ears of the CBers, and they ran faster.
“The prisoners are escaping! TO ARMS!” came the loud voice of the G.B. captain.
A G.B. guard yelled, “I don't think this is in my job description!”
The captain's voice replied, “That doesn't matter! The prisoners are escaping! The prisoner's are escaping! To arms! To arms!”
“But I was having such a nice nap! I was dreaming that I had destroyed all the puny planets, and that I was the overlord G.B. of them all! And there were marshmallows!” The G.B. guard yelled.
The G.B. captain sighed. “Never mind about that! TO ARMS! TO ARMS!”
“Oh, alright, I'll help. But technically speaking, we haven't got arms. It should be, 'TO FLIPPERS! TO FLIPPERS!'"
“Oh just get on with it! Grab a weapon and stop the prisoners from escaping! TO FLIPPERS! TO FLIPPERS! The prisoners are escaping!”
The G.B.s charged through the corridors, squirming and shouting and fighting among themselves to see who could get the CBers first. Aldo led the CBers onwards. They were in the lead, and were just about to get through the exit port when a G.B. guard managed to wriggle his way out of the sea of writhing flippers and punches.
The G.B. guard raised his gun, and charged. Aldo stopped and turned, charging at the G.B. as the CBers ran towards the exit. Aldo slapped the G.B., who fell to the ground. Aldo ran back to the CBers, but the G.B. guard raised his gun and muttered, “If I'm going down, you're going down!” The gun's ray blasted towards a random CBer.
Indigo turned to see the ray fly through the air. “Maplesyrup!!! NOOOO!!!”
Maplesyrup stumbled, but caught herself in the nick of time and kept running. “It's okay! I'm alright! It missed me by a mile!”
“Oh. That's good,” Curio said.
The CBers were in the lead, ready to jump out the exit port and land safely on my deck. Glennis stopped, turned back, bandaged up the wounded G.B. with hyperspeed, and ran back just in time to jump to my deck with Aldo and the CBers. The fell through the air. SMACK! They hit my deck. That is, everybody hit my deck except for Maplesyrup.
She landed in a conveniently placed open vat of radioactive maple syrup, and dissolved instantly.
“Maplesyrup! NOOOO!” yelled Indigo again, this time with good reason.
“I'll never eat waffles with maple syrup again!” moaned Everinne.
“Oh what a pity, I thought I'd make waffles for breakfast tomorrow. Now I'll have to reconfigure the whole menu!” Aldo sighed.
After a brief session with the holographic psychiatrist, the remaining ten CBers trooped down to George's room. The normally well-lit hallway outside his door was now dark, and filled with signs saying, “KEEP OUT!” and other things like:
“Danger!”
“Bubonic Plague, do not enter under any circumstances!”
“I'm trying to nap here, go away!”
“Warning: High chance of tripping over this sign in the dark!”
“Stay away!”
“Glennis, you should fix the lightbulb!”
The CBers made their way through the maze of signs, until they reached George's door. Bookbug tried the handle. It was locked.
Everinne put her ear against the door and listened. “I don't hear anything... wait! There's something... SHHH! You're breathing really loudly, everyone.” There was a moment of silence as everyone held their breath. Everinne grinned. “It's disco music! George is listening to disco music! This explains everything! He's got Disco Rave. It's an illness sort of like the common cold, but less common and more disco-ey. My cousin had it once, but don't worry, it doesn't last long."
Aldo cheered. “Alright, now that's settled, let's go have the croissant flambe! Oh no! My croissant flambe! It's going to be burnt!”
Rest In Stickiness, Maplesyrup. Rest In Peace.
(April 16, 2015 - 12:43 pm)
Killed in my own specialty? Well played. So we Star Wars fans were on board and we had no clue that George Luca- well, we did know. Curse me not going to get an Autograph!
(April 19, 2015 - 4:46 pm)
Don't worry, the G.B's would have found you anyways. And if they had found you with George Lucas, they might have captured him, too, and then where would we be? We'd have no one to make more Star Wars! And you never know, his autograph might have been written with poison ink...
Sincerely,
The Ominous
P.S. A Friendly Reminder: because of a strange forcefield caused by some unknown part of the RMS Tiny's inner workings, there are no ghosts and what you just said was actually a dream that another of the CBers had. Please feel free for more CBers to have more dreams!
(April 23, 2015 - 11:06 am)