Arthur and Ford's Excellent Adventure

Written by Anakin McFly

To put it simply, Arthur Philip Dent was having a most heinous day. He had woken up with a totally bodacious hangover, something that usually meant that the sufferer had been drinking an unhealthy amount of alcohol the night before. This is, of course, with the notable exception of the galaxy-renowned Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, which has knocked out many an unwary drinker for more than a week. Those less acquainted with this particular factor of the drink usually come to the most obvious conclusion when they wake to discover that several days have mysteriously gone by – they think that they therefore must have, somehow or other, travelled into the future.

It was situations like these which led to rumours of the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster’s supposed ability to act as a time machine, although many fans of the Earth movie trilogy Back to the Future argue, and will continue to argue on websites all around the Internet, that travelling in a DeLorean is a much cooler, and infinitely more dignified, way to travel through time.¹

¹ This claim of theirs occasionally ends up igniting the anger of several fans of the Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure mini-franchise, who insist that phone booth time machines are the best and, in the course of their argument, throw out several well-crafted insults at the Back to the Future trilogy in general. In the case of one such disagreement at the Earth Internet Movie Database website forums, the later posts consisted mainly of the participants taking turns to level insults at the human actors Michael J. Fox and Keanu Reeves. It was at this point that people who were fans of both franchises and/or actors decided to make their leave, with the considerable exception of a certain fan fiction author who spent a good five minutes laughing at the posts and then feeling like a zarking hypocrite.

Arthur Dent, however, had other concerns on his mind at the moment. Most of all, he was trying to remember just what had made him drink enough alcohol to get a hangover, considering that his preferred drink by far was, quite simply, tea. He vaguely remembered being hugely upset about something, but he couldn’t remember what that something was.

Arthur caught a glimpse of yellow on his way to the bathroom.

Hey, there’s something yellow outside my window, dude, he thought, and went on inside his bathroom where he saw another glint of yellow reflected on his shaving mirror.

Hey dude, yellow again, he thought, then finished what he had to do and trudged out of his bathroom.

It was some time after that that the word ‘bulldozer’ floated through his mind and connected with the words ‘yellow’ and ‘house’.

Seconds later, Arthur Dent found himself lying in the mud in front of a yellow bulldozer intent on obliterating his humble abode.

The person in charge of this bulldozer and all the rest – yellow ones – was Mr. L. Prosser, a straight-line male descendant of that famous dead Mongolian dude named Genghis Khan. It was his goal that day to see Arthur’s house wiped off the face of the Earth, but with Arthur lying there and all, Mr. Prosser was feeling most righteously mad.

“Get off the ground, dude!” he demanded.

Arthur scowled. “Why?”

“Because I want to knock your house down,” Prosser stated matter-of-factly, which was a statement that was already pretty obvious, in view of the fact that Arthur’s house was currently in the shadow of more than enough bulldozers to knock down the Great Wall of China.

“Dude, that is most unexcellent,” Arthur said.

“Too bad, dude,” came the reply. “But the swimming pool has got to be built, and you know it.”

“But I like my house, dude!” Arthur protested. “It’s got a roof and walls and everything…”

“It’ll be a nice swimming pool.”

“I still don’t see why you need to build one.”

Prosser hesitated for a moment, then decided that he might just as well tell Arthur the truth. “Well… because I’ve got new swimwear, and I want to show it off!” With sudden confidence, Mr. Prosser dug into his pocket and emerged with bright pink swimming trunks dotted with neon green and purple pictures of Barney the Dinosaur.

The scowl vanished from Arthur’s face and was replaced by a look of absolute wonder with a tinge of envy. “Whoa,” he said.

Mr. Prosser gave a shy grin.

“Will you let me try them on, dude?” Arthur asked.

“Sure!” Prosser stuck his swimwear back into his pocket. “So you’ll get out of the mud and let me knock down your house to build the swimming pool?”

“Yeah!” agreed Arthur, jumping to his feet with a squelch.

“EXCELLENT!” exclaimed Mr. Prosser, grinning widely from ear to ear.

Arthur smiled at him, then recognised a familiar figure approaching and waved. “Hey, Ford! How’s it goin’, dude?”

Ford shook his head as he came up to them. “Most not excellent, dude. The world’s going to be destroyed in twelve minutes.”

“Bogus,” sighed Arthur.

Prosser’s face fell. “So… so you mean I’ll never get to try out my new swimming trunks?”

“That’s right,” Ford said.

“Bogus,” Prosser sighed, then burst into loud sobs.

“Hey, tell you what, dude,” Ford said. “Why don’t you go and lie in the mud instead? It’s wet enough, so you can imagine that it’s a swimming pool!”

Mr. Prosser stopped crying. “Yeah!” he said, stripping off his clothes in a way that made all the Prosser/Arthur/Ford slash writers squeal with glee. Clad in shocking pink swimming trunks, Prosser then dived into the mud.

Ford put a hand on Arthur’s shoulder and steered him away from the sight of a grown man in pink swimwear whooping in joy as he splashed in the mud. “Come on, Arthur,” Ford said. “Let’s go, dude.”

“Where?”

“To the pub, dude.”

“Oh. Okay.”

The two of them strolled off to the nearby pub, where Ford ordered a round of drinks and dumped several of them in front of Arthur.

“Drink up, dude.”

Arthur stared at him. “But I’m not thirsty.”

Ford shrugged. “Okay then, I’ll drink them.” He scooped up the glasses of beer, moved them in front of him, and proceeded to gulp down one after the other as Arthur watched.

Ford took out his towel and let it finish of the rest of the drinks.

“Okay, dude,” he said to Arthur. “What would you say if I told you that I wasn’t from Earth, but a most triumphant planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse?”

“I’d say you were most egregiously drunk,” came Arthur’s reply.

“Hic,” said Ford’s towel. Ford patted it, and the towel bobbed floopily in the glass of beer.

“Well,” said Ford, “I’m not from Earth, but a most triumphant planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse.”

Arthur shook his head in despair. “You’re most egregiously drunk, dude.”

“I won’t say you’re wrong there, dude,” Ford admitted, “but I am. And this planet’s about to be most heinously destroyed in a few minutes time.”

“Hic,” said Ford’s towel. Ford whacked it to shut it up, and his towel whimpered.

“Yeah, you told me that already, dude,” Arthur said. “But why’s this planet got to be destroyed?”

Ford grinned in a slightly drunk way, an amazing feat considering that he was way more than only slightly drunk. “Because the Vogons want to build a galactic swimming pool, and this planet is in the way. They’ve got these really excellent swimming suits, see, and they can’t wait to try them out! In fact…” Ford dug around in his satchel and took out something that looked very creepy and very pink – a Vogon swimming suit dotted with neon green and purple pictures of Barney the Dinovogon. “I’ve got one too, dude!”

“Uh-huh,” said Arthur, rather taken aback by the pinkness of it all.

“Yeah,” said Ford. “Most excellent, huh?” He turned to the other people in the pub. “Hey, dudes! The Earth’s about to be most heinously destroyed! Drink up!” He dumped a load of coins in front of the stunned bartender. “It’s all on me, dude. Give these dudes some drinks. The world’s about to end.”

The stunned bartender tried unsuccessfully to look less stunned. “Dude… is that true?”

“Yep,” said Ford.

“Is there… is there anything we can do about it? Like hide under a table or something, dude?”

“Yeah, you could do that.”

“Will it help?” asked a customer.

Ford pondered this for a moment. Then, “No, not really,” he said, and picked up his beer-drenched towel. “Come on, Arthur. Let’s get out of here.”

“Where are we going, dude?”

“Out of here.”

“Hic,” said Ford’s towel.

And just as they left the pub, several large shadows fell over the Earth, covering its surface with darkness.

Bogus, thought Arthur. I have a bad feeling about this.

To Be Continued...

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