Thursday, November 20, 2008

Oh! Awwwww.

I'm sure many people have heard of the astronaut who lost a tool bag in space the other day



but I just wanted to say, the more I think about it the funnier it becomes.


Observe: You train your entire life. You run miles and miles, sit through hours of meetings, throw up in planes, build up your resistance to G-forces. You're constantly studying and are forced to open every aspect of your life like a book. You are probed and poked and interrogated. You're given simulations and scenarios and you struggle through them a thousand times. You learn to love Tang and powdered ice cream. Then one day you fly up into space and walk out into the dazzling light with your trusty tool bag. You turn around for one second--ONE SECOND--to wipe up a dab of grease and ZAP! Your tool bag wanders off into orbit and you've just blown the first and maybe only mission of your little astronaut life. Within a few hours people on earth are laughing and shaking their heads and leaning back in their swivel chairs to ask their cubemates if they heard about that astronaut who flubbed the spacewalk and sent her wrench set on the slow train to Alpha Centari. Every Jim, Frank and John is walking around sneering to their friends and saying, "Geez, well they could have sent me up. I'm no 'astronaut,' but I could have probably tied up my tools. You know?"


Sorry, nice astronaut lady. It could have happened to anyone.

7 comments:

Emily said...

If your dad were an astronaut, this definetly would NOT have happened.

Ming said...

Poor little astronaut woman. At least when people ask her what she does she still gets to say, "I'm an astronaut." I mean that's pretty awesome.

Robin said...

I just hope that tool kit doesn't re-enter the atmosphere and bonk me on the head.

DC Diva said...

We're missing the best part here people. Next time the team is going to test a contraption "that converts urine and sweat into drinkable water." What?? WHAT!? Are they astronauts or Bear Grylls? This (and this alone) is why I am NOT an astronaut. Oh, and maybe b/c I drop stuff all the time.

Sally said...

I like your take on this. I'll take humor wherever I can find it.

Lauren said...

You Joe, I would trust not to loose your tools in orbit. And I am sure they were not just wrenches and screwdrivers. OOPS

Linda Austin Hart said...

Alan leaves his tools all over the house, yard, hillside, and a week ago he almost cut his finger off. The latter event being only a few short months after the healing of his face, chest, shoulders, and hands, the result of taking "that dog," on a leash, for a run down the driveway with him on his bike. Dog got running too fast, and of course when Alan squeezed the handbrake, dog kept on running, leash attached to Alan's wrist, with Alan flying over his handlebars, hitting the asphalt with apparent speed, and tearing off a goodly amount of flesh.
Oh yeah, and last year he almost cut the same finger, on his other hand, off with his chainsaw. But that's another story.
He would definitely lose his tools, and probably a finger, in space.
It's a miracle he's alive, and as handsome as he is.