Be it now and forever known that I love frou frou caffeinated beverages. Plain old coffee leaves me cold, but, if you make it extra strong, add milk and the occasional caramel flavoring, I will be your devoted servant for as long as it takes me to finish said cup of goodness.
In lieu of someone graciously giving me a cup of divine nectar, I will make my own. I happened in to the possession of a very special Cappuccino machine once owned by Benito Mussolini and was one of the first such machines ever made. It was given to the ill-fated dictator on his 54th birthday by a mid-ranking German official named Helmut Kastner. I will note, primarily as a historical anecdote, that Herr Kastner was killed some months later by Goat that had eaten Herr Kastner's entire store of Espresso Beans. The fact that Mussolini himself also met with a gruesome fate should not reflect poorly on the Cappuccino Machine. The machine is damned for a completely different reason.
I was on my way to Seattle Washington, more specifically May 23rd, 1973 the date Bill Gates graduated from High School. He would grow up to become a businessman of some note on Earth, but that isn't really important. I was after his Adirondack chair, and since everyone was off attending his graduation, this was the perfect time for me to snag it. It wasn't just any Adirondack chair, it was a Wesport Chair made by Harry Bunnell. Now this chair may be of little consequence to every other being in the known and unknown universes, but to me it was vitally important. I did not have one and that was unacceptable. In a few years, Mister Gates would be more than able to purchase another one. No harm, no foul.
As Narinne and I traveled gently through the vortex I decided to make a nice Cappuccino while I read "Parsing the New Economic Model". I happened upon this article while acquiring an aquarium from a dentist's office in Schenectady New York sometime in 2012. The Cappuccino machine purred quietly in the background for a couple of minutes before it exploded.
I was not expecting an explosion of such force, all right, I wasn't expecting an explosion AT ALL.
There was froth everywhere and my favorite Rolling Stones T-Shirt was completely ruined! And Narinne...she was unhappy. I grabbed a towel and started wiping her down as froth was beginning to seep into her Gravitic Anomalizer.
As I finished cleaning up the foamy mess inside my console room Narinne's engines powered down and the main doors opened.
I could tell immediately that this was not Bill Gates' back yard.
The grass was pink, the sky was a violent shade of green and there was what appeared to be a brigade of heavily armed three headed wombats headed my way. All said, my situation could have been worse. Still, I was not where I wanted to be and the wombats looked mightily annoyed.
I closed the doors and entered the coordinates of my desired destination. Narinne did not respond.
"Naider's Balls Narinne, work with me please."
"My name is Ned."
I stopped what I was doing and thought perhaps I should have a drink. My TTC has never actually spoken aloud to me and if she had, it would not have been in the voice of Dennis Haysbert, the American actor that does all of those insurance commercials and I honestly doubted that I was in good hands at that moment.
I swallowed hard. "Ned."
"Yes, Collector." It answered.
"Might I ask what happened to Narinne?"
"Narinne is me."
"But, you're Ned." None of this was making sense to me.
"I have always been Ned. I have always wanted to be Ned."
Apparently Cappuccino is a helluva drug.
It was at this time that the brigade of irritated three headed wombats started hurling themselves bodily against the exterior of my newly maled TTC. Why they didn't use their weapons was beyond me at that point but something I would muse upon later over a nice cup of....dammit!
"Okay Ned," I would play along. "We should probably leave. I was going to Seattle."
"I know, Collector, but stealing is wrong."
"Ned, now is not the time!" I snapped.
Upon reflection, yelling at my TTC at that specific point in our relationship was not the best choice I could have made. He fired up his engines, dematerialized and rematerialized a moment later inside the maximum security prison complex on Tsaderil Prime.
"I have a delivery for Warden Bong." His voice boomed as the main doors opened again and I was unceremoniously dumped out of my MY TARDIS and on to the slithering floor of Cell 27.
Ned dematerialized in front of my eyes as I heard slow squishing footfalls approaching my cell.
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