CHAPTER 9: RONALD: ORIGINS

Ronald cleared his throat.  Ronald wet his lips.  Ronald took a sip of his coffee.  Ronald thought for a brief moment about a children’s book he’d written, that had rejected due to unnecessary repetition and redundancy.  Ronald cleared his throat, wet his lips, and put his coffee down.  "My name is Ronald Bellwether.”  He began, “A lifetime ago, I once led a flock of government agencies.  FBI, NSA..."

"RRSP..." Steve mumbled to himself, having gone back to his doodling.

Ronald paused the very briefest of pauses, and then continued like a go-kart after hitting a pylon, "...Dur...ing my...  time with... these various organizations, both shadow and otherwise, it was deemed my responsibility to cover up this country's first contact with a crash-landed alien species, in 1947.

"Oh yes, Roswell’s famous Weather Balloon” Wally rolled his eyes, “how EVER did you come up with such a believable tale...?"

"Well, actually, the alien looked exactly like a weather balloon, and kept commenting on the weather.  It just seemed appropriate.  The point, however, is that I was given the option, after everything simmered down, and he showed us how to make microwave ovens, to go... with him."

"With him."

"Yes."

"You mean, into space."

"Well, that's somewhat like saying you hitchhiked to get onto a road, but... yes."

"So for the record, you're a homeless man wearing a tinfoil hat who's been abducted by aliens."

"I was hardly abducted.  I packed a toothbrush, some chips..."

"My point is, that this is completely unbelievable!"

"Well then I'm not even going to tell you the rest."

"What?  What rest!?"

"Well, I'm on Earth now, aren't I?"

"I think that's debatable." Wally mumbled.

"You're very argumentative."

"You're very smelly!"

"Yes he is.  Are you ready to order yet?" The waitress interrupted.

"What are your specials?" Wally queried, doing a very impressive, albeit unintentional impression of a genetic crossbreed between a mole and a ferret.

"We don't have any specials, but we do have a deep fryer..."  The waitress paused, seeing a woman walking outside with a tiny wiener dog held by a short leash.  "...we..." The waitress continued, obviously having an emotional moment that was completely and utterly lost upon the table of tin-foiled smelly fellows.  “Look, we don't have any specials and I have a wasted life.  Do you need more time?"

"Er...  perhaps just some coffee refills." Ronald suggested.