CHAPTER 28b: (its his name because that's what people yell when he goes in their ear)

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Prison cells are, by design, somewhat cramped.  This works quite well on Earth, and other, similar planets where their main sentient life form is all the same basic size and shape.  (With exception to those folks you see on daytime talk shows who end up having to be surgically removed from their sitting and/or viewing apparatus)

Galacticop prisons, on the other hand, had always had a hard time with creating individually tailored cells which excelled in the area of cramping, due to the infinite plethora of species that they were often in charge of incarcerating.  That is, until they re-discovered shrinking technology.

It had to be re-discovered, because, at one point, the whole idea of shrinking things was banned.

The Shrink-Everything-So-It’s-Smaller-and-Easier-To-Fit-Into-Small-Places-Machine, or SESISETFISPM (Seii-sees-eht-fihsp-uhm) was a brilliant Glorkian invention that made everything the size of a reduced-price brick of Gark-cheese one might find at the local deli. 

It was later realized, however, that this counted as an enlargement for some species, especially considering that one could fit several Earth-shopping centers into a locally grown Glorkian cheese-biscuit, and the company responsible for this undisclaimered oversight was sued into bankruptcy after several cheese-brick-sized bacteria went on a rather bloody, flesh and eventually planet-devouring rampage.

On a related note, Gark-cheese manufacturers also went out of business, simply due to the cataclysmic reference.  Which was really too bad, because it’s quite good.

Regardless, it was many years before anyone even brought it up at the local science café.  And many years after that before a new device was created. 

The Shrink-To-A-Box was a far more igneous version of the SESISETFISPM, in that it had less letters in its acronym, and was customizable so that whoever was using it, simply had to have a box in which to put his desired object.  The theory being that most planets didn’t have boxes big enough to hold things that were too big for the planet.  (Though it did come with a disclaimer, on the odd chance someone figured out how to be stupid enough to do it)

It was the STAB that the Galacticops utilized in their facilities.  Not only did it make storage easy, uniform, and simple, but it made escape attempts often foilable by a well-placed shoe, had a cool-sounding, easy to pronounce acronym, and provided jobs for talented, if tiny folks, such as GAAAAGH!!!! GAAAAGH!! AAAAAHGH!! GRAAARK-kkkkkhhhh….