Mood: spacey
Frodo admits to the fact that sometimes (okay, all the time) he opens the package and sits the instructions aside. Despite the fact that even laboratory rats learn from unfortunate experience, Frodo refuses to spend valuable time interpreting English written by someone with a revenge motive from the end result of the Second World War. Such was the case when he obtained his first telescope.
"How hard can it be?," said Frodo. "I mean, all you do is insert the lenses, mount the telescope on the stand, and point it in the right direction. How hard can it be?"
That first night, Frodo wisely assessed that a large celestial object, in this case the Moon, would be easiest to find, and then to adjust all the focus. Things seemed to be working on plan, but then Frodo was stunned to find grooves all over the Moon. "I mean," he said, "I thought that the canals were supposed to be on Mars, but there were these walls, very similar to what's being built on the Mexican border, and they were everywhere. I started for the portable telephone, and was looking up the telephone number for NASA when Sam suggested that I might want to look closer before enlisting the services of the federal government.
Reluctantly, Frodo returned to the telescope, moving it slightly to the right. He screamed, "Sam, come look, there's writing."
"Writing? What does it say?"
"It says 'Philadelphis Gas & Light.'"
The streetlight was, to Frodo's dismay, even brighter than the actual celestial object located about ten degrees above the observation point of his telescope. Sam smiled at Frodo and assured him that the boys in Greenwich certainly made similar errors from time-to-time.
This amusing event is recalled because of Frodo's astronomical discovery this past evening. Having learned the location of the Moon, the North Star, the Constellation 'Orion,' and occasionally the planets Mars and Venus, Frodo is much more scientific than in his youthful years. Last evening however, Frodo was startled to find, for the first time, that his new-and-improved telescope had identified the first "black hole" ever visible to an observer based at Lake Lovey, in Tennessee. This area of absolute nothingness was clearly defined in the southwestern sky, just a few degrees above the horizon. Frodo took his time, and examined the entire perimeter until he was personally convinced that what he saw was absolutely devoid of life or any molecular substance.
Having learned his lesson that Sam tended to minimize the significance of his findings, Frodo called his friend "Doctor John," a retired professor from the University, and told him what he had discovered. Thoroughly atwitter, and with a cocktail in hand, "Doctor John" hurried over to the deck outside Frodo's cabin and peered skyward through Frodo's telescope. After several minures, he turned to Frodo and said, "Frodo, you have something here. What we are looking at, as you have stated many times before, is a place where there is no intelligent life."
"What do you mean 'as I have stated many times before'?", queried Frodo.
"Frodo, my friend, from our elevated position, you have sighted the telescope directly on the State of Texas. This 'finding' documents your continuing assertion that the entire area is a 'black hole,' devoid, as you allege, of any reason to ever go there."
Point, game, set. Ain't science grand?