Beans for Breakfast

I put the finishing touches to my rocket this morning and took a quick trip to the moon. I didn’t have a spacesuit with me, so when I got there I just looked out the window. Re-entry was pretty sweaty, so I took a shower after I’d re-oriented myself to the Earth’s strong gravity. When I got out of the shower I had eleven messages on my voicemail – I guess word of my moon-landing got out pretty quickly. About half of the messages were from reporters, I deleted those immediately. The most interesting of the remaining messages was from Al Gore, he said he wanted to talk to me. I called him back and suggested that we go out for lunch. He agreed and asked if I knew of any good Mexican restaurants. I asked him if he knew where Taqueria Express was. He said no, so I gave him directions. I headed out right away, Al Gore was already there when I arrived. He looked at the menu and asked if I had any suggestions. I said that the cheese enchiladas were good, but he ordered the chicken enchiladas instead. I was a little confused when he congratulated me – I couldn’t figure out why until I remembered the moon-landing. I thanked him. I asked him why he’d shaved the beard and he said he was just tired of it already. He asked me what I was going to do next and I told him that I was thinking of taking the rocket to Mars tomorrow. He nodded and helped himself to a tortilla chip. I noticed that his eyes were watering a little, he told me that was because he wasn’t used to salsa that was so spicy. I asked him if he knew where I could get a spacesuit for my trip tomorrow. (I’d like to get out and stretch my legs after I land. Mars is a lot farther away than the moon.) He said that he wasn’t sure. I reached for my wallet after we finished, but Al Gore said, “No, no. That’s on me.” I noticed that the tip he’d left wasn’t very big, so I surreptitiously added a couple of dollars (I hope he didn’t notice).