The 2am thread

“Do you know,” says the engineer at the bar, “how much damage air does to a spaceship?”

I shake my head. Honestly, I don’t know why I was listening at all. Fourteen other seats at the bar and this lackwit has to come sit next to me. Said I needed company. Because that’s exactly why I’m sitting here and drinking my fucking brains out, isn’t it: to make lasting and valuable friendships with people from all walks of life. Why didn’t I see it before? Truly the next brilliant mind of his age, this guy.

“Now your usual ship’s engineer, they want to breathe as well as work, they want giant hangars filled with air, they want stupidly huge doors to keep that air in and they want stupidly huge pumps to move that air in and out.” He’s gesturing like a fucking inflatable tube man; he’s going to knock his drink over in a second if he’s not careful. “What they don’t understand is that these ships aren’t made for oxygen, not on the outside anyway. Rust gets everywhere - everywhere! - and all because station-bound mechanics can’t muster up the balls to get in a suit and work in space, like how real humans do it.”

I don’t bother mentioning that real humans were never meant to go to space.