THINGS YOU PROBABLY WON'T FIND ON MARS

Or, please refer to page 42 of "The Unconventional Guide to Life, the Universe & Everything"

Well, I suppose we should all be "happier than a pig in a poke". Why? Well 2004 marks the first time a man-made object has landed on Mars. Let's see, at last count there were at least two charming little robots (from the Land of Stars and Stripes naturally) putzing about the surface of the "Red Planet".

And, if I'm not mistaken, Mars is also home to some space junk including two deader-than-a-doornail non-entities (hailing from somewhere that shall remain nameless). At last report, the Dudley-Do-Little-Devices crash-landed who knows where on the Red Planet.

Since we haven't located the "Lost and Found" on Mars yet, we haven't got a clue if the devices are lost or whether they're just hiding. Since no Martians turned up to greet us let alone give us the coordinates of the Lost & Found, the voyageurs from Earth have been caught between a rock and a hard place as it were. Okay, so maybe the Martians were busy the day we arrived, or possibly they lost their maps to the Lost & Found. Oh well, no matter, who cares ... onto more pressing news.

After the first televised glimpse of the Mars landscape, to tell you the truth, my mind began to ponder and then it wandered off on a very long tangent. That often happens when it's been a slow news day, a sluggish news week or sometimes even a slothful news month.

I don't know about you, but frankly I got a tad bored looking at red rocks (on the bottom of a crater floor), more rusty rocks (on the frigging flatlands) and a black void of nothingness as far as the eye could see. Let's face it... unless you're really into red rocks, there's not a whole lot going for for Mars.

So, where's the "Red Dwarf"? That's what I want to know. After all, why did man set out on this galactic adventure if he didn't have a mission to find the little fellow. (Shy you say, well I'd say he's probably just tucked away somewhere in this color-coordinated place ...you would think.)

After pondering and even more pondering (because I had nothing pressing on my never-ending "to-do" list), I began to think of things you might find on Mars. The list was really short. So I came up with something better, "things you probably won't find on Mars".

Here are a few things I came up with in the ten minutes allocated to this priority task, (ranked no. 13 on my "to-do" list today). Now remember, it's neither a definitive nor an exhaustive list...but it's a good first attempt.

By the way, feel free to add to my list if you want. After all, it's not like there's someone out there with a franchise on the truth who's going to tell you, you're wrong. Trust me on this one! So why not toss your togs and your thinking cap along your blessed beliefs. Now listen up... join the other tikes in the sandbox...wiggle your toes ... and let go your nightmares for pete's sake!


** Waterclosets, Loos and Tinkle-Pantries. (Since there's no H2O here to make them work, there's not a lot of demand for them. The bad news is visitors will have to wear bloopy space suits equipped with compact wonder-waste baggies around their navels. So, suck it up all you Trekkies! Oh, and by the way, who said Mars was a five-star destination resort anyway?)

** Spinach, beans, and green garbage bags. (That means you won't find Popeye, the Jolly Green Giant or the Man from Glad. Now isn't that a relief!)

** Wal-Mart, Home-Depot, and the Golden Arches. (They're still scrapping over who gets to play "King of the Castle" back on Earth and besides, they really don't give a sweet tweet about a vertically-challenged dude named "Red Dwarf" or a bunch of red rocks for that matter.)

**Trees. (Okay, so there's no low-hanging fruit let alone a place for money to grow on. Not good news for award-winning fruitcake-makers or whackers of the world who want to chop things down and make stuff like toothpicks, chopsticks and ready-to-assemble doll-house furniture.)

**Monarchs, Misfits and Mystics. (Without throne rooms, monarchs won't have a place to sit upon; no bars or slot machines means that hustlers and lounge lizards won't have a place to meet and greet; and in the absence of live bait, mystics won't be able to win friends and influence lost souls. Sometimes life just sucks, especially if one lives on Mars!)

**Perfectly Normal Beasts. (Large, spotted, charging sort of succulent, sweet-flavored, tender hoofed animals that are safe to skewer over a barbecue; a cross between a cow, a bull and a kind of buffalo -- only hairless, you know the ones that gallump and grovel about on the back nine in the springtime and then disappear into the sunset in the fall. Don't ask me why they do that, they just do.)

** Women from Venus. (Without any men on Mars, there’s not a hope in hell that any women from Venus would be dumb enough to waste a trip to a pathetic planet full of red rocks ruled by a duffus named “Red Dwarf”.)

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For further information on the elusive "Red Dwarf" please check out: http://www.reddwarf.co.uk

For all manner of important, significant and really vital stuff you should know, please refer to the "Unconventional Guide to Life, the Universe & Everything" at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/