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The Birthday Party

Author - Distracted | B | Genre - Challenge: Sincerest Form of Flattery | Genre - Humor | Rating - G | T
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The Birthday Party

By Distracted

Rating: G
Disclaimer: None of it’s mine, not even the plot.
Genre: “Sincerest Form of Flattery Challenge”, humor
Summary: Okay. So this one’s a direct steal. I couldn’t help it. Once I got the idea, Trip wouldn’t leave me alone until I wrote the darned thing.


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When Charles Tucker the Third, better known as “Grampa” to every young person under the age of twelve standard years in the local community for reasons inexplicable to every adult in the vicinity, announced that he would shortly be celebrating his one-hundredth birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was general consternation and puzzlement in the small village of Shi’Mek.

Tucker was very wealthy and extremely peculiar, but this was expected of a human and not generally remarked upon in polite company. His mate, the Lady T’Pol, had served as the village’s local congressional representative for nearly three decades. Her years of service to the community were usually considered sufficient justification for ignoring her spouse’s occasional lapses in socially acceptable behavior. In this instance, however, because the well-preserved human had sent invitations only to the young people of the community, being very publicly and most verbally of the opinion that “only Vulcan kids have any idea of how to throw a good party”, the adults were quite understandably concerned over the potential detrimental effect that the human might have on their children’s developing young minds. The children, on the other hand, were all very excited over the prospect of a genuine human style “birthday party”, and enthusiastically volunteered their services.

The most stalwart of Tucker’s group of admirers was a boy named Sarek, all of five standard years of age and much admired by his peers for his uncanny ability to get into trouble. By a week before the scheduled festivities, he’d already spread rumors of exotic things such as “fireworks”… small confined explosions deliberately set off for the sole purpose of creating esthetically pleasing patterns of lights in the night sky… and a “piñata”… an apparently violent and atavistic practice involving pummeling an artificially constructed animal until it fell to pieces and discharged its artificial entrails, traditionally composed of edible substances of questionable nutritional value. There would also be, according to the children’s efficient rumor mill, enormous amounts of an entirely sucrose based confection called “birthday cake”, and volumes of an imported frozen confection called “ice cream”… both made from soy beverage rather than animal products to avoid offending anyone’s delicate sensibilities.


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A mere twenty-four standard hours before the greatly anticipated event, Tucker was in the courtyard of the home he shared with his mate, sitting with her looking out over the rock strewn plain that stretched behind the main house. The suns were just beginning to set, and the late evening winds blew the fine sand into intricate patterns on the dunes.

“I will miss the beauty of this desert,” remarked T’Pol. “I am told that there is nothing that can compare to it anywhere else in the known universe.”

Tucker smiled at her solemn expression. His hair was sparse and white, his skin leathery and wrinkled from years of exposure to the blazing suns of his wife’s homeworld, but his smile remained the same. T’Pol, for her part, was grey at the temples and had a few more of what her mate ironically referred to as “laugh lines”, but her frame remained straight, slim, and strong.

“Yeah,” he replied. “I’m very fond of it… of the whole village, actually… but I think I need a vacation.”

“You’re certain about the plan, then?”

“I am. You?”

She reached out and interlaced her fingers with his. “I am,” she confirmed.

He squeezed back and grinned at her. “It’ll be a terrific joke, anyway… don’t you think?”

She raised a brow. Her expression revealed her opinion about the likely outcome of attempting to play a “joke” on Vulcans. “If you say so, husband,” she replied blandly.


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There were only about thirty children under the age of twelve standard years in the entire village, due primarily to the uniquely Vulcan habit of having only one child every seven years, but the courtyard of the Tucker home was much more crowded than expected the following evening. No self-respecting Vulcan parent would allow their impressionable child to attend the gathering without appropriate supervision. For that reason, once all the invited guests had arrived, the festivities resembled a performance with an audience… a most solemn audience… much more than they resembled an actual party, at least until the guest of honor arrived. He exited the house with a broad smile on his face, wearing a conical hat made of metallic gold paper on his head and blowing on a device which coiled and uncoiled like a rock lizard’s tongue and made a most appalling noise. He passed hats and blowers out to the children, who, after token looks toward their parents, began blowing most enthusiastically. A few of the parents actually put their hands over their ears. Following the expenditure of tremendous amounts of excess energy enthusiastically destroying a paper mache sehlat with a stick while blindfolded, the children were re-energized with the candy that fell to the ground. Their parents were careful to check the wrappings of the candy before allowing their children to consume items which had recently been in contact with the stones of the courtyard. This small dose of sweetness would not be the only source of sucrose for the evening, however.

After a human style lesson on the fine points of the “Happy Birthday Song”, the long awaited birthday cake, complete with a veritable forest fire of candles, was brought out by the local congressional representative to enthusiastic applause prompted by the birthday boy himself. Tucker’s lung capacity proved inadequate to the challenge, and several of the younger children assisted with fire control measures. The juiciness of their attempts didn’t seem to deter the other children, although it was noted that the pieces of cake which were later distributed to the adults largely went uneaten. As the children filled their bellies, Tucker stepped out of the courtyard to the fireworks display. He bent to the fuses, lit them rapidly, and stepped back into the courtyard. When the first sparkle appeared in the sky, and the first “crack” caused every head to turn, he smiled. He spent the entire five minutes of his carefully orchestrated explosive display watching the faces of the children rather than the sky. Their jaws hung open. Some of the adults even looked mildly entertained. Following the last explosion, Tucker stood at the head of the table.

“Is everyone having a good time?” he asked the children with irrepressible enthusiasm. The children, high on sugar and overloaded with excitement, didn’t spare a single glance toward their parents before chorusing in the affirmative at high volume.

“I certainly am!” he continued. “I just want to say a few words, though…” A few of the children shouted, “Story! Story!” Tucker, you see, was famed for his stories. He smiled and shook his head. “It’s late, and I just wanted to tell all of you how much I have enjoyed being a part of this community for all these years… but as you can see, humans don’t last quite as long as Vulcans, and I’m kinda overdue for an overhaul…” He turned to T’Pol and extended two fingers. She reached out and made contact.

“This is my public announcement of retirement from public service,” she said in a firm voice. A murmur of consternation went through the crowd. Her eyes remained fixed on her husband’s.

“You’ll find everything in order with our executor,” continued Tucker rather ominously. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of armbands. “I wish to make an announcement,” he said as he handed one to his mate and placed the other around his forearm. She put hers on as well. “I regret to announce that, although over seventy years is much too short a time to be among you, this is the end. We are going. Goodbye!” Then he reached to his forearm simultaneously with his mate, and they both vanished into thin air. No haziness. No transporter whine. They were just… gone.

Everyone in the courtyard stood looking at the place where the two of them had been with their mouths open. Even the adults displayed a positively unseemly amount of emotion. It was, considering the audience, a most spectacularly successful practical joke, and they all had Agent Daniels to thank for it. Tucker even managed to find reference to the event in the year 3156, once the rejuvenation treatments widely available in that time had restored his ability to read the exasperatingly tiny print on the library padd his mate had bought him for his birthday.


End


If you want to know which author Distracted was imitating, check out the "Sincerest Form of Flattery" Challenge: Author List


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A whole mess of folks have made comments

I was wondering if someone would get around to JRRT.

Trip as Bilbo. Oboy. ROFLMAO.

Boy, you folks are GOOD. It took me all day with several clues before I finally guessed it. I suppose I just don't read enough.

I love these descriptions of human behaviors and traditions. It does have a way of making it all seem rather silly, doesn't it? The whole pinata thing really is a bit bizarre. "artificial entrails" LOL! I must admit that I never thought of it in quite that way. Very amusing little story.

Really? I caught this one right away. But then again, Tolkein is one of the few on the list that I've read anything of (at least that I can remember - and I don't forget much)! Excellent as always, Distracted, and I reeeeeeeeeeally can't wait for more! :)

I guess it WAS pretty obvious, at that.

MORE, Windrider? *panting with exhaustion... of the imagination* Do you have any idea how hard it is to come up with ideas for these things? Why don't YOU try one? I wanna guess for a change! : D

Good story. But I hope you all continue to speak to me after I admit . . . I've never read Tolkein . . . because I don't like fantasy . . . *Ducks behind a rock*

(Hey, I like realistic stories, like Star Trek!)

Another great one - thanks, Distracted!!

Wait a minute! Tolkien IS realistic... except for the wizards and the elves and the orcs and the ents and the hobbits and... well, okay.

His character interactions are nice, at any rate. Go watch the movies. They're pretty. *rolls eyes*

Well, none of these are obvious to me. I'm not much for this type of stuff either, justTrip'n. Too many scary creatures. I'd have nightmares for months.

It's been a while since I read Tolkien (I really should get around to finishing the trilogy, but I got bogged down in Real Life), and it took me until Trip set off the fireworks to figure it out. Then it all made sense...the plot is pretty much a giveaway. Your sentences are very Tolkienesque in structure and sentiment. Nicely done!

I watched a section of the movie, but there were walking and talking trees . . . *using my whiney voice*

Those were ENTS, dear.... not trees. They are ancient mythical creatures who take weeks to decide whether to scratch their noses or not. (Never were MY favorite characters, either.) Try the scenes between Arwen and Aragorn instead... oh yeah... you don't like romance. Hmmm. The orc battle scenes are nice and bloody. Full of all the nastily realistic hacking and gunching your heart could possibly desire. ; )

hahahah. As I read along ... i thought my this seems familiar... and it was! Well done.

yes the TRRR movies are quite pretty... *sigh* those lovely men :-D

I adored the Ents in verse and image. Totally cool to see childhood mental pictures brought to life so incredibly well.

Great story sharing as always.

Tracy-TheEverPresnetNaggingOne

Heh. You were thinking about me when you mentioned the fight scenes, weren't ya, Distracted? The cavalry charge of Pelennor Fields ("Death!") or the defense of Helm's Deep or ... mmmmm ... sheer buttkicking bliss.

Good imitation, by the way. I'm one of those people who actually found the books kinda boring. The story was great but his writing style irked me.

Your math is off though. Sarek is 5? He was born in 2162 so that would be 2167 ... and Trip would only be ~46 at that point. Thus ends my canon fiend moment... :-D

Sorry, Rigil. Didn't even look it up... just threw him in there for color. It's AU, after all. Maybe it's another Sarek, hmmmm?

And... I'm not sure how to take the fact that you said you think the story is a "good imitation", and in the same sentence said that you found the books "kinda boring". Hmmm. Guess that's good, since I always thought his writing was a little boring in spots, too, but I did my best to imitate the style anyway. ; D

BTW... if you think LOTR was boring, try reading "The Silmarillion". I've owned it for years but I've never managed to finish it. I go crosseyed after the first couple of pages and have to give up. : D

Uck! You people will be the death of me! =D

I read LOTR in like 3 days cuz I was so into it, and then the Hobbit, and then The Silmarillion (which I L-O-V-E-D! but I'm a history buff and it's written a bit like that so maybe that has something to do with it). I also read Tales from the Perilous Realm and The Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle Earth (other additions to the whole ME world). I started the first of the 12 books of the history of middle earth but IT was pretty boring. And it was a really early edition of Tolkien's writing so the elves were faeries and all kinds of other weird crap. It was hard to follow.

Anyway! I loved it and I was surprised, as obvious as it was, that even I picked up on it right away. I'm just not too good at being on the recieving end of this challenge ;)

I don't think it matters that Sarek's age doesn't hash out, it was fun anyway.

Just out of curiosity, did you intend to imply that Trip had lived at least to the year 3156 due to rejuvenation therapies? Or did I misread that and he just got some padd from Daniels from that era?

Btw, there were a few more verbose lines that Bilbo had that you could have thrown in!

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve!" (Vulcan eyebrows)

The History of Middle Earth is really only interesting if you want to see how the world that JRRT created evolved over the years. It's simply amazing to me to see how much of the fundamentals were there as early as prior to WWI. To think LOTR was not published until four decades later and Silmarillion was not published until after his death is staggering.

What was wrong with Ents? They had a battle scene too, remember? At least in the book.

"Though Isengard be ringed and barred with walls of stone,
Though Isengard be tall and hard, as cold as stone and bare as bone,
We go, we go, we go to war,
To hew the stone and break the door."

When the Ents ripped down the stone walls around Isengard with with their bare hands and drove Saruman from his tower? What was wrong with that battle?

"Just out of curiosity, did you intend to imply that Trip had lived at least to the year 3156 due to rejuvenation therapies? Or did I misread that and he just got some padd from Daniels from that era?"

John, my intent was to imply that TnT traveled to the future using armbands that Daniels gave them (Sorry, not canon. The armbands are in my Paradox stories. I call them "temporal stabilizers") so Trip could get his "overhaul", and stayed there for easy access to rejuvenative technologies that would allow Trip to live and be healthy much longer than the average human... my way of solving the Vulcan/Human survival differential our favorite couple is plagued with.

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve!" (Vulcan eyebrows)

I seriously considered it, but it sounded too snide for our sweet boy.

And BnB... there's nothing wrong with Ents. I've just always been rather underwhelmed by the idea of a bunch of talking trees. I like elves MUCH better... especially elves that look like Orlando Bloom. : D

So who is going to do Twain?

Go for it, BnB!

NO. No way. I was just wondering who might be up for it.

Twain? Not it!

This was great! I love your author stories. Your creativity it truly impressive.