The Astronaut Farmer

By Tyler Moore

Once upon a time in a quiet little town there lived a rather curious old farmer. He was so curious in fact that every night after eating dinner and doing his chores he would sit out on his porch with his trusty dog Blue and stare inquisitively up into the night sky. One night after a particularly large supper of turkey dumplings, mash potatoes and double helpings of apple pie, he looked up at the moon and wondered. He wondered what life was really like on the moon. What kind of people lived there, what they looked like, and what crops they grew. He even wondered if they liked chocolate ice cream and butterscotch candies as much as he did.
“I know what I’ll do.” The farmer exclaimed to his four legged companion. “I’ll build us a rocketship so we can fly to the moon and see for ourselves.” Blue licked the farmer and wagged his tail excitedly.
Early the next day, before the rooster even began to crow, the farmer set out to build a rocketship that would take them both to the moon.
“We’re gonna need some money, Blue ole boy. Getting to the moon isn’t going to be cheap.” So the farmer and his pooch jumped into the back of their pick up and headed to the bank.
“I’d like to take out all of my money, Mr. Chambers.” The farmer said to the bank manager.
“Sure. But what are you going to do with your life savings, might I ask?”
“Blue and I are going to build a rocketship and fly ourselves to the moon.”
“It’ll never work,” the bank manager said, “you’re nothing but a dreamer. You should save some money just in case it doesn’t work out”
But the farmer didn’t listen and went on his way.
Next they went to the hardware store where he bought a hammer, some nails and as much wood as he could fit in the back of his pick-up truck.
“Whatcha planning on building with all that wood?” The hardware clerk said.
“Blue and I are going to build a rocketship and fly ourselves to the moon.”
“It’ll never work,” the clerk said, “Wood is flammable you are going to need to use metal if you want to do that.”
But the farmer didn’t listen and went on his way.
Back at home the farmer got to work. He worked tirelessly all day long. Hammering BANG BANG BANG, sawing RIRAH RIRAH RIRAH and painting SPLOOSHA SPLOOSHA SPLASHA. Stopping only, of course, to eat some honey soaked peanut butter sandwiches and feed Blue some kibble. After hours and hours of hard work it was finally finished. The farmer sat back and admired his work. It was truly a site to behold.
“Now to make our space suits.” The farmer said as he went about wrapping blue and himself in what seemed like miles of tinfoil. “There. That ought to do it.”
Just then the farmer’s neighbor, an astrophysicist from MIT and his live-in same sex partner, an aeronautical engineer from Cal Tech showed up.
“What’s with the Tinfoil, farmer?” They asked holding back their laughter.
“Blue and I built a rocketship to go to the moon and these are our space suits.”
“It’ll never work.” The two men said as they gently massaged each others upper thighs. “Even if you do get out of the Earth’s atmosphere you need a space suit designed by NASA, not tinfoil. You will surely die.”
But the farmer didn’t listen and went on his way.
The farmer and Blue entered the space ship, made sure they had packed a lunch of rye bread and sweet cream, fired the rocket boosters and away they went.
Up…up…up they went. Faster and faster they flew. They passed the tree tops. They passed the old church steeple on Cragbury Hill. They passed the clouds and the news channel helicopters. And then do you know what happened?

The farmer and Blue died a horrible agonizing death. Upon reaching the Earth’s atmosphere they were burnt to a crisp only moments before suffocating to death. And do you know why?

Because the farmer never listened to people that knew what they were talking about.

THE END

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