GODSPEED JOHN GLENN posted:

We were whaling in uncharted waters. Four years out and we were running out of time and provisions but our holds were hollow for lack of precious oil. The weather grew still and warm and on those becalmed waters we heard plaintive cries echoing from horizon to horizon. Thinking they might be as yet undiscovered whales for the taking, our lookouts strained their eyes to bursting, but found no purchase in those hazy seas. As days went on, those murky doldrums drove us to the very brink of madness. The thickening haze confused the senses, made us truant in our duties and added hunger to our shrinking bellies. The crying grew. Some of the men said they could glean words from the mournful crying, but our stalwart captain pronounced these as mere humbug. And then, on the eighth day of our captivity the waves began to roil and the young midshipman on the watch screamed that he had spotted land. A volcanic island spewing smoke had appeared two points to starboard and seemed, at first, to be a source of salvation at last from our torment. But such was or folly that the hideous place was befouled with hazardous reefs and hidden shoals and the more we fought the awful current that drew us toward that cursed place, the more our course became true to our doom. I remember before the horrible crack of our keel breaking its spine upon the rocks, that splenetic volcano rose afore our foundering vessel. But what we spied was not a volcano, but belial's own pipe, burning that foul smoke that burned our lungs and beskunked our linens from a sort of chamber on its lee. And as I watched its devils chamber bubble with demonic purpose did I finally too hear the words of that baleful chant.

It has been years now since I, the lone survivor, clawed my tattered weed-rear end upon the shores of byob, but I will never forget the words of that siren's song: "hurf de durf, it's byob time!"