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![[IMAGE]](http://mfinley.com/gif/finley.gif)
Michael Finley is co-author with Harvey Robbins of THE NEW WHY TEAMS DON'T WORK.Visit Michael Finley at his home page, or e-mail him at mfinley@mfinley.com
Greetings from the Cold Reaches of Space
by Michael Finley
Copyright © 1997 by Michael Finley
Mom and dad and everybody dear,
I greet you from the upper stratosphere.
Space is cold and infinitely black,
And I think I misplaced my ticket back.
I've been on board for seven months.
And haven't used the bathroom once.
I really liked my walk in space;
Too bad I forgot my keys to the place.
I banged and pounded fore and aft,
The cosmonauts just pointed and laughed.
They really love their practical jokes,
I especially enjoyed the alien hoax.
It was just Vasili, wrapped in foil
And drooling in the command module.
I wish they read their manuals. Instead
They pore over "Archie and Jughead."
I assumed they weren't ready for Mensa
Until I discovered that duh was da.
But now my Russian's getting better --
Today we chatted about the weather,
Which doesn't change too much up here.
We picnicked on baked beans and beer.
I recommend the ambiance there,
If you can forego the food and air.
The heater works about half the time.
The refrigerator is full of slime --
An experiment that got out of hand,
Germ samples marked Do Not Let Stand
That I overlooked. Now I'm looking over
A streptococci we named Grover.
We taught him how to give a Bronx cheer.
Who says we've got no culture here?
The computers haven't worked in weeks,
They're a pair of old Soviet antiques,
DOS-based, with a font called Cyrillic
And a curly black electrical umbilicum.
Shutting down a computer's motherboard
In orbit is easy if you trip over the cord,
Which Vasily did, en route to the head,
Rendering the entire solar braindead.
We knew in a flash we had to go to work,
Changing our space suits in the dark.
After plotting reprisals against Vasili
We had to dial tech support manually,
For half an hour we listened, holding,
Dulled by a ballad by Michael Bolton.
A voice came on, and when I explained
The dark, the cold, the smell, the pain,
All our myriad technological maladies,
said support was closed for the holidays.
And so we sit like a broken-down wagon,
Our fuel low, our spirits flagging.
Gazing out the pod-bay window,
We gaze at our home rotating below.
The world's a blue-green, turning, map.
There's New Jersey, and there's Iraq.
The sun is shining everywhere but here,
So we pop another six-pack of beer.
The radio signal is coming in weakly--
The news we decipher is not very likely.
Can Kevin Garnett make all that money,
While Asian stocks are melty and runny?
Septuplets in Iowa? We're all assuming
That this litter of seven can't be human.
Will we all be paying for Carl Pohlad's sins,
Or rooting for the Carolina Twins?
The Rollings Stones are live, in action,
And Barbie's having breast reduction?
Fast-track trade reform didn't pass,
But it's suddenly safe to sass the IRS?
We're attributing this misinformation
To experiments in sensory deprivation,
And expect an exhaustive rebuttal
When we dock with the space shuttle.
So folks, when next you wish upon a star,
Picture Sasha here playing air guitar,
Vasili strumming his red balalaika,
And the computer blinking 12:00.
We sit like this through endless days,
While I impersonate Gabby Hayes,
In the lifeboat playing my harmonica --
Mir Christmas to all,
And to all, Happy Hannukah!
"A masterpiece of explanatory journalism!" - New Orleans Picayune
"Fast, funny, and highly stimulating!" -Business Book Review 
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