Blast-Off Minus 17 Days

I, Byron Barnett, am at odds with a certain robot.

His name is José Ignacio. He gets my goat.

He’s my roommate. It’s quite the tale to tell how we ended up together, just not now. 

Incidentally he’s very tall, over seven feet. When I have time to explain how irritating he is, I’ll write an appendix about it. 

(Yes, an appendix is the part of your digestive system that’s connected to your large intestine, but it’s also the word for a section of extra information that you put at the end of an important document. I’d need a whole appendix to list about eighty or ninety examples of how José Ignacio ruffles me the wrong way during the course of the week.) 

But I still have to bring him to the Moon. I can’t do my research without him. Or my field work. I certainly don’t want to be hauling moon-rocks around by myself.

To be extremely candid, José Ignacio is more annoying than a bag of mosquitos with a hole in it, but he’s also pretty useful. It’s a tradeoff.

After I got my school picture taken on School Picture Day, José Ignacio said he wanted one too. But I wasn’t gonna ask the principal if my robot could come in to avail himself of school services. That makes no sense. 

Even if the principal said yes, they probably would’ve had to charge me for it, since José Ignacio isn’t a member of the student body. That could’ve really eaten into my allowance.

So I asked my brother to help. Taji works Wednesdays after school and Saturday mornings at a photography studio downtown. Convenient, no?

He did some portraiture of José Ignacio at different angles and such. 

José Ignacio was happy with the result, except he wanted his color changed from his normal white to black. I guess for a robot that’s like putting on a sportcoat and tie for your school picture. 

Taji made the change at his workstation.  Here it is:

José Ignacio is fairly photogenic.

But he’s the bane of my existence.

More soon,
Boon