Jillions and jillions of light years away, (and if you don't know what a light year is it is not a year that is light as a feather--it is about six trillion miles) there is a planet called Gonzorgo, where I was born. It is a very different planet, a very interesting planet, because it has a very simple and scary food chain. If you are not a brilliant genius, and don't already know what a food chain is, then I'll tell you. When you have creatures who eat each other up, that is called a food chain.

Now on your planet, I think it's called Earth, You have thousands and thousands of animals who eat each other up, and when they are not eating each other up then they are eating up the plants and bugs. But on Gonzorgo there are only seven kinds of animals, besides myself, and they are supposed to eat each other. And this is a problem as you will see later.

First comes the Big Heans, who are the biggest animals. As you can see they have large heads and very sharp teeth. They have a good sense of humor, they like to dance, and sometimes they recite poetry. When they can't find their main source of food, which is the Big Mouth, they cry for awhile and then go and eat little dirt clods.

Next comes the Big Mouths who are named that because, well its quite obvious why they are named that isn't it? Their bodies exist just to hang their mouths on!

Now when the Big Mouths are not sitting around crying because they are afraid they are going to be eaten by the Heans, they write music and sing songs. Such as:

Now I lay down in a heap

hoping that some nasty creep

doesn't find me in my sleep

and bite and swallow me down deep.

Their music is so beautiful that it is very sad when they are eaten. When they are not sitting around worrying about being eaten, the Big Mouths eat the Smohbok, so it is a good thing that they have a big mouth.

Because you see, the Smohbok is very wide but not very tall. Or you could say that he is very long. The baby Smohbok is light blue and round like an egg, but as they grow they turn darker. The adult Smohbok is dark blue with spots as you see here. The Smohbok likes to read and think, and so they are very easy for Big Mouths to gobble up because they sit still for quite a long time. They read books which are supposed to make them smarter, such as Voltaire, the Theories of Einstein, and Dr. Seuss, but before they can get too smart they usually get eaten. This is sad because perhaps if they didn't get eaten they could think up smart inventions that would change the world.

The Smoboks eat the Flying Wons which are delightful and charming creatures and very entertaining. They have been known to charm their attackers out of eating them by giving passionate speeches about life (passionate means lots of feeling) while giving a massage to their attacker, which is a very tricky and dangerous thing to do but it is the only way they can get out of being eaten by the sharp fangs of the Smohbok.

The Flying Wons can perform wonderful aerial acrobatics, which means they do tricks in the sky. Don't you wish grownups would just say 'tricks in the sky' instead of 'perform wonderful aerial acrobatics?' But they don't because when they use big words it makes them feel important.

The sad fact is (but don't tell a grownup) that they are only important when they are taking care of a child. The rest of the time they mostly just sit around in things called bureaucracies (pronounced Burro Crazies). This is a large thing like Congress or a School District or a City Council that has meetings, gives speeches, gives each other awards, and eats donuts, and they try to be important but usually fail. The reason they fail is because nobody needs bureacracies. But some grownups, if they couldn't be in a bureaucracy, would just fall down dead, so the rest let them do it so they won't have to bury them.

On Gonzorgo there are no bureaucracies, just food chains, so life is more simple. Near the bottom of the food chain are the Meechies. These are what the Flying Wons eat and they are easy to catch because they crawl around slowly on the ground and the Wons can see them from the air and stop in the middle of a loop-de-loop, and swoop down on a Meechy and gobble him up! Or her!

Now the Meechies eat Crawling Leaves, which are at the bottom of the food chain. Crawling Leaves are the janitors of Gonzorgo. They clean up the ground everywhere they go by eating garbage, kicking things out of the way, throwing things over cliffs, and sliding things under the carpet. The forest carpet that is. They are important because without them everything would be a big mess, like your bedroom sometimes is!

Now there is one more creature on Gonzorgo who isn't at the bottom of the food chain and isn't really at the top either. The reason is because they eat everyone else! They are called the Smiles, which is a good name for them because they can find their food anywhere, any time, and so life is just very easy for them. As you can see by their portrait, they are basically just a walking smile.

Now that you have met everyone on Gonzorgo I will tell you what the problem is on this very interesting planet. Actually there are two problems. They are:

Number 1: That everyone is always in danger of being eaten up!

Number 2: If they all eat each other up then there will be no one left!

So it is for this reason that one day a truce was called. A truce is when nobody hurts anybody else. It all started when a Crawling Leaf went on strike. That means he refused to work because he wanted the problem solved. He said, "I'm tired of eating garbage and picking up garbage and then seeing my friends get eaten. It isn't fair and I won't do it any more!" He said he would never work again until a solution was found to their problem.

Well, when the other Crawling Leaves heard about it they all joined him. They all formed a big circle and the Meechies couldn't come in and so then they had nothing to eat! And so the Meechies all hid in logs where the Flying Wons couldn't find them, and refused to come out! And the Flying Wons stayed up in the trees and didn't come down and the Smohboks couldn't eat them either! And the Smohboks buried themselves in the ground where the Big Mouths couldn't find them and so the Big Mouths went hungry too! And the Big Mouths stayed on a boat out on the lake where the Heans couldn't get them because Heans can't swim. And the Heans hid in a cave where the Smiles couldn't find them! And the Smiles ran every which way trying to find someone to eat and couldn't find anyone! So everyone was starving!

What a fine fix. It was then that the Crawling Leaves put up a white flag and invited someone from each food group to come to a meeting, if they promised not to eat anyone else. And so it happened that they had their first big council meeting, with one member of each food group there. They talked and talked and thought and thought and finally they had an idea. They decided to become vegetarians. That means they don't eat meat, which is each other.

So they all began looking for plants and roots that they could stand to eat, but the truth is that none of it was very tasty since they had no spices or sauces, so they all began to lose weight. Now it looked like the whole planet was going to starve to death! It was in the middle of this dilemma (another big word that means problem), a flying saucer landed in a meadow near where the council held its meetings. Out of the flying saucer stepped an Earth Marketing Manager! He told them that he was a planet-to-planet Salesman selling Pizza.

"What is Pizza?" they all asked simultaneously. (Sorry about the big word. It means all-at-the-same-time.) At that, the Salesman whipped out a pizza, sliced it into pieces, and began passing it out. Oh! What rapture! They had never tasted anything so delicious. "More! More!" they cried. He said, "Wait! Before I give you more you must give me money!"

"But we don't have any money," they called to him. "We don't even know what money is!"

That stumped the Salesman. He had never been to a planet where there was no money. "Well then how do you eat?" he asked.

"We were all eating each other until just the other day when we decided to eat plants instead, but they don't have much flavor and so you see, we've lost a lot of weight."

"That IS a problem!" said the Salesman. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I've been needing a new Pizza Restaurant (a place where you eat) to supply pizzas to this part of the galaxy. Would you be interested in having a Pizza Restaurant on your planet?"

"Yes! Yes!" they all cried in unison (that means simultaneously, which, as you already know, means all-at-the-same-time).

"That is just splendid, dandy, rad, and cool," said the Salesman, and he quickly started unloading a Pizza Restaurant from his Cargo Bay. He fed everyone on the planet until they were so full they burped. Then he took a few days to train them how to make pizzas. The Big Heans made the dough. The Big Mouths rolled the dough. The Smohboks measured the ingredients (stuff in in the Pizza), and the Flying Wons dropped Pizza Sauce on the dough. Next the Meechies put shredded cheeze and Pepperoni on the Pizzas, and the Crawling Leaves put them in the oven. And last, but not least, the Smiles served the Pizza with a big grin to whoever was hungry. They made enough so the Salesman could take the rest and sell it all over the Galaxy, which he did, and he got very rich. Since he was so rich he brought the creatures of Gonzorgo lots of gifts.

And that is how Gonzorgo solved it's problems. And they all lived happily into the future, making pizzas eating pizzas, dancing, flying, writing music and poetry, reading, giving massages, and inventing things that made life better, such as a vacuum cleaner for the Crawling Leaves.

No. of Astronauts since July 26, 2000:

Return to Main Page

Return to Story Index