If I was a Starship Captain
First published 1/20/2000

If I was a starship captain:

• Whenever anybody said "Aye, Captain" I’d say "No, I captain!" Then I’d force everybody to laugh.
  
  
• I’d let my crew wear their pajamas on the bridge, if they wanted to, because, hey, we’re casual around here.
  
  
• What we need on this spaceship is our own army knife. I mean, if the Swiss can come up with that cool army knife, imagine what us space people can do! Note: Make sure it has a corkscrew.
  
  
• On Wednesday nights, we’d watch movies on the bridge using that big viewscreen. Only, cover up those blinking lights underneath it with a towel or something.
  
  
• Let’s take a long hard look at the shuttlecraft. Do we need that? I’m not saying we don’t, but let’s look at it. Maybe it would be better to lease one.
  
  
• I’d take a week off every year and go to trade shows so that I’d always be up on the latest "hi-tech" spaceship gadgets.
  
  
• No, I don’t know why the bridge control panels don’t come with cup holders. If you can figure out how to put them in there without messing up all the lights and dials and things, be my guest. But I bet you’re going to break something.
  
  
• I’d let the fatter people wear sweaters over their skintight uniforms, so they’d feel more attractive.
  
  
• I don’t know why in this futuristic era we actually have to physically paint designation numbers on the sides of our spaceships, but if we must do it at least give me a fun custom designation number like 1HO-TSHP.
  
  
• When the spaceship was getting old I might kind of "accidentally" crash it into a planet so they’d give me a new one.
  
  
• If the engineer told me it was going to take an hour and a half to fix something, okay, good enough. I’m not going to make his job harder by telling him we’ll all be dead by then.
  
  
• I’d get drunk, find a snow-covered planet, and write my name in it using the phaser banks.
  
  
• If you’re the helmsmen, and we’re getting sucked into a supernovae, and aliens have shot some kind of beam at us and now the controls aren’t responding, and the shields aren’t going to hold much longer, and you feel you would be more comfortable if you could bring your own cushion or maybe a pillow to put on your helmsmen chair, fine, that’s okay with me.
  
  
• On people’s birthdays, I’d rig the beaming thing so crewmembers showed up down on the planet without any pants on. Ha ha, looks like I got you this year!
  
  
• If my spaceship happens to be flying by a planet with rings, and I kind of blow up the rings with my lasers, that’s not the same as blowing up the whole planet. You can’t put me in jail for that!
  
  
• Once a month, "skit night." I already have a bag of hats.
  
  
• I’d like the crew to pick two (2) motivational posters to put on either side of the bridge viewscreen. I’d prefer they pick something more in the inspirational "longest journey begins with a single step" vein rather than a saucy "you want it when?" type of thing, but if that’s what they decide, fine, pass the hat and put in an order for it.
  
  
• If you’re going to use your communicator to make personal calls type in your calling card number first, or -- I’m serious -- we’re going to take them away.
  
  
• I don’t know what exactly a "sex planet" is, but I figure we’ll know it when we find it.

Like the column? Buy the book! 100 Years of Subatomic Humor now on sale!