Space biscuits

by RAF KATIGBAK

MONTREAL—The famed Fairmount bagel is reaching new heights thanks to an astronaut with a yen for that distinctive treat.

It seems Montreal-born astronaut Greg Chamitoff, who began a six-month stint aboard the International Space Station yesterday, was quite excited about the idea of floating in space with the comfort of the chewy, slightly sweet variety of bagel this city is famous for by his side.

—The Gazette

This story, which appeared in last Tuesday’s Gazette, struck a particular chord with me. It bridged two particular stages in my life: 1) how as a kid I always dreamed of being an astronaut and 2) how probably the closest I ever came was working the overnight shift at a 24-hour bagel place.

As for many young male nerds born in the late ’70s, the dream of space travel came from the plethora of sci-fi shows on television. And while I grew up on cartoons like Transformers and Robotech, what had me completely convinced that my destiny lay in the stars was the long-running classic Star Trek. For me, Star Trek was the ultimate space show.

First off, the cultural mosaic crew of the Starship Enterprise appealed to my Canadian sensibilities. You had Uhura (African), Scotty (spoke funny), Chekov (Russian), Sulu (Asian) and Spock (basically also an Asian guy).

Naturally I felt a kinship to Sulu who was one of the only Asian male role models on Canadian TV at the time, besides that Wok With Yan guy. But my true role model was the dashing, intrepid Captain Kirk, who perhaps provided the most valuable lesson of all: aliens weren’t always malevolent creatures bent on conquering worlds and annihilating the human race. No, some aliens were friendly and had galactic wisdom far beyond ours and, more importantly, sometimes you could even have sex with them. Kirk didn’t give a shit if they were green and gyrating or had several eyes and were made of space dust. I had a feeling that as long as it was even remotely female and the thing had somewhere he could “land his shuttle,” he’d totally go where no man has gone before. And for that I admired him. Although it’s kind of a miracle he didn’t catch some kind of intergalactic VD like space herpes or something.

By second grade I was convinced that I was going to be an astronaut. In fact, during the round of “What do you want to be when you grow up,” I made sure to proudly proclaim, “I want to be a space captain!” When the snickering subsided, the teacher settled everyone down and continued, “That’s very nice Raf, so does anyone here have any REALISTIC jobs they want to do?”

Despite the doubts of pretty much everyone around me (with the exception of Randy, the guy who’d compulsively smell his hands and eat erasers in the corner), I was determined to get there. I bought every magazine I could that involved space travel and would even have my cousin send me packages of Astronaut Ice Cream from the Ontario Science Centre. “Better get used to eating this!” I would say cheerfully as I opened the package and stuffed the dry, crumbly sugar wafers into my mouth. I imagined parties on the international space stations being like the best birthday parties ever and we’d take the shuttle out for a joy ride and try and get the Canadarm to do fun things like whip space-garbage into asteroids.

Then a funny thing happened. I discovered that to become an astronaut you don’t just need a gallant determination and willingness to consummate with green chicks. You also need math and science. You see, being an astronaut isn’t always about shirt-lessly fighting lizard creatures on a desert planet, it’s about doing experiments and using the scientific method to study the effects of gaseous microorganisms in vacuums and shit. So basically, they’re nerds in space. And even though I was a nerd of the highest order as a kid, I didn’t want to be a nerd in space. Did you ever get space wedgied?

But now that I think about it, being an astronaut still kind of interests me. Not because I’ve always wanted to try a space toilet, or that zero-gravity sex would probably blow my dome, but I’d like to get up there just to fuck with my fellow nerd astronauts. I’d like to be the practical joker on the space station. The guy putting the whoopee cushion under the Russians’ docking console, or hitting the critical error alarm and then going “Psych!” And now that I think about it, I know exactly what I’d bring up to space with me, and it wouldn’t be no frickin’ bagels. You know what I’d bring? Some motherfuckin’ Beano. In space no one can hear you scream, but they sure as hell can tell if you float a space biscuit.

Riff-Raff@sympatico.ca