The Golden Voyage of Barney Rubble

The other day, a very foolish looking knave in a sabretooth suit and a courier's cap showed up with a slate in my office. He saluted, I tipped him 5 pebbles and he was on his way. The slate read, "Meet at dock B Rubl".

I scratched my head, but proceeded to the dock where I found Barney Rubble and a group of mentally-limited sailors standing near a docked sailing ship. The ship was quite remarkable as it was all Gold: gold sails, gold ropes, gold hull, gold barrels, gold everything.

"What the hell?" I began. Barney interrupted, saying "I don't have time to talk, but I'm going on a voyage with these morons and I need you to guard the farms outside town."

"All of the farms?" I asked. "How can I do that?"

"Oh, I don't know," chuckled Barney. "Do the best you can!"

With that, he jumped aboard the Golden Ship. The moron crew of sailors pushed it off and manned the ship, grunting and making stupid faces as the ship cut an arc first one way and then the other out of Bedrock Harbor. Soon the ship was a disappearing golden glint on the horizon as sea monsters lept and spouted water in its wake.

"Great," I thought.

Of course, unbeknownst to me, and as soon as Barney had gotten aboard the Golden Ship, Wild Men began invading the farms, tearing down buildings, eating all they could hold and setting farm animals loose. On my way back to the office, I saw one of them galloping through the edge of town on his way from one farm to another. I figured something was up, so I followed him and saw him, laughing hideously and pulling a barn down.

I would have to try and end this.

I located a farm triceratops and jumped up on his back to pursue the Wild Man, who was now emptying a grain bin onto the ground. He wouldn't budge, so the triceratops gored him, shaking him in the air like a dishrag and then flung him into a drainage ditch where small velociraptors and pteranodons began feeding on him.

Flushed with success, I made a round of all the farms, repeating this bold maneuver. Soon a telepathic warning message circled amongst the Wild Men and they had all headed back to the hills to continue with their never-ending, obscene mating rituals.

"God damn that Barney Rubble!" I thought as I rode the triceratops back to his home farm.

However, a strange thing happened as I was again walking back toward the office. A group of very tall strangers approached me. "We don't know why, but we feel we must measure and record the dimensions and features of the countryside."

"You talkin' to me?" I asked.

The lead stranger looked confused. "Uh, I guess if I can't talk to someone else?" He thought hard and then the strangers conferred together while I stood by, as detachedly as possible. "Do you have a small fellow with sandy hair and dark, beady eyes we can talk to? Some of the fellows seem to have a mental image of such a person who is propelling them forward. Does that make sense?"

I was starting not to be amused by this whole dadburn thing. "Uh, yeah," I said. "That guy is out of town with a boatload of morons. You could talk to me."

"Well, we would like to get started with the measuring." he answered.

"Yeah, sure why not?" I said. With that they spread out across the landscape, measuring and recording.

When I got back to the office, there was a small golden bird sitting on the windowsill. I looked at him and he flew over to my desk. "Definitely, this bird has come from the Golden Ship," I thought. Just as I realized it, the bird shit out some liquid gold, which quickly solidified. Leaving me with a deposit of solid gold.

Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I grabbed the bird and letting my pet bird out of his cage, put him in the cage and gave him some birdseed. He began chirping like he was as happy as hell and started producing gold.

My boss came in. "Where the fuck you been?" he asked in his best surly boss manner.

"You know," I said. "I don't need you or this fucking, stupid job." And with that, I picked up the gold and the bird cage and went totally splitsville while my now former boss sputtered and turned violent red with black smoke curling up abover his head.

To be continued.