The End of Intragalactic Hunger.

By Dan Bondroff

On my home planet, elections are a lot different than here on earth. The biggest difference is that on my home planet, the loser of the election is served as the main course at the inaugural dinner. This may seem outlandish and barbaric, but this helps clear out all of the less serious candidates. There was one election that really changed things back home forever. This was the election for president of the planet a little more than 50 years ago, just before I came to planet Earth. The front runner in the election was the largest creature in the known universe. He was a giant half man and half lobster. He was also the last of his species.

The interesting thing about his species, is that they used to rule the sea. They were majestic and invincible. But they grew too large and there were too many of them. They eventually consumed most of the living creatures in the ocean. When this happened, these half lobster creatures began to starve, and they only had one solution. That was to eat some of their own. This solved the problem for some time, and the remaining sea life were able to recover and become bountiful once again. Then, as you probably guessed, they would resume feeding off of the smaller creatures. And of course, once sea life diminished, they returned to cannibalism.

The cycle repeated itself until there was just one of these giant creatures left on the planet. He was the biggest of them all. His name, was Crustaceous Prime. When Crustaceous Prime finished devouring the only other surviving member of his species, he started to wonder what he wanted to do next in life. He was going to be quite bored. He decided that he wanted to run for president of the planet. He wasn't very popular at first, because he had recently eaten most of the sea life on the planet. But he was still full from eating his last known companion, so things couldn’t get worse on that issue.

So Crustaceous Prime started to do more and more community service work. He was so big that he could feel tremors in the planet from anywhere, and he was able to quickly go to the point of a tremor, sit on the fragile surface, and stop earthquakes from happening. He was also so big, when there was volcanic activity, he was able to pull giant boulders out of the ground, and put them on top of the volcano, stopping eruptions. He became a hero to the whole planet. His polling numbers were historically high.

There was a cut-off date for running against Crustaceous Prime, and anybody remaining in the race would be eligible to be eaten if they lost the election. After the cut-off date, the only other candidate was Henry, a morose, nocturnal, sticky, stinky, blob frog. He was so miserable, he hoped to be eaten at the inaugural dinner as a final statement about how he felt about life.

But things didn't stay so perfect for Crustaceous Prime. He eventually became hungry again, and he started eating sea life, lots of sea life. Some of the sea life he ate were actually his supporters. And after they were devoured, their names were purged from the voter rolls. In the weeks leading up to the election, most of the ocean life had once again disappeared. There was a sadness that overcome the entire planet. And everyone blamed one creature, Crustaceous Prime.

Well, as you can guess, the election came and went, and Henry became the planet’s new president. Crustaceous Prime didn't take losing very well. He was angry, and lashed out, and dove into the sea. The inaugural dinner team worked very very hard to catch up with Crustaceous Prime. They constructed the galaxy’s largest electrified net. And, with the help of all the remaining sea life, they tracked down Crustaceous Prime, threw the net over top of him, and electrocuted him.

The Official Inaugural Dinner of President Henry was a fantastic success. Who knew Crustaceous Prime would be so delicious? The chef of the inaugural dinner had created really wonderful fried patties. They were made out of Crustaceous Prime meat, potatoes, onions, a fiery blend of spices, mustard, eggs, and breadcrumbs. The ingredients were formed into patties, rolled in more bread crumbs, and pan fried. They were so delicious!

Everyone ate their fill. There was a small problem, though it had a fantastic solution. Crustaceous Prime was so big, that it was impossible to eat all of him that night at the inaugural dinner. In fact, they were so many leftovers, no one was really sure what to do. Then President Henry had a great idea. He decided that the patties should be boxed up, and these boxes should be used to solve planetary hunger. Anyone who wanted, could eat Crustaceous Prime patties anytime they wanted for free. It was his first official decree, and the planet rejoiced.

Then, our planet’s scientists got in on the action. They calculated how many years worth of Crustaceous Prime patties were left. Then they took a piece of Crustaceous Prime meat and uncoded his DNA. From there, Crustaceous Prime patties could be cloned, boxed, and stored in underground freezers. This would solve planetary hunger forever! The planet rejoiced once more!

When neighboring planets found out about this, they wanted to know if Crustaceous Prime patties could solve their hunger issues. That is when President Henry authorized the Pan-Galactic Food Program. Creatures on other planets were able to trade goods and services for Crustaceous Prime patties. Our planet became the wealthiest in the galaxy, and no one in the galaxy ever went hungry again.

Hurray for President Henry!

The end.