The Hard Seven

Just imagine… you’ve spent five years at MIT doing post-doctoral work in particle physics and advanced computer science, another two in training at NASA’s astronaut training program and three years in learning every circuit, every module and every button contained in the cockpit of the nation’s newest and most advanced space shuttle. You’ve shunned your family, friends and all activities that don’t directly pertain to your upcoming Jupiter launch.

Then, after the exhilaration of being strapped into a puny little cabin, you’re launched with a rocket on your ass the size of Rhode Island until you suddenly find yourself whizzing through space at half the speed of light. Hey, what the hell was that—Mars??

For another three years you pass through deep space, pissing in a sack and distilling the contents to form the water you’ll drink tomorrow, noting that after awhile it begins to taste a little like Sierra Mist®. Finally you pass Saturn’s outer rings and start the final leg of your journey, the express route to Jupiter!

Then, you become the first person in history to discover the meaning of all life. Just inside Jupiter’s atmosphere you encounter a 100,000-mile-long crap table and a slot machine the size of earth’s moon, it’s dial spinning and occasionally landing on two cherries, causing coin-shaped meteorites marked exactly like American quarters to be launched into space.

The accumulation of all mankind’s discoveries put together fall short of the significance of your singular determination, a discovery that will prohibit you from ever again getting a good night's sleep:

God has a gambling jones…