Blunderball

Miffed Mel: Frugal Road

"I ride my Death Lorry through the Plains of Ruin!" bellows Baron Hugendong to a scorched, indifferent sky. "I keep battle in my headlights! I leave carnage in my tracks! I am the harbinger of destruction! I am the terror of the wastes!"

"Well, that's great," yells Miffed Mel, pulling up alongside him, "but it's not very green, is it?"

"What?" bellows Baron Hugendong.

"I'm just saying that—" Mel swerves to avoid a spiky pit trap that's just opened up in the middle of the highway. "Could you pull over for a second? This is super dangerous and also it's kind of a pain having to shout over your crazy two-engine warmachine."

"You get used to it, but I take your point!" Baron Hugendong stops his vehicle.

Miffed Mel pulls up next to him.

"Is that better?" bellows Baron Hugendong.

"Are you sure you get used to the engine noise rather than simply suffer more and more significant hearing loss over time?"

"It sure does!" bellows Baron Hugendong.

"Never mind." Miffed Mel sighs. "My original point was: doesn't it seem unwise to ride around in a huge lorry when World War Three was apparently sparked off by a shortage of fossil fuels?"

"You mean the Great Boomytime?"

Miffed Mel sighs again. "Yes, the Great Boomytime. Given that the Great Boomytime was caused by the not-enoughness of the burny water, do you really think it's a good idea to spend all your time driving around in an extremely inefficient vehicle like that? I mean, it doesn't part the wind well, does it?"

Baron Hugendong scratches his head. "You mean it's not aerodynamic?"

"By the war-roads of Valhalla!" Miffed Mel tuts in annoyance. "Yes! Why in the world would you drive something like that when our entire lives are characterised by scarcity of resources? What reason could you possibly have for doing that?"

"I must hunt down the lesser-drivers!" bellows Baron Hugendong. "I must seek them out that the lifeblood of their machines may nourish my own!"

"Ugh! Pfft! Chtuh!" Miffed Mel is positively peeved. "Are you seriously telling me that you're chasing down other vehicles—in a lorry—to siphon fuel from their tanks? What sort of mileage do you get in that thing? It can't be better than, what? Ten miles per gallon?"

Baron Hugendong gives the steering wheel an affectionate pat. "Probably more like three."

"Oh, geez. And how many gallons do you think you get from the average car you ram off the highway with it?"

"On a good day? Maybe eight. On bad day it catches fire and KABOOM! Heh."

"So basically what you're saying is that if you don't catch up with the thing within about twenty miles, you're getting less than you used up doing that?"

"Well, in a manner of...the thing you have to consider is..." Baron Hugendong counts on his fingers. "See, you're using imperial units whereas...oh."

"Yeah. Doesn't make a lot of sense when you think it through."

"Well what's the alternative?" asks Baron Hugendong, still at a considerable volume.

Miffed Mel gestures proudly to his own pimped-out post-apocalyptic ride: "Go green! Find an electric car and stick some solar panels on it. Maybe even opt for an HPV: that's a human-powered vehicle. You'll look like some sort of rejected third Chuckle Brother, but fuel consumption is zero and it never runs out of juice. But this thing's worked out well for me. Fancy giving it a spin?"

"Sure." Baron Hugendong's still a little bummed out from discovering that his entire looting/marauding lifestyle is completely unsustainable.

Miffed Mel scoots over to the passenger seat.

Baron Hugendong takes the wheel: "I ride my Energy Efficient Means of Conveyance through the Sands of Minimal Environmental Impact!" he bellows to a scorched, indifferent sky. "I keep prudence in my headlights! I leave pristine wasteland in my tracks! I am the harbinger of responsible resource consumption! I am the bane of...yeah, no, this isn't going to work."

He turns to Miffed Mel, but Miffed Mel isn't in the car any more.

"So long, sucka!" yells Miffed Mel, giving a couple of blasts on the Death Lorry's obnoxiously loud horn as he rides into the sunset.

"I will not forget this betrayal!" bellows Baron Hugendong. "I shall hunt you beyond the world's end! I shall be as...oh, hey, this thing has a cherry-scented air freshener? And a cup-holder!? And a CD player!?!"

He nods approvingly.

"Weld some spikes to this thing and it'd be pretty alright."