After spending all day with RavenTresses being pursued by enraged nerds after repeatedly walking into theaters showing Revenge of the Sith and screaming "Science fiction is for sissies!", we ran out of ideas for griefing people and sat around all evening wondering what to do next.   Before we launched into a contest of who could make their nose whistle the loudest, I decided to sit down and try to write my next article for The Voice before Geea fired me.  Ever wake up and wonder what time it is... and then your boss tells you?  Yeah, I've grown to hate that.  She hasn't fired me yet, but I'm sure as heck not going to give her any reason to!  Unfortunately, I was clean out of ideas for inanimate objects to interview.  "I know," RavenTresses announced while staring at herself in a mirror and posing in different outfits.  "You could write an article about buying me presents, and actually buy them for me and write about how much I like them!"

"That won't work," I complained, leaning back on the sofa with my notepad and pen.  "I don't have any money left after Alex_Community sued me for putting all of those private photos of hers we found in her purse into a slideshow for the entire internet to see."   Little did RavenTresses know, I was also knee-deep in litigation with the Backstreet Boys for using their latest effeminate song without permission on that very same slideshow.  She walked back and flopped onto the sofa next to me, causing my pen to slip while I was writing and make a line of ink across my pant leg.  Curses!

"Well then why don't you steal something for me?" she asked innocently.  She started giving me those puppy-dog eyes of hers -- the ones that make me toss out any semblance of male pride I might have in order to give in to whatever she fancied. 

"Steal something for you?!" I exclaimed, appalled that the thought could ever have crossed her mind.  "That goes against every moral and ethical fiber in my very being, honey.  Theft is wrong, plain and simple.  I would never in a million years wrongfully take what is not mine from another person!"

"Puh-leeeeeeze?" she begged, batting her luscious, long eyelashes at me.

"Okay, what would you like, sweetie-pie?" I inquired, completely and hopelessly mesmerized by her sweet-talk.   Now I know this may make it seem like I have no backbone and I cave in immediately to whatever she wants, but I assure you that's not the case.  I wear the pants in this relationship.  I'm not some little rug that she walks all over, I tell you!   "You're so pretty!" I added, for good measure.

"A monster TUV," she replied, bouncing up and down on the sofa, clapping her hands excitedly.

Now the only place from which I could steal a monster TUV that I knew of was Neckromacr's Buggy Museum, but surely his museum had state-of-the-art security measures in place to prevent the theft of his prized collection.   Even if we could get past the numerous defenses, sniper towers, barbed wire, and alarms that were certainly designed to catch even the most experienced burglars, I didn't know anything about hot-wiring buggies or TUVs.  The most RavenTresses and I knew about buggies is that you sometimes have to re-fill the blinker fluid, and that you have to go pretty fast to send a newbie flying across the dirt when you hit them.  This clearly called for some outside expertise, so who better to call upon than The Voice's very own Avatar and Driver columnist, Hatch?  This would take some convincing, and probably a little lying.

"Yo, Hatch!" I called out in the IM window.

"No, I'm not loaning you any money," Hatch immediately replied.

"No, I don't need any money... well, I do... but I'm not calling you about that," I explained.  "I'm going to do a piece on the status of the security systems in place at the Buggy Museum, and since you know about vehicles and whatnot, I was wondering if you could tag along and be my resident expert."

"You arranged this all through Neckro?" Hatch asked hesitantly.

"Um, of course!" I lied through my teeth.  An important lesson for all y'all young, impressionable children who might be reading this -- clearly, lying was the right thing to do in this case, because had I told the truth, I would not have gotten Hatch to do what I wanted.  This is why it's not a good idea to go around always telling the truth, because then people won't help you out.  And if you don't get peoples' help, you won't ever amount to anything in life and no one will ever love you.

"Sure, I'll be right over... sounds like fun," Hatch answered back.

"Cool.  Also, bring over any money you might have, because I could use some," I begged as an after-thought.

"No."

"Okay, see you in a bit!" I responded, although Hatch had already ended the conversation by closing the IM window.

Now I have watched enough Mission: Slightly Difficult to know that we would need to approach the Buggy Museum under the cover of darkness to avoid being detected by any guards.  We all dressed in black clothes -- I brought along a pair of night vision goggles, Hatch brought a lockpick set, Raven lugged around her bucket of frozen margarita mix -- and we headed out to the funzone where Neckromacr had constructed his awesome museum.  With a quick glance through the NVGs, we could see that the structure was comprised of two testicular-looking biodome hemispheres with a small, well-kempt courtyard in front.  I let Raven take a peek through the goggles.

"How do I zoom in on these?"

"Walk closer to what you're looking at."

"Oh."

The plan was to infiltrate the premises from behind, avoiding patrolling guards and keeping Hatch in front of us to navigate through any landmine fields by trial-and-error.  Of course, I didn't tell Hatch that's why he was leading... I told him that I respected him as a leader and trusted his good judgment to lead us to the main building.  Then, because RavenTresses is good at accidentally breaking things, I would unleash her upon the locking mechanism on the door with a set of lockpicks until she eventually broke it, allowing us unrestricted access to the main floor of the museum where the vehicle collection was on display.

As I communicated the plan to everyone while we hid behind some rocks in the distance, everyone indicated that they understood the plan with a sharp nod.  It was shortly thereafter that problems arose.

"Okay, let's go!  C'mon!" I whispered harshly, motioning to Raven and Hatch with a beckoning gesture of my hand.  Raven had a gesture of her own for me, and it didn't require her entire hand.  Only one finger, actually.

"Uhhh... aren't you going to turn your flashlight off first?" Hatch asked, wanting to make sure that we didn't give our position away.  "Because that would be SUPER!"

"Um, I don't have a flashlight..." I replied, a bit confused.

"Then where's that blinding light coming from?" Raven chimed in, looking over at me.  I turned around.  

"Oh for crying out loud," Hatch whispered in exasperation.  "Can't you turn that thing off?"

"What?" I asked, looking down.   "Oh."

Apparently, my characteristic blue nose glows in the dark.  And all that time I thought it had just been a really good nightlight lighting up the bedroom while I was trying to sleep each night.  Obviously, we wouldn't be able to continue this mission at night as originally planned, because they would see me coming a mile away.  Glowing blue noses, as it turns out, really draws enemy sniper fire, just as the legendary Blue Nose Special Forces Team Six discovered the hard way during the Vietnam conflict.  Lit up the whole darn jungle with their glowing blue noses -- the resulting carnage was awful... just plain horrific.  You don't know because YOU WEREN'T THERE, MAN!  After some discussion about the change in plans, we decided to wait until daylight to continue our raid on the Buggy Museum.