I even burnt my draft card years ago, to no avail! I seem to remember working up a sweat outside what was to be my new domicle back in Sunny Vale, when I felt myself being slowly shredded into different layers of existense and at least momentarily losing contact with my corporeal being. My first impression was of one immensely surreal flashback, only to soon discover myself standing on the deck of a starship's engineering department. "So that's what a transporter feels like. An old flowerchild could really get to liking that ride!"
Upon closer examination of the results of my recent re-layering, I find that this ol' Grote is now a somewhat modified new Grote. The apparently malfunctioning transporter has not only transmuted my trusty chain to gold, it has partially imbedded it into my skin stretching up one arm, across my shoulders behind my neck, and down the opposite arm. The intensity of the beam has also given my skin a rather dark sunburnt appearance. "Hey, I'm a Red Shirt without the shirt. Neat, I can show off the new chain that-a-way."
With the adjustment to my new surroundings proceeding at an alarmingly rapid pace, I decide it must be time to explore the scene while my luck is holding. After sliding down the ladder to the main deck of engineering, the new Grote wanders around the warp core only to find Scotty slumped on the floor with a partially spilled decanter of a blue substance beside him. The head of engineering is many sheets to the wind and barely able to stammer out, "ish a dilshium cryshal dishtillance Admiral. Completeshly regoulashun I shwear!"
"Admiral?!? Hey, I'm just a Lowly Engineering Grunt, L.E.G. for short." Proclaims the new Grotecakes.
"Wish that mush gold on ya armsh an shouldersh ya gotsha be ash leash an Admiral," slurrs out the nearly totally enebriated Scotty. "I'd shalutesh ya ifn I could shteady thish here bottle."
Deciding there is little hope for the engineering head, I leave engineering to try and find my way to the transporter room. "It's obvious someone needs to tweak that transporter some seeing what it's done to me. Imagine, Admiral! and me a confirmed draft dodger!"
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