Title: Burma-Shaavant and the Disgruntled Muse

Author: Saavant

Contact: saavaant @ yahoo . com

Series: TSU

Rating: A mild [Strong Content] for use of the F word

Codes: f, ?

Part: 1/1

Summary: Saavant goes crazy. So what else is new?

Archive: Yes please.

Disclaimer: I disclaim Star Trek characters. I disclaim having invented them. I disclaim to be profiting monetarily from writing about them. I am not Roddenberry. I am not Paramount. I am Saavant. So There.

Note: This story has been brought to you by the following:
http://www.mc.cc.md.us/Departments/hpolscrv/mthomas.htm
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail117.html

At fifteen minutes past eleven this morning, a certain unusual being was walking down the main path of the Treksmut University campus.

If one has read far enough in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, one can get a good idea of this being's appearance by picturing the creature that designed its body especially to kill Arthur Dent in a particularly gruesome way in revenge for all the times he killed it in previous lives. If one is unfamiliar with that creature, one may simply imagine a creature that looked as if its body were designed especially to kill someone in a particularly gruesome way, and leave it at that.

The above-described being had reached the last stretch of the path between the TOS buildings and the TNG buildings, when a sign caught its eye. The sign read,

CAPTAIN KIRK

The being stopped, looked at the sign, blinked, shrugged what passed for shoulders on its gruesome body, and continued.

A few meters farther down the path, however, it encountered a second sign, which read,

LOOKS HIS BEST

The creature raised a bat-winged, clawed appendage and scratched its head. Then it winced as it remembered too late that its claws were razor-sharp and the skin on its head was not as tough and leathery as most other parts of its body.

Cursing, it applied a Band-Aid and walked on... only to see, a few moments later, in quick succession, two signs that read respectively

WHEN HE SHOWS

and

HIS HAIRLESS CHEST.

Grimacing, or rather, increasing the grimacity of its already permanent grimace, it lifted its head and stared as far down the path as it could. Sure enough, there was Saavant, sticking the post of a fifth sign into the ground, on which sign was printed

BURMA-SHAVE.

"Excuse me," it croaked in a voice that perfectly matched its body. "What in the name of the Great Bird of the Galaxy do you think you are doing?"

Saavant looked up, took in the creature's appearance, and did a double take. Then, acknowledging that all sorts of unusual beings were seen at TSU on a regular basis, she gave it a civil nod and an answer. "I'm reviving an old tradition."

"It's a tradition to stick signs randomly all over the campus advertising Captain Kirk's chest?"

Saavant frowned. "Not randomly. And not *all over* the campus. And no, it's not a tradition to put up signs about Kirk, per se. The tradition I'm referring to was an advertising campaign in the 20th century, some considerable time before my birth, in which a company called 'Burma-Shave' posted signs along roads encouraging men to use its shaving product. It became a significant part of the culture for a while."

She gestured to a pile of signs still lying on the ground, waiting to be erected. "There was a common rhyme and rhythm scheme to the slogans they posted."

The creature looked reluctantly at the signs, which bore in Saavant's handwriting the words

CRUEL AND MEAN

WE LIKE SPOCK

SHAVEN CLEAN

BURMA-SHAVE

Saavant sighed. "This isn't really about shaving. It's about needing something creative to do, when my muses are dead."

After an extremely dark silence, the beast cleared its throat. "I don't think that... *dead* ... is quite the correct description," it said in a voice that sounded so affronted that Saavant looked up suddenly, comprehension washing over her face.

"*You're* my muse?" she squeaked.

"Damn right I am. And I would like to know just where you got the inspiration for those idiotic signs, because *I* sure didn't do it."

Recovered quickly from her shock, Saavant shot back, "I don't know myself. Maybe my subconscious has been cheating on you with some other muse." Her eyes flashed. "And frankly, you deserve it. You've given me no deep, thoughtful ideas for months and months and months. Just pointless, fluffy ideas, and not very many of those either, and only with a lot of prodding from friends. And the only times you speak up are when it's late and I'm trying to get to sleep. Except when you call me at work, and then it's ideas so pointless they aren't worth writing. You wanted a PWP about Strong Bad and the Wagon Full of Pancakes!"

"It's a canon pairing!"

"The canon for that pairing *was* a PWP. In the 'plot? what plot?' sense, if not the 'porn without plot' sense."

"I gave you two haikus the other day."

"Oh, yeah, two haikus. Wow, thanks. I'm so satisfied."

The muse growled. "For your information, I'm *not* very satisfied with the way you've been treating me. You've been working forty hours a week in the Target backroom and not doing anything intellectually stimulating at all. You've been messing with your medication doses and getting so depressed you can't read, let alone write. One can hardly blame a muse for having some trouble planting ideas in the kind of mind you've been maintaining the past few months."

"It's getting better. I've gotten back on a decent Paxil dose, and my PMS ended today."

"TMI."

"Shut up."

There was another, even darker silence.

"You know," said Saavant, "I don't even need something deep or thoughtful. Even just something really amusing. I used to be able to make everybody laugh."

"Maybe," said the muse, "what you need is to do more things in TNG and DS9 and VOY; experiment outside your usual comfort zone. You're thinking only in TOS these days."

"Berman and Braga aren't just outside my comfort zone-- they're in my vomit zone."

"Be that as it may, didn't we have some great success with that 'Phlox in Socks' poem? That was multi-series-- including ENT, even."

Saavant pondered. "True," she admitted.

The muse stood up as straight as such a creature can stand, and set its gnarled, clawed feet in slow lumbering motion. "I've got to leave for now. Think about it."

"Oh, *no,*" it groaned. (Its groans were, if such a thing was possible, even more disgusting than its grunts.)

TROI SAYS "YUCK"

RIKER SHAVES

TROI WILL FUCK

BERMAN-SHAVE

END

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