My Fellow Inebriates,

Miss P’s science project on the planet Venus is due in two days and we are starting to panic. Well, not me, and not really P… Really just Mum, who panics when the kids are two minutes late for school. If anyone ever needed a martini just before that morning walk, it’s our mother.

We’ve learned all kinds of crap about Venus today. I tried to help by compiling some of these boring facts and making them exciting.

• Venus is the only planet in the solar system to rotate clockwise. So the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. That’s why Venusians drink Tequila Sunsets at dawn and Tequila Sunrises at sundown.
• A year on Venus (once around the sun) is 225 Earth days long, but a day on Venus (one rotation) is 243 days. Whoa! So, like, you’d get less excited about having a birthday on Venus than you would about having, well, a day. If you ask me (and no one has) this would be a real mind-f#ck and just one additional reason to spend your Venusian life ripped out of your head.
• Venus is super-hot because of its thick, insulating cloud layer. Venusians almost never drink hot toddies; they are more the G&T type. In fact, they might be the reason my local booze shop has been out of Broker’s Gin for so long.
• There are tons of volcanos on Venus. Plus super-high atmospheric pressure. All the more reason to seek refreshing beverages.

What? Lots of people think there’s life on Venus…

Thus was I coaching P until Mum overheard and told me to get lost. She said, for the last time, there are no damn Venusians and if anyone starts screaming from the bunkbed tonight about aliens it will be my fault and she will volunteer me as the “comfort animal” indefinitely. OMG!