Let me explain. My third wife and I, God rest her soul, once drove for five hours to the Grand Canyon. Upon arrival we were gobsmacked. It was amazing, breath-taking. My third wife said it was like nothing on earth. Of course, I laughed in her face and said, "It is on earth, you doughnut." She got back in the car and drove off without me. I never saw her again.
But the point of the story is that for all its majestic splendour, after five minutes looking at the canyon that was undeniably grand, I was so over it. I'd been there, got the fridge magnet, lost my third wife and was a bit bored of it all, to be honest. It's a rocky hole.
I imagine it's the same when you're in space. Pretending to hold earth between your thumb and forefinger as you peer through the space station window must be one of those rare thrilling experiences that makes a little bit of wee come out. But the second time you see earth's glow twinkling at you through the portal, not so much. And the third time? Well, I'd probably shut the blind.
That's why I was a bit surprised to hear that the Russian cosmonauts had spent so long going for a stroll. Again, once the wow factor of being weightless and doggy paddling your way through space wears off, what's there to do? There's only so far they could go because of the umbilical cord thingy (that's the technical term) connecting them to the space station so they couldn't even play hide 'n' seek and even 'I spy' would get pretty boring once you'd correctly guessed 'earth', 'star' and 'massive black void'.
I bet they were well bored. Unless they re-created the space-dance scene from Wall-E, of course, using fire extinguishers to foxtrot through the cosmos. Or were they walking the dog? Well, why not have pets in space? They've sent monkeys, dogs and humans separately so why not at the same time? Oh, I think my imagination has just answered my own question. Three words: floating dog poo.
Six-and-a-half hours. 390 minutes. Sheesh. Maybe they watched Titanic. Twice. We'll never know. Actually, we will - the whole thing was recorded and captured for mankind on NASA's website. We're just too lazy to watch it. If you do, let us know what they got up to. Thanks.
My only hope is that during their mammoth walk, one of them tapped the other one on the helmet, pointed at earth and said, "I can see my house from here." But in Russian.
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