Nice beginning. The frequent references to Mom and Dad suggests that this story is told from an immature point of view. Intentional?

(Incidentally, you have one instance of “Dad” which isn’t capitalized.)

I like this begining too. Now I’m off to the sequel.
* flys away *

Fixed the “dad.” I’m surprised to have two comments before I even finished writing this bit! The speed of the internet amazes.
This is intended to be a Simon story set well before the Simone series and probably before Alexa’s series. I was writer-blocked and needed to try to knock some things loose. Hopefully CMTKOM won’t mind my appropriating his character….

Also fixed a continuity problem.

random tangent there about Star Trek, which was cute

Forget Bruce Campbell, Jack Kirby and Jerry Lawler: you are the King, Howie.
– But not of Mars, because that title is already taken : )

For anyone new to the series:
You might find this timeline helpful:
http://ficlets.com/stories/12429

Howie
Amazing as always. I’m not supposed to be online, but it was just too much fun!