h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Joe was a writer. His first novel was noted for its genius and it got 5 stars from every reviewer. It sold two copies, both of them to his mother. His second novel was a startling two hundred page text raving about the lunacy of a world in which people don’t appreciate modern art. The reviews were mixed and it was an instant bestseller. Joe wanted to write another book raving about the absolute idiocy of buying a book complaining that you didn’t buy another book, but decided against it because he couldn’t think of a good first line. Instead, he decided to write about an author who wrote a best selling novel complaining about the poor sales of a book no one read.

Joe prides himself on his tidying. Joe’s wife used to tell Joe to tidy the house, since he was at home all the time and she had to go to work. Joe could spend hours organizing things into different groups. “Things we spent a lot of money on and use a lot,” “Things we spent a lot of money on and never used,” and “Things we spent a lot of money and can’t figure out what to do with,” are the standard groups for the living room. The kitchen is a little bit more complex and the kid’s bedrooms can take up weeks to do a good job on. Joe had an interesting system of tidying. He would take, let’s say, three items from one place and find, let’s say, three possible places to put them. He would then put each of the three items in each of the three different places. Therefore, anyone who wanted to find one of these, let’s say, cell phones would have to look in three different places before finding his own. After a couple of hours spent trying to find her purple lipstick, Joe’s wife decided that from now Joe would only be allowed to tidy the attic.

Joe’s oldest child is called Charlotte. She is a shy awkward girl with the highest GPA in the entire school. Joe’s middle child is called Jack and is the most popular kid in the seventh grade. He’s two years younger than his older sister. Joe’s youngest is called Zack, but he calls him Zoek, because it sounded stupid to call out, “Jack and Zack!” Joe’s wife says that it sounds even stupider to call out, “Jack and Zoek!” but Joe rarely listens to his wife, and when he does,he regrets it. This is partly because Joe’s wife talks a lot, but it is mostly because Joe couldn’t care less about a thing his wife said, if, of course, it doesn’t have to do with cleaning out the attic. Joe’s wife is called Jeanne J. The J. is for Josephine, because when they got married, Joe wanted Jeanne to change her name to Josephine, but she would only agree to change it to her middle name.

Zoek is in third grade and is extremely weird, which is regarded by both his siblings as an understatement. He had an imaginary friend named Libule whom he didn’t like very much. Although Joe never had the chance to meet Libule, he had figured, from Zoek’s explanation that he was a bullie. Zoek said that Libule stole things from him but Joe had a haunch that Libule was just an excuse for all the things that Zoek lost, such as Joe’s first Joepad. Joepads where ordinary pads Joe writes all his stories in. Joe had dozens of Joepads scattered around the house. When Zoek lost Joe’s first Joepad, Joe didn’t sleep for four days since he was to busy writing everything he could remember unto his second Joepad.