Peas and parts

The point - which I forgot to make - of all that previous ranting was that I need parts. I am reaching a crisis point with some of my vaporators. Everything seems to be breaking at once and no one has what I need. And of course it's the kind of situation where even buying a whole new vaporator wouldn't really solve the problem, because the same parts keep breaking in all of them. What I need is not a new vaporator, but several cases of coils. Preferably from some alternative manufacturer. And bought with WHAT money, exactly? Harvest time is still a ways off, and of course if I don't get these things fixed it won't be much of a harvest.

I was still stewing over this when I went to the market for some provisions and ran into little Biggs Darklighter, who is getting to be not so little lately. In fact, I think he is trying to grow a mustache. Or he might just need to wash more often. It's hard to tell, at his age.

It's a little-known, and somewhat uninteresting fact, that the Darklighters used to live at the Lars place. They were tenants, and the owner was some off-planet corporation. When that owner died, the new owner (who I think was actually distantly related to Ben Kenobi in some way) sold the place to Cliegg Lars. Meanwhile, the Darklighters moved to another area and got into mushroom farming, which led to other things, and they got into a partnership with the Hutts, and made a lot of money and came back here and built an impressive place.

But I digress. Little Biggs was there with his mother and his cousin, and with very little provocation I started griping about the equipment situation again. I confess, I don't really know the Darklighters well, and I only know Biggs because he is always loafing around the game room at Tosche Station with the other local kids. Unlike the other kids, he's hyper-social and seems to be fascinated with talking to adults about any subject. I can't figure out whether he is truly mature beyond his years, or if he's just an Eddie Haskell type of character who's good at making an impression on adults, but I have to give credit where it's due. He's a bright kid and the best thing his parents can do for him is to get him into a good school as soon as possible. They're working on it, but the mischief he gets into could interfere with that.

Biggs has a way of getting people to talk, without saying much himself. He'd make a great spy. I don't even know how he got me started, but before I knew it, he was writing down a list of all the parts I needed, and his mother Dofi was watching over his shoulder and nodding with an "oh yeah, this sounds familiar" look on her face. (Cousin Mary Sue was sulking in the background, rolling her freakishly violet eyes impatiently. Apparently, I was spoiling her shopping trip.)

Dofi invited me over for dinner. That was a surprise, since we've never been particularly social before, but she seemed to think that Kane could help me out with my list. I figured, what the heck. I noticed a bag of split peas in her basket, which could mean pea soup, and that's all the incentive I need.

Of course, it could also be pea cake. But I'm feeling lucky. More tomorrow.