My Favorite Use of the Word: Plethora

Jefe: I have put many beautiful pinatas in the storeroom, each of them filled with little suprises.
El Guapo: Many pinatas?
Jefe: Oh yes, many!
El Guapo: Would you say I have a plethora of pinatas?
Jefe: A what?
El Guapo: A *plethora*.
Jefe: Oh yes, you have a plethora.
El Guapo: Jefe, what is a plethora?
Jefe: Why, El Guapo?
El Guapo: Well, you told me I have a plethora. And I just would like to know if you know what a plethora is. I would not like to think that a person would tell someone he has a plethora, and then find out that that person has *no idea* what it means to have a plethora.
Jefe: Forgive me, El Guapo. I know that I, Jefe, do not have your superior intellect and education. But could it be that once again, you are angry at something else, and are looking to take it out on me?

Part 2?

I woke up on the wrong side of the universe.

Have you ever spent the night somewhere, a friend's house, or hotel or something, and woken up in the middle of the night to that frantic, “Where-the-fuck-am-I?” panic attack? It's like that, only about a billion times worse. Somehow your body knows. It's weird, but somehow you just know that you're farther away from your birthplace than any person was ever meant to be. That's a tough pill to swallow at whatever passes for 4am around here.

Angry Smurf... Stephen, I reminded myself, did little to make the situation any better.

“Are you going to vomit, Human?” He snapped on a bright overhead light as I sat up.

“Am I? I don't feel si...”

I threw up all over floor.

While Stephen cursed in a language I didn't understand and waved his weapon about in my face, I slowly eased back down to a prone position, suddenly feeling very much like a prune remembering what life was like as a plum.

Stephen's partner, the Human-looking fellow whose name I didn't know, lumbered in.

“Give it a rest, eh Stephen? Can't you see the bloke's in pain?” he said in a passable cockney. He glanced at the mess on the floor. “Thank heavens for artificial gravity. That would have been quite a mess.”

“Are you British now?” I asked, still squeezing my eyes shut.

“Well, not really British, obviously. But I do like to practise every now and again.”

“It's very nice.” I opened my eyes. The light hurt, but the pain was seeping away.

“Thank you.” He beamed.

Stephen fiddled with a setting on his gun and seared away the mess I'd made on the floor. It left an unpleasant odor in the air, but the vomit was gone.

“Get up, Human. There is much to be done.”

I swung my feet down and sat up again.

“Are you guys going to tell me what this is all about?” I asked.

“No.” Stephen stuffed his laser-gun-thing into some sort of holster and left the room, clearly expecting me and the other alien to follow him.

“My name is Basil,” he said to me suddenly.

“Is it?”

“It is today, old chap. It is today.” He grinned and strode after Stephen.

“Lead the way, Basil,” I said.