Funny / Tales of Pirx the Pilot

• Almost the entirety of "Pirx's Tale". The mission consists of hauling junk for a ludicrously frugal company, the hired crew is a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: most of them get stricken down with mumps for the entirety of the story, the radio operator is a passive-aggressive, alcoholic Mexican, and the engineer, quite a decent guy, really... is a highway engineer who signed up by mistake. The ship is in better shape than the cargo, but not by much. Pirx, completely exhausted, resigns himself to reading sci-fi pulp novels in his bunk, hunting the radio operator's booze stashes, and snarking about it all.
  "Every takeoff and landing took place in infringement of all laws - not only those of physics."