Disclaimer: Xena and Gabby are unfortunately not my creation. I would've come up with the characters myself, but TPTB beat me to it, so all credit goes to them. I'm writing this just for my own bit of fun, no infringement intended or anything.

Nope, no violence, no subtext, no nothing. Just having some fun with the completely unnecessary fuss about the whole millennium business... 
allmightyannie@hotmail.com

Ancient Millennium 

"Xena?" 
"Yeah"
"I've just been thinking about that millennium problem and I..."
"Millennium problem? Oh, is that that new lice species? Licenius millenius.... Yeah, I heard about those...." 
"No, it's not that, it's just..."
"Please don't tell me it has anything to do with fungus."
"No! Will you just hear me out!"
"OK, OK. No reason to get so cranky all of a sudden..."
"I am not cranky!"
"No, of course you're not.. So, tell me about the millennium thing... What is it?"
"You know... It's that 'a thousand years have gone by' thing. How can you not have heard about this? Every town in Greece is talking about it. Parties all over the place. Oh, and then there's that millennium bug..."
"See, I knew it had something to do with lice."
"No, not lice... Worse. It's this little red beetle. Suddenly appears every 1000 years. It has these big wings and it flies..."
"Bugs usually do that if they have wings... Ow!! There was absolutely no need for that."
"Yes there was 'Oh warrior princess of sneaky remarks' ". 
"All right, I'll be nice, I'll be nice. So they're small and red, they have wings and they fly. What else?"
"They sting. Really bad. They say the last one who got stung by one of those didn't survive."
"Who could have possibly told you that? It hasn't happened this year yet, has it?"
"No, but..."
"Then how can you possibly know someone got stung a thousand years ago?! Gabrielle, have you been talking to those mummies again?"
"No! I heard from this woman who'd heard it from her grandfather, who was told by his grandmother , who'd listened to the story told by this bard, who'd gotten the story from his grandfather, who said that his sister in law had heard from her neighbor that the guy living across the street had been stung."
"O yeah, that's a reliable story... What?!"
"You're doing it again."
"Doing what?!"
"Making stupid remarks about this millennium thing. This really is a serious problem, Xena! All sorts of things could happen! What if... what if your sundial suddenly stops?"
"Gabrielle, the sun doesn't know it's heading for a new millennium."
"How would you know?"
"Because the sun is just a big ball of gas! Big balls of gas don't keep track of millennia Gabrielle."
"I though it was Helios and his wagon of fire..."
"No, he retired years ago. He was tired of going around in circles all day, so he just placed that thing up there and sat down on his little cloud on mount Olympus."
"How do you know about that?"
"O, I just heard from this guy, who'd heard from his brother, who'd been told by his mother in law, who'd listened to this merchant, who'd heard about this guy, who heard from his grandfather Helios had quit."
"Hardiharhar..."
"I just wanna show you there's nothing to this millennium stuff. Who's gonna spend his life keeping track of how many days before the millennium it is? And, millennium bugs? Come on!"
"Then what's that?"
"What's what?"
"That red spot in your neck"
"What?! Where!? I don't see any bug. Where is it? Gabrielle, where is it?!"
"Got ya!"
"You little...."
"Well, you deserved that."
"Why?! For being the only one with a little sense around here? You know, this is just going to make people do really stupid stuff... Like... trying to have millennium babies or something."
"Hey, I didn't think you'd know about that."
"You're joking, right?"
"No, not at all. Salmoneus is handing out this big award for the first baby of the new millennium."
"I should have known he'd find a way to make money out of this."
"He's getting richer by the second. All those people who want to enter the competition have to register and pay registration money."
"You mean, there are people out there who actually buy this stuff?"
"Lot's. Diana's entered, and Meg, ..."
"Please don't tell me Leah's entered."
"Xena, the word virgin usually implies having kids is not an option."
"It was a joke!"
"O, was that what it was?"
"... So, any more people we know?"
"Well, actually... Sal said...."
"Who?"
"Hercules."
"Hercules? But he... That is not humanly possible... is it?"
"Well, he is half god... His father got pregnant..."
"That's because Zeus ate the mother!"
"OK, you've got a point."
.... "How did we reach the subject of Herc being pregnant again?"
"Millennium"
"Oh yeah... right."
"But what I was meaning to say about this millennium thing, there are a lot of great parties around and I just haven't been able to decide which one to go to. So I was thinking, this might be a good time to test my theory about the world being round and all."
"What? You've lost me. Because the earth is round, we can go to all the parties in Greece because...?"
"Well, you see, if the earth is round, the sun doesn't rise in every country at the same time. So, when it's already 1000 BC in Chin, Greece is still in 999 BC."
"Yeah, so..?"
"So, I was thinking, if we run west really fast and we start in Chin, we could begin a new millennium over and over again. Cool, huh?"
"Oh yeah, just great."
"Ow, come on Xena, this is a one in a life time opportunity."
"Yeah, thank the gods for that"

The end