trans_9 | Keeping Occupied

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Keeping Occupied

Cale stood in the media library in one of the pod-rooms, the broken pod-room, to be exact. His brow was creased and his nose scrunched up as he concentrated on the bizarre-looking terminal on the wall. He pressed one of the buttons and got a low ‘beep’ in reply, but the screen remained blank. He tried another. Another beep, still blank. He frowned but he wasn’t giving up. With practically nothing to do on this ship—what with the medbay taken over by the crabby green guy and this being the only other area left on the ship (the sensoriums were almost in constant use by other crew members) with any kind of identifiable technological aspect to it, Cale was determined to at least keep himself busy. And busy meant trying to TURN THAT DAMN SONG OFF!

Over and over the thing had repeated. Never stopping. Never giving even a moment’s break, and with the door wide open and it playing full volume, it was impossible to concentrate anywhere else in the media library—which is what he’d been trying to do earlier. Now, he was determined to fix what was broken…or at least drive himself crazy trying.

Beep. Beep-beep. Beep. Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep. Beep.

There! Right there! He’d had it. It went away but he’d still had it, if only for an instant. The screen flashed for just a moment and then went black again. He was making progress, getting closer. It was just a matter of time before that painstakingly awful song was gone for good.

“Yeah, and you thought I couldn’t do it, didn’t you,” Cale said aloud, apparently speaking to the troublesome terminal. “Well, I’ve got news for you buddy, I am about to own you.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Oh yeah? So tossing guys onto the ground and straddling them is an ordinary, everyday thing for you?" Cale countered. "Gosh, and here I thought I was special."

"Yeah, actually. Well, it's not just guys. I got into a hell of an awesome fight with that girl Rose. With the one eye? We kicked each other's asses and then shot the shit afterward. It was awesome."

"Sorry I missed it." Really, he was. Especially given the way he and Rose managed to not get along. "She was in here earlier bugging me and acting like she knew more about what I was doing than I do. Watching her get the crap beat out of her would've been nice."

"Actually, it was a draw. She's good. She could take your ass down in three seconds." It's said with a smile though. She's teasing again.

A chill ran up Cale's spine as the thought of Rose doing the same thing to him that Leela had done popped into his mind. "Ok...that's just disturbing. That isn't the mental picture I really needed right now."

"What mental pictures do you want? I've got a ton of other horrible ones I could impart," she says, pressing the button to flick to the next page.

"None, thanks," Cale answers. He then pushes another sequence of buttons--like he's been doing all day--and finally gets a result. Albeit, it's not the one that he's been looking for.

For the third time, the song changes...

...My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard,
And their like
It's better than yours,
Damn right it's better than yours,
I can teach you,
But I have to charge...

And thanks to Rose, it's LOUD!

Cale frantically pushed the buttons on the control panel, trying to shut the latest bit of 'culture' that the broken pod-room was now subjecting him to.

...I know you want it,
The thing that makes me,
What the guys go crazy for.
They lose their minds,
The way I wind,
I think its time...

The song finally went quiet for a few seconds before switching back to the familiar 'Three O'Clock Blues.'

Cale meanwhile, is just staring at the control panel, his face white and his eyes wide. "What...was...that?"

She laughs. Hard.

"I have. No. Clue. But it sounds like bad rap. Maybe it's a follow up to the Thong Song."

"The what song??" Cale looks at Leela with a bewildered look. He's utterly confused.

"The Thong Song. Y'all know what a thong is?" Hey, probably not many chicks running around in 'em in space.

"Uh...no."

Leela scans through her little datapad and does a search. It actually takes a few seconds to find something, but sure enough, she finds a pic of a couple of chicks in bikinis, one of which is wearing a thong, and holds it up.

"The bottom. With the string. Often used as beachwear or underwear. Sometimes by dudes, but deeefinitely not as good on them as it looks on girls. Not many tan lines, as you can see."

"You...you actually wear those?" Cale said. Yeah, he's shocked. But there's also some amazement in there. Good amazement. As in 'Holy crap! What have I been missing?'

"You know, on second thought, Earth may not be all that bad."

She was gonna say that, about Earth having good things like thongs and whatnot, but yanno, let him make those conclusions on his own. Try to force it and he gets stubborn.

"Not everybody does. Y'all gotta be able to pull one off. I did sometimes, though, yeah. I got the booty for it. Although mine looks better in cheeky bottoms."

She shows him another picture of a bathing suit that's about as closest to a thong as it can be without being a thong.

"So some guy wrote a song about thongs that was one more in a line glorifying nice booties. The Thong Song. Horrible music, and kinda sexist, but I do have to agree about the inherent goodness of booties."

"Yeah...'booties'--" He sounded so awkward saying the word. Almost like a parent using for the first time the latest slang terms. Or, worse, out of date slang. How cute! Future-boy is trying to be cool! "--are good. I mean, yeah, I like them, too."

Awkward pause!

She has this funny look on her face, like a smirk, but when you're trying not to smirk because you don't want someone to think you're laughing at them or something.

"You ever even seen a girl before you wound up here?"

"Huh? Yeah! I mean, a few. Here and there. On the drifter colonies mainly. But that was when I was fifteen."

"So until recently, you hadn't been around girls for, like, four whole years?" she goes back to her book, though, um, discreetly saves the place where she found those pictures. This media pad is now for her personal use, kthx, Stacy.

"That explains a whole lot."

"Oh yeah, Miss Know-It-All, like what?" Cale challenged, folding his arms across his chest as if daring Leela to impress him with her wisdom.

"It explains the whole hopeless awkward thing. 'I like booties, too, hur hur.' Y'all need to be a little more sick. If I was a girl you were trying to impress, that wouldn't fly. They'd think you were creepy or somethin'. And there's lots of girls our age on this ship, so you play it slick and you could actually get somewhere with one if you liked her."

"Whaa...? I was agreeing with you!" Cale retorted. "You said booties were good. I just agreed with you. Isn't that what girls are supposed to want? Guys to agree with them?"

"No."

Cale started to become a little worried. "You really think I'm creepy?" he asked. Whoa! Suddenly Leela's opinion matters? Look! Progress!

"I don't, but--" How to explain teenage social structure. "Sit down."

She pats the seat next to her.

"See, I'm thinkin', since you never had a lot of people around, you don't know how...a lot of people are with each other. Hell, you didn't know what I meant when talking about the magical negro thing the other day, and I never got to explain that either."

Cale eyed her warily as he sat next to her and listened. He didn't like what he was hearing. "You think I'm socially retarded, don't you?"

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