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In the early days of his job at Muppet Labs, Beaker had no problem seething with aggravation over his boss’ oblivious negligence that led, unerringly, to grievous bodily harm. He went home every night, aching and often singed, swearing to himself that he would quit and find another job. Then he’d go in the next morning, hear Dr. Honeydew’s nigh-nonsensical explanation of his reality-altering goals for the day, and Beaker would sigh and decide to stay on just a little longer. It was an unsustainable position from which Beaker would excuse himself soon, soon, soon, if never quite yet. But he had no illusions of staying for long.
The problem started, really, with Dr. Honeydew’s laugh.
Because mostly, when Beaker was harmed by an invention, he could write it off as error, as the doctor’s head being permanently in the clouds, as the universe punishing him for assisting in the disruption of its natural order. While Dr. Honeydew was many things, most of which were apparent to any passing observer, Beaker hadn’t read him as malicious . But then a high-voltage electric shock was pulsing again and again through Beaker’s body until he was rendered unconscious, and just as he came to, he’d heard it. That gently scathing sss-sss-sss, like a brush on a cymbal, like water boiling over and hissing against a red-hot burner, and Beaker had a second to think, Is he doing this on purpose? before he passed out again and the thought departed.
It returned that night as Beaker tried to sleep. He’d been perfectly content with the presumption that Dr. Honeydew was simply the least successful adherent to health and safety standards in the history of modern science and not, as Beaker now had to wonder, a closet sadist. But now that the question had arisen, it bore contemplation. As Beaker did not have nearly enough evidence for a decisive argument one way or the other, his brain looped in ever more anxiety producing spirals until morning had arrived and Beaker was late for work, exhausted and preoccupied.
He had to admit that Dr. Honeydew’s paper unshredder melding the fingers of his right hand was entirely his own fault, but the sss-sss-sss returned regardless. At that, Beaker adjusted his question.
Clearly, Dr. Honeydew didn’t want his experiments to fail. The doctor wanted to change the world, one bizarre invention at a time, and it would be (among other things) highly inefficient to create half-faulty machines just to watch them inflict their failures on his assistant’s body. So, is he doing this on purpose? Surely not.
Is he enjoying it?
After many more sleepless nights spent pondering this topic, Beaker found himself forging some bad habits. First, his efforts to avoid harm disintegrated dramatically, feeling largely pointless anyhow. Second, whenever harm did occur, his immediate response was to look for Dr. Honeydew’s reaction. Third, undoubtedly the worst of the three, he started seeking out Dr. Honeydew’s laugh. He needed a proper base of knowledge to determine what evoked that sss-sss-sss and what emotion(s) it conveyed, so in the lab, backstage, in the breakroom, Beaker always had an ear out. Metaphorically.
This transformed into the even worse habit of attempting to draw out the sound himself. His pantomime jokes and over-the-top insubordination landed with increasing regularity as they grew to understand each other’s senses of humor, but that particular sss-sss-sss rarely appeared. It seemed reserved, as Beaker had hypothesized, for others’ misfortune. Whether Dr. Honeydew found Beaker’s misfortune especially amusing or Beaker was just especially unfortunate, he couldn’t guess. Beaker could only with certainty say that the sss-sss-sss sounded best when directed at him.
Which led, of course, to habit number four. Beaker now associated his boss’ maniacal snickering with a sense of achievement and pride. This connected directly to habit number five (or perhaps negative one? As a retraction of an old habit, it seemed ill-suited to a positive integer): Beaker never thought about quitting anymore.
Distracted by mourning his sense of self-preservation, Beaker absorbed none of Dr. Honeydew’s extensive instructions for dealing with his new, odor-activated scented candle (which had the power of a flame-thrower and a disdain for turning itself off as it was meant to or, indeed, anything else extinguishing it). Predictably, Beaker ended up blown to the floor, his nose burned clean off.
“Sss-sss-sss,” Dr. Honeydew laughed, hand covering his mouth in a mockery of decorum. “Oh, Beaky, you silly thing. Whatever would I do without you?”
Then the doctor ruffled Beaker’s hair, said something about fetching him a new nose, and walked away.
Beaker’s insides felt as warm as his outsides felt scorched. He wouldn’t give up this job for anything.