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“— and then he just left me, like I meant nothing to him! I knew he didn’t like contracts, but he could have, I don’t know, talked to me —”
Karen represses a sigh, instead opting to sip on her battery acid. She’s pretty sure this guy chose to sit next to her solely on the basis of both of them being CRTs, and frankly, he reminds her of Spongebob.
In a bad way.
“If you knew he didn’t like contracts, why did you bother?” she drawls, only answering because she’s expected to.
“I —” The man — Tenna, he had introduced himself as — pauses. “Well, I —” He stops again, and Karen has to admit it’s a little entertaining. Finally, he hazards, “Well, is your love life any better?”
“Yes,” Karen responds immediately, because for as irritating as Plankton is, she’s never done anything stupid to him like this guy apparently has to his ex-partner. The closest thing she can think of is calling Plankton by his first name. It still makes her giggly. Sheldon.
Tenna looks at her, his face somehow registering as expectant despite the lack of eyes, and Karen is once again reminded of Spongebob. With an audible sigh, Karen says, “I’m happily married, as annoying as my husband can sometimes be.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” Tenna says, and he sounds genuine. “What’s he do that’s annoying? Spamton used to… oh, I miss him.” His voice turns to a whine by the end, and his antennae droop.
Quickly, Karen picks up the thread of the conversation. She’s already dealt with Spongebob’s random, dramatic tears twice this week, and it’s only Wednesday; she doesn’t need to deal with those of a random TV-headed man in a bar, even if they both share CRT screens and bad taste in small men. “He never listens to me, and if I give him a good evil plan — as opposed to his, which hardly ever work — he claims it as his own.” Resting the bottom of her screen on her hand, she mutters, “Not that he ever claims so to anyone but me, but that’s besides the point.”
“Oh, Spamton did that all the time!” Tenna replies, perking up again. It’s a cycle he’s repeated about three times already. “I would think of ideas for new segments, and he would tell Mike that it was his idea, that little rat!”
“I wouldn’t care, if he’d actually made them work. Somehow he manages to screw up even the best ideas! There was that one time where I practically hand-fed him a plan to use King Neptune for world domination, and he still screwed it up!”
“And they would always be the segments that got the best ratings, too! Oh, it boils my blood to just think about it!”
“Spongebob isn’t even that smart, Plankton just leaves so many holes in his plans —”
“— and don’t get me started on how he treated my employees! I mean, I don’t treat them well, either, but —”
“— and I can’t even be that mad at Spongebob because he usually has a hand in reaffirming that Plankton really does love me! And —”
“Wait, did you say Spongebob?” Tenna suddenly interrupts. “Like the cartoon?”
“…What?” Karen asks quizzically. “No, like the employee of our rival restaurant.”
“Yes! Like Spongebob Squarepants!” Tenna chirps. A flower blooms out of his pointy nose in an instant, petals falling onto the bar. “Oh, Kris and Azzy used to love that show!”
Karen doesn’t respond, instead looking to the glass of gin and tonic in front of the man. It’s his second glass, and it’s half full, but he didn’t strike her as a lightweight — not the way that she herself is, anyway.
As Tenna continues to chatter on about his kids, or something, Karen makes eye contact with the bartender, and shakes her head. Silently, he sets out a glass of water besides the alcoholic drink. Then, blessedly, he refills her glass of battery acid.