Sponge Noir

Chapter 3 - Thursday

As I was getting dressed and brewing coffee I thought about how much further my investigation would be  if not for my two mistakes. But while walking to the Krusty Krab, I put it all behind me so I could focus on  performing better. After punching in, I finished my coffee and blew my pipe bubbles while filling out  paper work documenting my investigation. Mr. Krabs’s office door was open so I assumed he was in there.  My assumption was correct. “Good morning Mr. K”, I said cheerfully.        
“Mornin’ lad. How’s the investigation coming?”, he asked typing and staring at his laptop.        
“Pretty good sir. All the juicy details are in this report that you can fax to the Chief”. I slapped the papers  on his desk. “The drug’s street name is Crankbait by the way”.     
“I swear I told you that already boy”, he said with a puzzled look while still staring at his screen. “Nope. I  just found out and I was quite embarrassed actually”, I replied while refilling my bubble pipe.     
“Sorry lad”, he sulked while typing. “My stress keeps making shit slip me mind”.     
“No worries boss. Also I suspect an anchovy mafia in Rock Bottom run by Octavius Rex and his boss who’s  an octopus”, I blew some bubbles.        
He stopped typing, turned his head toward me, and said, “You don’t say?”, with narrowed eyes.   
I pulled the pipe out of my mouth to say, “Yup. It’s pretty obvious that he runs the transit system and  likely other municipal facilities. I don’t know for sure but the cops down there may be paying Rex for a  protection racket”.        
“Wow. Keep up the good work boy”.        
“Thanks, sir. Once the Chief is informed, he is bound to convince the Mayor of Rock Bottom to create more  police stations. If they expand their police force, they will never settle for a protection racket from Rex or  any gang that tries to take over Rock Bottom”, I announced while stepping out of his office.    
Mr. Krabs piped up when I was in the doorway. “Don’t worry about calling the Chief because he is usually  busy lad. I’ll fax this report to him so he can read it on his own time. Rock Bottom’s police presence will  surely increase sooner rather than later”.     
“Sounds good Mr. K”, I said walking to my office. Squidward and the new fry cook kept busy serving  customers while I remained available for the daily complaints. An angry customer pounded on my door.  “Come in” I shouted. She opened the door carefully but with the look on her face, I’m surprised she didn’t  just thrust it open. “How can I help you?”. I said with a cheery customer service smile.        
She held out a Krabby Patty with just one bite and sarcastically said, “Well, Mr. Funny Man, is this how you  get your sick kicks?!” [40].
“Is something wrong with your patty?”, I asked puzzled.        
“I’ve been coming here almost every day for years and the Krabby Patty always had a seaweed seed bun  [44]. It’s a disgrace that you expect us to settle for cheap plain buns”.     
“Ma’am, you realize that we lowered the price to compensate for the changes right?”.        
“Don't you think I already know that? Obviously, I would rather pay full price for seaweed seed than your  stupid discounted plain buns”. She was getting on my nerves. I put my paycheck on the line to make my  money-grubbing boss lower the prices. But this cunt couldn’t even accept that? 
“What’s your name ma’am”?        
“Karen”, she said snobbishly.        
“Listen, Karen, unless you’ve been living under a rock, and I don’t mean to discriminate against starfish,  you should be aware that there is a seaweed seed crisis. Restaurants and stores have been robbed dry and  the Mayor canceled all current production. So sorry for the slight inconvenience but these are the only  buns we've got”. She stood there tapping her foot angrily.     
“That’s no way to talk to a customer” she sneered. “You’re supposed to be a soft sponge, not a hard brick”.  I could feel my blood pressure rising. Us rectangular prisms always take offense when being called a brick.  That was when I had enough. This overweight broad clearly ate a lot of Krabby Patties but instead of going  straight to her thighs, the fat gained from eating them every day went straight to her gut [58].     
“You know I can be soft too”, I said cheekily. “I was actually going to congratulate you.” A puzzled look  struck her face but she also had a slight grin like preparing for a compliment. I continued. “Come on you  don’t have to be modest”, I said nodding my head toward her belly. “Is it a boy or girl?”. She returned to  resting bitch face and stormed out the door. I was only hard on her because she was being rude from the  start. I don’t know how Plankton married a Karen but, then again, she was a computer.
To my surprise, more and more customers kept coming to my door with the same question as Karen. But  rather than complaining, they were more inquisitive so I gave them respectable answers. Many asked why  the anchovy gangs were stealing seaweed seed buns. I gave each of them the same dialogue: “We are  learning that the new street drug, which you may or may not have heard about called Crankbait, has been  originating from seaweed seeds. The recent rise in prices is enough motivation for gangs to rob stores and  restaurants and risk getting caught rather than safely paying full price which they likely used to based on  the recent spike of seaweed seed bun sales. Now don't worry, all buns have a safe amount of seaweed  seeds on them but when you consume an extremely large amount at once, they have a slight narcotic  effect. Just like the days of turning poppy seeds into Heroin, anchovy gangs are using similar techniques to  extract the narcotic chemicals and infuse them into foods or sell them straight as a green powder. I think  some are melting the powder and injecting Crank into their veins because that's the usual culprit behind  drug overdoses. There haven’t been this many overdoses since the Morphine epidemic of the early 1900s.  Poppy seed bagels are now illegal and I wouldn't be surprised if the temporary ban on seaweed seed buns  also becomes permanent. However, the legal crackdown on poppy seeds didn't prevent people from  growing their own and refining them into Heroin, so I expect seaweed seeds’ illegality to be as equally  ineffective”.
I was curious as to why they were not informed about this news on TV. They all said that they don’t watch  the news because they don’t have cable. When I asked why they said that they get all the shows and  movies they need from a streaming service called Off Shore. But when I stated that the Krusty Krab TVs  have cable and the news channel is usually on, one fish alerted me that Krabs changed all the TVs to sports  channels.
I checked the TVs and he was right. One had three fish behind a desk talking about the next bubble bowl  [37], another had a professional Jellyfishing competition, and the third had a boxing match between two  boxes [38]. “Shit”, I muttered. I had to tell Krabs to play at least some news channels to give me a break  and to inform the people. When I got to his door I heard him faintly say, “Oh Puff Mama, you're me sweet  Wampum” [39] [40].      
I opened the door and saw Mr. Krabs making out with someone I recognized from behind. “Mrs. Puff?”, I  asked while gasping at the scarring nature of their slobbery session. They immediately stopped.        
Krabs was pissed and blurted, “Don’t you know to knock boy?”.
“Oops sorry boss”, I said quickly closing the door. I was flustered. So much so that it took a few rings  before my brain registered that my phone was going off.