Peter and Brian in Tampering With Nature

Dealing With Unsatisfied Employees

"So, how do we do it?" Wallace asked, pacing around the basement. "How do we get fifty gallons of honey ready for Mr. Paaner tonight? How do we not let our first major order down?"

"For God's sake, Wallace!" Gromit snapped. "You've done nothing except ask those stupid, irritating questions and pace around this basement like a completely useless moron for the last hour! It's not achieving anything except getting on my bloody nerves!"

"Well, this is how I work, Gromit," Wallace protested. "This is how the smartest people in the whole wide world work."

"Sure it does," Gromit said sarcastically.

"Good," Wallace said. "I'm glad you see it that way too and agree with me."

"I wasn't agreeing with you, Wallace!" Gromit snapped. "I was being sarcastic! Why don't you do something useful, like check on the Pollenator?"

Wallace just scoffed. "Oh, sure. Like checking on the Pollenator is really going to be useful," he said sarcastically.

"Maybe you're being sarcastic, Wallace," Gromit said, "but I wasn't! I was being serious!"

"Oh, yeah? And you consider yourself a smart dog while you –"

"Hey, can you guys please keep it down?"

Wallace and Gromit turned to see a bee with long black hair fly out of the basement's beehive towards them.

"It's hard enough working to make honey with the lack of flowers you're giving us," said a bee called Bonnie. "But working while you guys have your rows is just so –"

"Oh, shut up, Bonnie Bee," Wallace snapped. "We're trying to find a solution to our problems and all you're doing is moaning and –"

"Wallace, you shut up for a minute now," Gromit said. "Maybe we should listen to Bonnie Bee." Then he saw the rest of the bees coming out of the beehive. "And the rest of his bee friends."

"Yeah, right," Wallace said sarcastically. "Like, how is listening to our worker bees going to help us find the solution to our problem?"

"Because of the fact that we're actually bees!" snapped Seamus who was a bee. Well, half a bee as his wings and legs were all made out of wood. "We're the actual goddamn bees that make the actual goddamn honey for your actual goddam honey!"

"What's wrong with the way things already are?" Wallace asked.

"You mean just keep forcing us to work and not care about our mental wellbeing?" asked the bee wearing glasses called Mort.

"Yeah, that's it," Wallace said. "Why can't we continue that way?"

"I'll tell you why we can't continue that way, Wallace," Gromit said. "BECAUSE NOTHING GETS BETTER OR ACHIEVES ANYTHING THAT WAY! You can't just treat these bees like slaves and then view yourself as a role model! Didn't you learn anything about the Ancient Egyptians?"

"Sure, I did, Gromit," Wallace said. "I remember the story of how Hercules defeated the Hydra, the Minotaur, Medusa and the –"

"Wallace, that's Ancient Greek, not Ancient Egyptian," Gromit said. "Oh, (bleep) this! You're so (bleep) useless!" Then he turned to the bees. "Just tell us why you bees are very unhappy and we'll do what we can in our power and control to make life better for you."

Then the whole swarm of bees told Gromit that they weren't getting enough flowers to produce their honey, ever since Wallace had turned their gardens into some of his inventions instead of letting them be real gardens and have all the flowers they could pollinate on.

"I may not give you plenty of flowers, but I give you real quality ones," Wallace said. "You know, quality over quantity."

"No, you don't, fool," said the queen bee, whom Wallace and Gromit called Queen Bee Latifah. "Neither the flowers you give us are either quality or quantity."

"In fact, they're so bad in quality that not even compost heaps would want them," said the bee called Dr. Hartman.

"And without more flowers," said the bee called Quagmire, "not only can we not produce more honey, but none of us feel like having sex and that's why we haven't been able to create any bee eggs. No giggity."

"Bee eggs, eh?" Wallace asked. "How do you normally eat them? Fried? Boiled? Scrambled? Poached?"

"Wallace, we don't eat our own bee eggs," Gromit said. "They won't taste like hen or duck eggs. Besides, we're beekeepers and trying to make honey. What kind of beekeepers would we be if we speeded up their extinction instead of trying to save them?"

Wallace thought very hard before he finally said, "The very best beekeepers in the whole wide world."

Gromit just sighed and paw-palmed his face as he shook it in disbelief.

"And you won't even let us go into your garden," the bee called Ida said. "You just keep us in here as if we're prisoners and you and Gromit were our prison wardens."

"Well, you might as well be prisoners because the last time I let you into the garden one of you bastards or bitches stung that old lady, who sued the company," Wallace said.

That was one of the very few times that Wallace wasn't wrong in his life. One of his bees did sting an old lady who was walking very close to the front garden of 62 West Wallaby Street and From Bee To You got sued to not taking better care of their bees. Ever since then, none of the bees said it was them or took responsibility for it.

"And what about the music you guys listen to?" Wallace asked. "Doesn't that help you get in the mood for work?"

"No, no," said the bee called Jerome. "No way in hell."

"What?" Wallace was surprised. "None of you want to whistle with Snow White during the song Whistle While You Work?"

"No," the bees replied.

"Now, don't tell me Dolly Parton doesn't motivate you to work from 9 to 5," Wallace said.

"No, she doesn't," the bees said.

"And before you ask, Wallace," the Pervert Bee, also known as Herbert, "that Monty Python Silly Walks song didn't either motivate us to work or make us laugh. It just hits very real to us."

"So, let me get this straight," Gromit said. "If we can get you more flowers for you and the Pollenator, get new songs for you to listen to while you work, you'll promise you'll produce more and better honey for us? And if we let you out into our gardens, you'll promise not to sting any more people."

"You got a deal," said Queen Bee Latifah.

The bees cheered and buzzed their praises.

"Okay, then, let's get down to business," Wallace said. "Now, what shall I do first?"

"I'd go to get a takeaway pizza for all of us if I were you," Gromit said.

"Oh, good idea, Gromit," Wallace said. "See, I'd knew you'd see it from my – Wait a minute. You're not being sarcastic, are you?"

"No, I'm not," Gromit said sarcastically.

"Oh, good."

"Of course I am!" Gromit snapped. "Just go and find some better flowers so the bees will be happy and produce better honey."

"How do I know you're not –"

"I'm not being sarcastic this time, Wallace!" Gromit snapped. "I'm being serious! Just go and make yourself useful."

"Oh, you think I'm completely useless, huh?" Wallace said, storming to the steps while still glaring at Gromit. "Well, I show you who's completely useless and it won't be me." But because he was still looking at Gromit instead of where he was going, he bumped into a wall and the shelves with the paint pots they above him came crashing down onto him.

"Oh, yeah," said Gromit, who had been watching the whole thing. "That's really useful to us, Wallace."

Then the bees laughed as they saw Wallace completely covered in paint. He looked like a clown and not a funny clown, but a scary one. In fact, he looked like Pennywise the Clown also known as 'It'.