Never touching this again

We're a team.

I went out to the Lab a little later, to find Tessa had just walked up to Dad.

" Dad, please. You can't keep spending money on this junk just so you can turn it into different junk. " she crossed her arms. ' Oh boy, here we go again. ' I sighed. I walked over to the truck and sat down in front of him, crossing my legs.

" We do not use the "J" word in here.-" he waves over to the projector. "- That is a super Simplex theater projector. It's very rare. " he waves to a small two-legged robot, " What about the SmilePilot? Or the Exer-Mower that I invented? Simply ahead of their time. "

" Yeah-" Lucas walks from around a corner, "- Like the alleged Guard-Dawg. "

The robot dog responded by waving its head around while imitating a growling dog.

" You're gonna get him upset. "

Lucas ran over to a recliner, passing a mini-fridge and a black trash can with a smiley face painted on, by me.

" Hey Cade! Cade!-" he picks up a small remote " Does this thing still work? "

" No! "

" Yes. Yes, and it's still ground breaking. Go back there and lie on the recliner and just wait for a cold one. "

Lucas walks towards the recliner, punching a punching bag as he walks by, knocking it down. I facepalmed.

" Dude, stop breaking stuff. " Dad sits at his desk.

Tessa walks up to him, and tosses one letter down at a time.

" Final notice. Late notice, and past due. "

I look back over to the little trash can robot, he just grabbed a beer can from the automatically closing fridge. The little guy making noises the whole time.

" Come on, come on. Bring Daddy the alcohol. Come on. "

I scoff at him, he sounded so dumb. I rubbed my lower back, my butt was numb.

" You could bring it to me. " he looks at me with a smirk.

I grabbed a small rock next to my feet, and I throw it at him. Barely missing his head while it hit the wall behind him. I stood up to throw another one.

" Whoa, Naomi! " I stop to look at Dad. " Don't kill him, and no throwing stuff in the Lab. "

I tossed the rock close to Lucas, while I walked over to one of the chairs, grabbing a pillow. I walk back over to where I was sitting, putting the pillow under me as I sat on it. I leaned back against the truck. Hoping he wouldn't shake me off.

" I mean, what is all this crap that people send you? " Tessa walked up to Dad, holding two objects in her hands.

" That's a Discman,- " he point to one, "- and that's an eight-track tape. " he pointed to the other. " Music. "

" Never heard of it. " she threw them onto the table next to the rest of Dad's stuff.

He points to a few things around them, " Look, I fix that, it's a hundred bucks. I fix that, it's two-fifty. If I had been able to fix that before you broke it anymore, it would have been twenty bucks. This stuff is what's gonna put you through college as long as you land one of those scholarships. "

Lucas has been twisting the remote around in his hand the whole time, staring at the robot.

" What's the estimated time of arrival usually? Average? " he looked annoyed. This idiot. The robot opened up to hand him the beer, not being close enough for him to reach it.