Timmy Time

“Every day. Every. Single. Day…” Gary sighed as his many hands waved abstractly in the air.

He pulled in a deep breath, only to feel it come sighing back out of him the moment he took in Timmy’s decidedly blank stare.

“We go over the same exact things: pay attention to what you're doing so you don't make a mess in the first place; if you do make a mess, clean it up. These aren't big asks, are they?”

“No… sur.” Timmy said to a splotch on the wall.

“Should it be someone else's job to clean up after you while you scamper about the muklog playing all your stupid little Jarbid games? Beep boop, Timmy time. That's not fair to everyone around you, is it?” Gary eyed Timmy's blank face as he cleared his snarflax valve with a coarse grunt.

“No…” Timmy’s glance slid across Gary to a splotch on the other side of the wall behind Gary.

Gary ran a few hands through the tangled mop of tentacles he never bothered to style or do much of anything with aside from the occasional grooming—just the basics: pulling out gattfleas and combing for their larvae with his still nimble fingers. He felt the telltale rigid bump of a gattflea and his fingers snatched it up, squishing it into a pulp which he used to slick back a handful of errant tentacles that had drooped into his vision.

“Look doot, I don't want to be having this discourse right now either. I guarantee I'm way more tired of saying these things than you are of hearing them.”

“I know. I'm sorry.”

“I'm not interested—like I keep saying—I’m not interested in apologies. I don't want you to be sorry. I want you to do better. Getth, I'd settle for you just trying. Do you understand the idea of ‘making an honest effort’?” Gary grunted again, clearing his valve.

“Y-yeah…”

“Do you?”

“Yeah.” Timmy’s fifth column of eyes shifted and flitted over Gary's even stare before quickly going back to providing the splotchy wall with his undivided attention. Timmy reached up to the mass of tentacles that sat up in a bush on top of his head, fidgeting with them.

“Well, just to clarify for the sake of both our understanding: putting in an honest effort means going about a task with the singular intention of accomplishing that task to a degree to which nobooty could ever say it wasn't done. I ask you to do dishing. You come back say, ‘All done yep yep!’ But then what is this in the sink if not dishes?” Gary trailed off, realizing Timmy's stare had somehow gone even blanker.

“I said I'm sorry…” Timmy's tentacle bush writhed as his bottom row of eyes started to well up with tears.

“I told you I don't want… Just try to do better. Like actually try. That's all I'm asking. ” Gary suppressed a snarflax cough with a quiet wheeze.

“Okay. I'm sorry. I will.” Timmy’s hands plucked and poked at his wriggling tentacles as he stood there awkwardly.

“Alright, that's all I wanted to say. Go on.” Gary dismissed Timmy with a wave of left arms gesturing to the dishes sitting in the sink.

Timmy glanced at the dishes, then stared at Gary for a second before shambling over to the sink. There were seven dishes in the sink: two cups, two bowls, two spoons, and a flardap.

“I have to do all of these?” Timmy’s eyes went wide and started to leak tears from several bottom rows.

“Goblok’s Tentacles! There are like six dishes in there. And they're all from you anyway!” Gary stopped as Timmy started wheezing and sucking through his snarflax, the flaps wetly slapping against each other and making a sound very much like human diarrhea noises but with both inward and outward modulation.

“Good Gob, you doot. Don't go greasing up the dishes with your glotspray. Take a second, take in some nitrogen. That's right. Slow breaths. Calm down. Eesh, here—I'll take care of the flardap. I'll teach you how to wash it, okay? Look, you just pull back this ring and the vents open so you can scrub out the char and it's as easy as that.” Gary‘s hands moved with the adept speed of someone who had done a task countless times as he rinsed off the Flardap and placed it on a rack to drip dry.

Timmy tentatively took over as Gary shoved the scrub grug into his hands. Timmy awkwardly scratched at the remaining dishes with the scrubber, while his tentacles twitched furiously in a writhing mass of shimmering forest green on his head. He furtively glanced with his left column of eyes at Gary before running some water over the dishes and dropping them onto the drying rack, on top of the newly pristine flardap.

Timmy’s dishes were dripping suds all over the rack and flardap. Gary stared at the drying rack for a while before saying, “Great, thank you, sur. You are free to go now.”

Timmy scampered off down the tube port to the lower half of the muklog—his domain—his body and limbs slapping along the floors and walls, creating a cacophony that only ceases once Timmy has reached his den with a final, solid thud and a sharp snap. Gary put all the dishes back in the sink and rinsed them and the drying rack, before replacing them all neatly to dry.

He heaved a great sigh, which tingled his snarflax and resulted in a wet, hacking cough. Specks of phleguli seeped out of the corners of his valve ports, which he dabbed up with a paper towel, still sighing.

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Timmy slammed the port door to his den and latched it shut in one motion before tumbling across his room onto a pile of clothes, bedding, and glordap plushies. Timmy stretched several thin arms above his head and extricated his Jarvin Gear from the writhing mass of tentacles he had been using to hide and play with the device simultaneously.

“Yess! Gained three levels and got a new sword!” Timmy trumpeted his snorflax valve in a high-pitched trill as he cozied into his makeshift nest for some serious game time.