Jukebox Hero
Danny Phantom
SUMMERY: My friends and I like to eat at the Nasty Burger. This was a normal thing, but the meal we had that day was the best meal I ever had in my life.
NOTES: Inspired by the hilarious Salt and Pepper Diner story by John Mulaney.
WARNINGS: I recommend hearing the John Mulaney story first.
A week before legendary meal, Nasty Burger had installed a jukebox - or at least a large music playing device designed to look like a jukebox. I don't think anybody sells jukeboxes anymore. It had hundreds of songs on it and cost $1 for two songs. Now imagine three teenagers, bored out of their minds, waiting for their food at one of the few fast food places in town, on a very busy day for said fast food place.
We sat there, bored, until we saw Dash and Paulina walk up to the jukebox and insert a dollar in the machine. Ember's song Remember began to play. It was then that an evil smile spread across my face. I asked Sam for some money and she pulled out a $10. After that I turned invisible, walked to the machine, and put the money into the jukebox.
Sam was gonna hate me for this.
I punched in "Remember" twenty more times.
When that was done I walked back to my seat to watch the chaos begin.
The third time Remember played people were starting to get annoyed. Somehow, despite everybody knowing that she's an evil ghost who attacks the same darn city every week, radios still played Ember's song and she did have actual fans that liked her music.
The first two times the song played, customers just thought Dash and Paulina liked the song so much that they put one dollar into the jukebox - enough for the song to play twice, which they did. The third time they were starting to suspect that they might have put more than a dollar and that they really loved that song.
The ELEVENTH time the song played, everybody was starting to suspect that something was up. Except for Sam and Tucker who were just mad at me for forcing them to listen to Ember on an endless loop. Everybody there actually blamed Dash and Paulina for their torture though. A part of me would've felt guilty if they weren't such jerks at school.
Mr. Lancer was also eating at the Nasty Burger that day and he was probably the only person who suspected that it might have been us and not the two popular kids - probably because Sam, Tucker, and I were the only kids that he could actually see doing something like this. He glared at us for practically his whole meal and by the time that the song played for the twelfth time he yelled "GODDAMIT!" and slammed some money on the table as he left.
One of the best parts of that meal was when everybody thought it was finally over. At some point somebody must've called my parents because they thought the jukebox was haunted, but shortly before Mom and Dad could destroy the machine, a miracle happened. As "Remember" faded out, a new and different sound filled the room.
It was the beautiful voice of Chip Skylark.
Before I floated over to the jukebox Tucker asked that I play Chip Skylark's old hit "My Shiny Teeth and Me". When "Shiny Teeth" begins to play everybody in the Nasty Burger sighs in relief. It is a blissful three minutes. Heaven had smiled upon the restaurant and it was as if the past 20 minutes never happened.
And then "Remember" played again.
The whole Nasty Burger goes nuts!
Everyone screams because for the who-knows-how-many-ith time they are forced to listen to the same terrible Ember McLain song. Some random customer then just grabs the Fenton Bat, which is really just a bat with the name Fenton on it, and starts wailing on the machine like a piñata. My friends and I have never laughed so hard in our lives.
The next day we went back to the Nasty Burger, and it was much emptier, quiet, and there was no more jukebox. Instead there was just a TV, playing the news, announcing that listening to Ember McLain was now a crime punishable by six months in prison.
I can't wait until Ember finds out.
In case anybody's wondering, it was a very bad day for the Nasty Burger employees that day. They were understaffed and for some reason everybody in Amity Park decided to want Nasty Burger that day. Not to mention how the same song was playing over and over all day.