Just a humorous, little snippet.

I don't own the boys, and I'm not making any profit from them.

Flush with Knowledge

By Kerry Lass

"Starsky! What are you doing in there?" Hutch's tone was a mixture of irritated exasperation and plaintive urgency

A long moment passed. Then, his partner's muffled reply came through the locked door. "Uh… thinkin'."

"Thinking," Hutch muttered to himself, slapping one palm against his forehead in disbelief. "In the john, Starsk?" His voice rose sharply. "In my john? For 20 minutes?!"

The blond began to massage his temples, feeling a headache coming on – a 165-lb. headache, a familiar kind after years of partnership. He forced down the urge to tear the bathroom door from its hinges and attempted to sound reasonable. "Did you ever think that someone else might actually have to use it for… well, what's it's normally used for?" he wheedled.

"Huh?" Starsky seemed preoccupied.

"I said –"

"Hey, Hutch!" The excited shout nearly broke the blond's effort at control.

"Starsk," he warned in a low growl.

But Starsky either didn't register the warning or he chose to ignore it. "Did ya know that the United States uses more rolls of toilet paper in a year than any other country," he continued happily, warming to his subject, "and we have more varieties of tissue than –"

"What? STARSKY!"

"Jeez, Hutch, no need to get all worked up." The voice coming through the door sounded a bit hurt. "It says here that Americans also recycle more waste than China and the Soviet Union combined. Thought you'd like that."

Give me patience, Hutch pleaded silently. He paced the distance from the bathroom door to the sofa, turned sharply on his heel, and paced back. "It. Says. What. In. Where?" He punctuated each step with a well-annunciated word, then finished sarcastically, "Just what piece of mind-contracting literature did you drag in there this time, buddy?"

"Mind-what?" Starsky asked a little defensively. "I tell you what, buddy, this is good stuff – a reference book!"

"And the name of this reference book?"

"'Bathroom Trivia IV'." The exuberance was back. "And it says here –"

"Starsk!"

"That 80 percent of people surveyed across the country –"

"Starsky!!"

"Read some form of printed material in the bathroom –"

"STARSKY! C'mon outta there!!"

"At least once a day… So, I'm in good company!" Starsky's voice finished triumphantly.

Defeated, Hutch slumped back against the paneled wall. He shook his head and sighed dispiritedly. It was going to be a very, very long day.

The end