"Doctor," the Brigadier said, coming into his laboratory, "I'm making a birthday calendar for all UNIT employees."
Benton came in and stood at the door.
"How very kind of you," the Doctor muttered back, too intrigued in a bubbling solution on the table to be really interested.
"Can I have your date of birth?"
Surprised, the Doctor looked up at him. "My date of birth?"
"...yes," the Brig said slowly. "You know, the day on which you were born."
"Well, I don't have one of those," the Doctor said. "Jo, might you hand me the magnesium solution?"
Jo handed him the bottle. "You don't have a birthday?" She asked.
"No," the Doctor said, and he poured some of the magnesium solution onto a slide along with the bubbling solution and put the slide under a microscope. "Actually, Brigadier, since you were asking, I was created by a loom. You see, on ancient Gallifrey, the Time Lords-"
"I'll just... put you down for the first of April," the Brigadier interrupted, not wanting an explanation. The Doctor looked offended at the cutoff - or perhaps the chosen date of his 'birth' - but didn't continue. "Miss Grant, what's your date of birth?"
"Actually, Brigadier, I wasn't born, I was knitted," Jo stated matter-of-factly.
Before the Brigadier could reply, the Doctor looked up in astonishment. "You never told me that, Miss Grant!" His brows furrowed. "Is that common in this era?"
Jo grinned and the Brigadier sighed. "Sergeant Benton, your date of birth?"
"Put me down for knitted as well, sir," Benton answered cheekily. The Brigadier let out a frustrated groan.
"I'm trying to do something nice for once. Could we please be a little serious?"
The Doctor stood, indignant. "I was being serious!"
"Oh, that's even worse," the Brigadier moaned.
The Doctor looked angry. "Alright, Brigadier, I'm sick of this blatant discrimination. Just admit you hate Time Lords!"
Jo thought maybe now this was going a little too far. "Doctor, I thought you said you hated Time Lords."
"And humans," Benton added unhelpfully, and the room soon dissolved into a shouting match.
Mike Yates, out in the hall, wondered what could possibly be the commotion and stepped inside the room. "Alright, everyone, alright," he said, and everyone stopped shouting. "Come on, let's stop giving the Brigadier a hard time and answer the question."
Benton looked sheepish and the Doctor still angry, but Jo thought it was funny still that she'd managed to convince the Doctor she'd been knitted.
"Thank you," the Brigadier said, relieved. "So, you, Yates, what's your date of birth?"
Mike Yates looked the Brigadier straight in the eye.
"I was delivered by stork, sir."
The Brig's face crumbled into despair. "Forget it. All of you. Your birthday parties are cancelled." He began stalking out of the room.
"You know, Brigadier," the Doctor said, stepping forward before he left, "there's a kind of science experiment where if you sound confident, yet talk nonsense, people will still believe anything you say?"
Giggles came from the other occupants in the room. The Doctor wore a shit-eating grin and the Brigadier knew he'd lost.
With this knowledge, he turned and walked away in utter defeat.
Oh, poor Brig! Everyone playing pranks on him; for shame. ;)
For those of you who don't know what the Loom theory is, it's that Time Lords cannot sexually reproduce so Rassilon (the jerk with the label maker and Lord President of Gallifrey) made a way to make new Time Lords without doing the dirty. Thus, a Loom weaves entire new Time Lords by itself.
I might make a series of pranks the Doctor's played on various different people throughout their incarnations. We'll see :) Review!