I Left My Heart At Schloogorgh's

(From a journal entry of Explorer Zent, of the Irken Exploration Team.)


The moon of planet Irk Two in the Irken Galaxy Triad has little life existing on it, and no interesting natural landmarks to set it apart from the more superior planets of the Triad. However, inhabiting the frozen regions of the south and north poles, as well as the lunar Ice Wasteland, are a species of tiny creatures. They an exist in almost any climate, from extreme heat to icy cold temperatures, but show a marked preference to polar weather. When deep-fried, these creatures taste delicious, although they tend to squirm a bit on the way down.

She was quite ready to kill Explorer Zent.

Well, not kill, obviously. He had, without a doubt, been an important and great member of Irken society, and was responsible for many great discoveries. A lowly, yet content food service drone like herself had no right to even think such vile, traitorous thoughts about one of her superiors.

One of the more hyper Yummy Nuggets jumped up from the grease, hitting her in the face. The rest of them seemed to decide that this was a new game, and followed suit. She glared at them and whacked them with her spatula. "Stay UNDER!" she demanded, getting a squirt of hot grease in her eye for her troubles, making her go through a wild, complicated dance of pain.

Oh, yes. Explorer Zent was not on her list of favorite people.

When she finished her writhing and cursing, she became aware that she had an audience. Great, just great. She just had to choose a time to act like a moron when there were people watching. Trying to piece together her dignity, she turned to face her three fellow workers, sans Zim. A few minutes passed. One of the Yummy Nuggets preformed an acrobatic aerial maneuver.

She had gathered enough courage to open her mouth, when the employee in the middle let out an impatient sigh. "Well?" he asked archly.

"Well, what?" she said, confused. This must have been the first time anyone here aside from the Frylord deigned to speak to her, so they couldn't have asked her for something? Could they? She was answered with another sigh.

"Your name, dolt. You have read the Employee Protocol, haven't you? We're supposed to have a small meeting to 'welcome in the new member of the staff'."

"What about the restaurant?"

"It's under repair. I don't think it will be open for customers for a long while, so we have plenty of time. Don't think this is my idea, either. I'd much rather be doing inventory with Terg." He crossed him arms and tapped his foot impatiently. "I can see you haven't bothered to do your reading. We'll start with you telling us your name."

"It's-"

"Yes, wonderful." he said, cutting her off with a wave of his hand. "Don't get the impression that anyone is interested. Now, of course, is my turn to introduce myself and my lovely fellow employees."

His facial expressions were hard to make out with the enormous goggles blocking his eyes from view, and the hat covering his antennae, but she had no doubt that he was wearing a very sardonic expression. Which somehow irritated her. A lot.

Not that he noticed, of course. "My name is Gaschloogh. This," and he gestured at a slightly shorter Irken with decidedly plump cheeks, "Is my delicious little coworker, Terg." Terg let out a disturbing little giggle and she stared in dazed shock as he blushed dark green. "Specimen A here," Gaschloogh nodded at the huge lump of an Irken standing behind him, "Is Lars. Say hello, Lars, my verbally challenged friend."

Lars grunted. The sound seemed to encompass a variety of different sentiments. Many of them were frightening.

"Lars doesn't work the register too much." Gaschloogh explained. "He frightens the customers, and he can't say 'Welcome to Sclooghorgh's' unless someone stands behind him and says it so he can mouth the words. Frylord most likely hired him for grunt work." He elbowed Lars." "Isn't that right."

Lars belched.

"I…well, okay…" she said vaguely.

"I love what you've done with the place, by the way. Giant wall-to-wall grease stains are so in." he seemed to be looking at the wall behind her, which had gotten splashed several times. "And the floor. Well, nothing says 'I'm a quality Vat Room' like-"

"Grease and pieces of Yummy Nuggets on the floor?" she replied tersely, then winced. "Sorry." she added with a slight growl. "I've been having some…problems."

"Really? Really?"

"The Yummy Nuggets keep moving." she said, rather stupidly. As if to illustrate her point, one surfaced the seas of grease, did a flip, and landed on the spatula.

Gaschloogh was obviously talented in the Art of Jerkiness. One could tell that he was rolling his eyes even though it was impossible to see them. "Mmhm." He said, in mock sympathy. "Poor smeet. I can see why you're in food service."

'So are you." she snapped, finding it nearly impossible to be polite.

Terg cleared his throat. "Now, Schloogie, you're supposed to play nice with the new ones. If the Frylord found out that you were responsible for the emotional breakdown of a coworker, you'd be punished." Terg's usually docile expression transformed into one of malicious glee. "And you know that I'm the only one allowed to do that."

"Oh, dear. You're quite right of course." Gaschloogh replied, looking chastened.

She felt her left eye twitching and was glad for the goggles. Schloogie?

Lars grunted again.

"Does he actually talk at any time?" she asked.

"Why, of course he talks. Lars knows at least fifty words and phrases, and uses them whenever necessary. We're trying to train him to say 'Schloogorgh! The Flavor Monster!' whenever his stomach is poked, but it's to no avail. Such a shame, too. It would be so much fun for the kiddies."

She glanced dubiously up at the slopes of Mt. Lars and highly doubted that any sane child would get anywhere near Lars, even if it appeared that he was having a good day. "Oh. That's nice." she said. "Um, where's the other one?" she added, in a desperate ploy to change the subject.

"Other what? Other Lars? We're very blessed with the fact that there is only one of him."

"Well, the Frylord tends to act like him sometimes." Terg said.

"True." Gaschloogh nodded.

"No, I meant the other employee. The one that caused all the mess earlier today." she added, unable to keep the disdain from her tone. Why on Irk was the Frylord even bothering to keep such a useless defect of an employee?

Terg and Gaschloogh snickered in unison. "Oh, that's the 'mighty' Irken Invader Zim." Gaschloogh said, sounding highly amused about it.

Her eyes widened and she glanced at the closed door, as if she could see Zim through it. He was that Zim? The runt of an Invader that had single-handedly ruined Operation Impending Doom One? The incompetent fool who'd almost destroyed their whole planet? That bumbling idiot out there was…well, that bumbling idiot?

"No way." she said, still goggling at the door.

"Oh, he'll make sure you have no doubts about who he is if you ever decide to talk to him. Actually, it would be vice-versa, since Zim usually talks, sorry, rants at you, even if you've made it perfectly clear that you want nothing to do with him." Gaschloogh sounded extremely annoyed as he added that last part. It seemed that he was also a victim of Zim's annoying ranting. The thought made her smile, as she tried to picture the haughty Irken being harangued by someone so much shorter than himself.

"And he's clueless as well." added Terg, "Can you believe that he thinks it's his vacation? He goes around talking about how he can't wait until the Tallest decide to take him off break, and how he'd rather not spend his precious vacation time here, but the Control Brain insisted and all…" he snorted derisively.

"He's hopeless at his work, too. It's supposed to be punishment for him, but it's more of a punishment for the Frylord and us." Gaschloogh said. "He actually killed Gnar. Not that he was much help, anyway. And he always wore those terrible squeaky boots. Squeak squeak squeak, everywhere he went. Enough to drive someone crazy."

"He made a mean mooshminky, though." Terg said.

"Terg, he didn't 'make' the mooshminkies. He just pressed the button and the mooshminky batter came out."

"Um…right. Right, of course. It's just that they tasted so much better when he pressed the button."

She joined Gaschloogh in giving Terg a funny look. Lars grunted. It was hard to tell if he meant it in support of Terg's comment, as a form of a disbelieving snort, or, most likely, an indication that he was hungry.

"Riiight." Gaschloogh drawled, still eying Terg. "Anyway, Zim should have the words 'Hazardous Material' tattooed across that empty little head of his. He's completely useless as anything but a menial worker. Sorry, slave." he added with a smirk. "Frylord just stuck him with all the dirty work, which I am quite happy about. No one wants to clean Stall Thirteen, after all."

I'm going to be sorry if I ask this. I am going to be very sorry. "What's in Stall Thirteen?"

They glanced at her. "Oh," Terg said, "You'll find out soon enough."

Author's Notes: Yes, I know. It was short. sobs