A.N.: Find a Spongebob reference!

It was the first day of summer vacation, and Riley had woken up at 5:30 am today. Joy was bouncing around HQ playing "In Summer" on her accordion, while everyone else was howling in agony and stuffing pillows over their faces.

"Yoohoo! It's summer! Hello beaches! Hello Giants games! Hello Disneyland! Hello blowout sales at the mall! Aren't you all so EXCITED?!"

"Seriously, Joy?" grumbled Anger. "We should all sleep in until noon today, especially that you've been playing that thing nonstop the last three weeks..."

"Whaaaat? I can't do that! The sky's awake, so I'm awake! Besides, Riley needed some way to stay motivated for final exams. Let's head to the rink and get some reps in!" She was referring to the training regimen that Coach Sommer had sent to all the players. It was very important for Riley to be ready for tryouts in the first two weeks of the new school year. For added effect, she turned on the memory of Olaf with his body parts in the wrong order, subtitled "Man, am I out of shape."

Disgust sprang out of bed at once and shut the memory off, shooting a dagger glare at Joy. "Nuh-uh. No way. We'll get all sweaty and gross within half an hour."

"It's not so warm outside yet, and best of all, we've got the whole place TO OURSELVES!" Joy emphasized the last part in a singsong voice. "It'll be just like back in Minnesota. Nobody's out here this early on the first day of summer anyways!"

"Fine," huffed Disgust. "But if our hair gets messed up, someone will pay."

Riley quickly got dressed and packed a protein bar and a bottle of water when she met her mom in the kitchen.

"I'm going for a quick morning jog," said Mom. "I see that you'd like to come with me?"

"That sounds wonderful! I'm headed down to the rink. Gotta stay sharp for the upcoming season, know what I mean?"

"Of course I do, monkey!" Mom kissed Riley on the forehead. "That's the dedication I want to see."

They take the scenic route to the hockey rink as Riley excitedly outlined to Mom her summer plans, including staying in touch with Meg and Jordan. Or as she described it with the help of her memory recall system, "No right, no wrong, no rules for me-I'm FREE!"

"I'll be heading home now," Mom said when they arrived at the rink. "Try to be back before 8:00, so that we can all have a nice breakfast together, OK?"

"Will do, Mom!" They exchange the monkey noises before Mom starts on her way home. Disgust made a mental note to restrict such occurrences in the future in case it occurs in front of one of Riley's classmates-or worse, Jordan.

Riley put on her helmet, shoulder and knee pads, and laced up her skates. But when she stepped onto the ice, she noticed a familiar advertisement sign on the sideboards: TripleDent Gum, Now with Longer Lasting Flavor!

"Um, has that sign been here before?" asked Fear.

"I don't know...why don't we call Coach Sommer?" suggested Joy.

As it turns out, the hockey league had recently signed a lengthy sponsor deal with Buy n Large and they had to assign a product to their new clients. Only a few days ago had the product been agreed on: the popular chewing gum.

"By the way, Andersen," added the coach, "they had some PR scouts at the game at the Shark Tank back a while ago-you know, the one where you scored the overtime winner. And they're working with us to make a new commercial. They just need someone who can sing their little refrain."

"Refrain? What's that?" asked Fear. He turned around to see Anger fuming while holding a newspaper that said, "BIG BREAK IMMINENT THRU INFAMOUS GUM COMMERCIAL." Unsure what to do, the purple emotion accidentally hit the recall button.

TripleDent gum will make you smile
TripleDent gum, it lasts a while!

"What happened? I thought we got rid of that piece of junk!" demanded Anger. Somehow, no one had noticed Joy press a button that made Riley say, "So you want me to-"

"Yes, they told me their first choice is you," replied the coach. "You're a force to be reckoned with on the ice (second in the league in goals), and a voice and smile like yours could really leave an impression on all our loyal viewers."

"Yuck, no!" Disgust made one of her classic 'not-amused' faces. "We cannot have that corny jingle attached to our name for years and years. The cool kids will never let us hear the end of it!"

Fear immediately grabbed a paper bag and started breathing and whispering heavily into it. He didn't last very long, however, before losing consciousness, either from hyperventilation or a gut punch from Anger. "Conceal, don't feel, put on a show. Make one wrong move and everyone will-AAAAAAAHHH!"

"Come on, broccoli! Lighten up!" Joy beamed. "We were an All-Star in our first year here, so people already know who we are. And now we're being offered a major role as a market brand ambassador too? Why think twice? It's time to see what we can do, to test the limits and break through!"

"Uggghhhh, fine..." muttered Disgust. "And I can't tell you enough times not to call me that."

"Umm, Anger? I thought you still hated that commercial, aren't you going to say something?" inquired Sadness.

"Nope, my nerves are absolutely shot from seven months of Frozen. Worst part about it is that I can't stop Riley-or any of you guys, for that matter-from quoting it at inopportune times. I've already lost track of how many I've heard this morning alone. How bad can things be?"

He got his answer when the commercial director had to ask Riley to sing the jingle from start to finish several times until the entire cast could agree on a version. All the emotions were trying to recall the memory repeatedly, to help Riley get the enunciation and pitch just right. Well, except Anger. Joy wanted to get through the shooting without anything set on fire, so they sent the brick over to the Friendly Argument section of Friendship Island for the time being.

"If we ever fight with Jordan again, we'll need your help to make sure we communicate our case clearly and effectively," she explained.

"Grrrr...fine. We probably will. He's kind of a fixer-upper." The others pointed at Anger and laughed. "WHAT!"

By the time Anger returned, all the other emotions were lying on a couch, watching the NHL free agent signing frenzy on tape delay.

"I swear to god we'll be hearing that thing in our dreams..." moaned Disgust.


On a crisp mid-October evening immediately before the homecoming performance, Riley and several of her friends were gathered at Jordan's house preparing last-minute decorations. There was a hockey game on, so of course some people wanted to watch. But most of them were only paying attention to the commercials, as they were looking for one in particular-and it would come up during the second mandatory TV timeout.

In the commercial (which was somehow developed using only voice actors and animation), one of the Foghorns defensemen was asking two of her teammates if she was being avoided all day because she was ugly. But Riley (wearing a sweater with the letter C on it) knows that this person actually had a superstition of eating a "pregame sundae", which was merely nachos topped with ketchup, onions, and peanuts. So she dances into the locker room singing the notorious jingle and offers a stick of gum to the offender. Then the entire team puts their hands in a huddle with Riley leading: "One, two, three, TRIPLEDENT GUM!" and skate out onto the ice as a buzzer goes off in the background. All of Riley's friends were in stitches!

"O...M...G...that was so priceless, Riley..."

"Slay Riley slay!"

"Riley, this is you and me in a nutshell." This was not spoken by the "superstitious" defenseman.

"See, Disgust? Not as bad as it sounds!" grinned Joy.

"I guess I never knew what we were capable of," replied Disgust. "Wait...ketchup? Onions? Peanuts? Together? HEEEEELLLLLLP!"

The next day, Riley was having trouble staying awake in class due to staying up all night with the homecoming decorations. Disgust was bedridden from the trauma of the aforementioned abominable concoction, and the sight of Riley with wrinkled clothes and undone hair would have hindered her recovery even worse. Anger tried to plug in several different daydreams, but to his horror, they could only play one thing.

It was the gum commercial. Only this time, Riley was singing. The memory was vying to become the new core memory for Hockey Island and would take forever to get rid of!

"Back to square one..." he grumbled as the embers started to glow on his head. In his frustration, he stomped up to his room trying to catch just an hour of sleep, for he was not used to Riley pulling all-nighters.

Joy suffered no such ill effects, however. She remembered that Riley had taken an extra candy bar from Jordan's place. As she was making Riley unwrap it, Sadness suddenly arrived. "Hey Joy, what's that amazing smell?"

Joy pressed a button that made Riley take a whiff, allowing the only two fully functional emotions to do the same. "Chocolate!" they sighed in unison.

Then she walked up to Anger's closed bedroom door, did her secret knock, and peeked underneath the crack.

"Anger? Do you want to build a snowman? C'mon, let's go and plaaaaaayyy!" she sang naughtily.

In no mood to hear the rest, Anger shouted back, "There's no snow on the ground, nitwit!"

Joy pressed her lips against the keyhole. "It doesn't have to be a snowman..."

She was only greeted by the sound of erupting flames followed by a thunderous bellow of "GO AWAY, JOY!"

"OK, bye..." Joy flopped onto the floor and pretended to skulk away like Sadness would. But she made a mental note to herself, that if Anger ever took a nap on the job again, she would just have to change his alarm clock ringtone. This was guaranteed to work, right?