Spongebob's home, the autumn of 2011…
Well, his evening just took a turn for the worse. All things considered, he would have preferred being left with Squidward and being ignored until he nearly starved to death. Being neglected was preferable to being looked after by a guy who regularly forgot how to do basic functions like eating his food. Was Sandy or literally every other Bikini Bottomite busy tonight? He knew Spongebob was a social butterfly.
At least it wasn't Mr. Krabs. But that was like saying that spending two days at the vet's place was better than spending three.
"Yup, looks like it's just you and me, Fred." The idiot started chatting with him. Already, Gary was wishing to suffer eternal bath time instead.
"Meow." The snail deadpanned.
"Hmmm... I wonder what we should do first." Patrick pondered before grabbing the list given to him by Spongebob.
Immediately, a look of confusion washed over his features. Gary assumed it was because he held the list upside down.
"You need to work on your handwriting, Spongebob." The starfish grew frustrated.
Gary groaned. He needed to act fast if he wanted to save his evening, and preserve his sanity. Dealing with his pet on a daily basis was strenuous enough.
"Bah! Who needs it!" Patrick crumpled the paper into a ball as Gary nonchalantly slithered past him.
"I don't need an instruction to look after a snail." Patrick reassured himself while various sounds such a mixing, pouring and whipped cream being sprayed could be heard offscreen.
He tapped his head. "I'll just use my vastly superior brain to improvise and take care of this poor, defenseless animal. That will be a piece of cake!"
Patrick briefly zoned out and drool started dripping from his mouth. "Mmmmmmm…..piece of cake?" he drawled wistfully before shaking himself out of it.
"Focus, Patrick!" he scolded himself. "Spongebob's counting on you!"
He pulled a flame thrower out of thin air and turned around. "Hey, Gary!" he said exuberantly. "Wanna pla-WOOOOW!" his mouth turned into an oval shape and his eyes sparkled, utterly awestruck by the unimaginable beauty he was seeing.
Wearing a cook's hat, Gary was standing next to a large toy wagon carrying a monstrous sundae with whipped cream, chocolate chips, caramel, rainbow-colored sprinkles, three oversized bananas sticking from its sides and a cherry on top, with a heavenly glow emitted from behind it.
"ICE CREAM!" Patrick shouted like a child on a sugar rush and dropped his flame thrower as he jumped into the sundae.
Gary heard muffled "nom nom nom" noises as Patrick's backside stuck out from the sundae that he was devouring from the inside. Gary just casually slithered away. Time for some fun.
A few hours later….
Naturally, Spongebob quickly grew worried that things weren't alright back home, so he tucked in his grandma early and raced back home.
"Come now, Spongebob. You're just being paranoid." He told himself as he was standing in front of his house. "There's nothing to worry about. Patrick knows what he's doing."
He opened the door. "I'm home!" he said in a sing-song voice. His now bloodshot eyes then bulged, accompanied by the sound of glass shattering, as he screamed in horror at what he saw.
"My house!"
His living room was utterly wrecked. There were slime trails all across the walls, trash was littered all across the floor and half of the sofa had been eaten, among other things.
Spongebob saw Gary wearing a cowboy hat and watching tv while jumping up and down on the couch.
"Meow! Meow! Meow!" he sure looked like he had a good time.
"Patrick! Where are you!" the horrified Spongebob looked around for his best friend. "How could you have let this happen!"
"Patrick!" he finally found the starfish. He was lying on his back in the kitchen. His mouth was smeared with ice cream and his belly was grotesquely inflated.
Patrick burped before moaning in a low voice. "I ate too much ice cream. Sooooooo full…."
I'd make a brain-freeze joke here, but we all know there's nothing up there to freeze XD
At long last, here comes my 20th entry!
Not a whole lot I can say about "Pet Sitter Pat". It's not a good episode by any means, but its biggest sin in my opinion is that it's just lame and uninspired. The main reason this one ever made it on anyone's "worst Spongebob episodes" list is because of Mr. Enter's review of it. Sure, he's entitled to his opinion, but it really feels like anyone else who makes a big deal about this episode is just parroting his opinion. If it hadn't been for his review, I doubt anyone would even mention this episode as one of the infamous ones.
Even the Gary torture feels rather mild compared to many other Gary-centric episodes from the dark age of Spongebob, like "The Cent of Money" and of course "A Pal for Gary". Speaking of that episode, that's pretty much what "Pet Sitter Pat" is, a watered-down, blander and far more boring version of "A Pal for Gary". And if you're looking for an episode that honestly does feel like horrible animal abuse being passed off as "comedy", check out "The Cent of Money" (which gets alluded to here). When both the abuse is more realistic and the person committing the abuse isn't a clueless moron but rather an unscrupulous jerk who knows what he's doing but doesn't care, that's when things get uncomfortable. I personally think that episode has earned its spot among Mr. Krab's top ten worst moments.
The main reason I haven't tackled that episode is that (even including Spongebob's fluctuating stupidity) the plot more or less transpires logically and it at least has a satisfying ending where Spongebob comes to Gary's aid, stands up to his crooked boss and Krabs gets his comeuppance. It's just that the rest of the episode is the polar opposite of silly and funny.
Honestly, I wasn't too inspired about "Pet Sitter Pat" for the above-mentioned reasons, but then it hit me. The big logical fallacy with this episode is a pretty fundamental one. You pit up the stupidest character on this show with (arguably) the smartest one and the latter is the helpless victim in the scenario? I don't think so. Remember "Gary Takes a Bath"? Which is admittedly an episode I'm not particularly fond off, mainly because Gary there comes off as a huge jerk. But either way, that's why this chapter is hilariously short. Patrick is no match for Gary XD