"You know, this reminds me of our next Itchy and Scratchy!"
The words had hardly left Krusty's mouth when Sideshow Bob shuffled backstage, covered in vanilla cake batter and rainbow icing from the tips of his hair to the toes of his enormous feet. From backstage, he heard Scratchy scream, and felt an odd empathy towards the luckless cartoon cat as Itchy baked him in an oven' Krusty's latest humiliation for Bob had been something quite similar.
Also backstage were the rotund Tina Ballerina and Krusty's chimp Mr. Teeny. At the moment, they happily shared a pile of bananas, and Tina narrowed her eyes at Bob as he took a big gulp from his bottled water.
"Excuse me, Bob?"
Bob lowered the bottle from his lips, half-wishing that it contained something a little stronger than water. "Tina, I highly doubt that this cake is edible, so don't get any ideas."
Tina gave an indignant little sniff as she swallowed the bit of banana in her mouth. "I only wanted to see if you were okay. If I were you, I would have screamed bloody murder."
With an expressionless face, Bob sat down next to Mr. Teeny, who held out a banana with a few brown spots. Bob held up his hand.
"No thank you. Tina, would you happen to have a mirror that I could use? And perhaps a handkerchief?"
"Here." Tina handed Bob a compact mirror and a hankie, both in the same shade of pink as her tutu.
"Thank you." Flipping open the compact, Bob didn't bat an eye at the reflection of his face, which had a few bruises visibly forming beneath the blobs of cake batter and multi-coloured icing. He impassively wiped the mess from his face, while simultaneously using his own comb to try and get cake out of his hair.
"I really don't get you, Bob," Tina said. "How the hell do you take all that crap from Krusty?"
Bob gave her a small, frosty smile. "I've had this job long enough to efficiently learn how to block out all the pain."
"Wow." Through another bite of banana, Tina mumbled, "I'm still surprised that you haven't snapped by now."
Still wearing a calm smile, Bob squeezed his comb hard enough to make it snap in half.