"Ahhh, now this is the life!" Eddy leaned back on a gold painted lounge chair. "Hey, Ed, could you go a little faster with the fan? I'm burning up here!"
"Sure thing, Eddy! Nod my head, nod my head, nod my head!" Ed bobbed up and down, a paper palm frond tied to his head. "I am a good fan, huh Eddy?"
"You're the best, Ed! Or at least, you're better than the cabana boy…" Eddy lowered his rhinestone-covered sunglasses so he could glare over the top of the frames. "Hey Sock-head, what's the big hold-up?"
Edd stalked out the back door wearing a violently festive Hawaiian shirt and carrying a glass of lemonade festooned with little paper umbrellas, pineapple chunks on plastic swords, and a twisty straw. "I thought the idea was for us all to be millionaires, Eddy…" He thunked the lemonade down on the table next to Eddy's chair.
"And just who would pamper us then, Don Hopeless? Relax, you'll get your turn!" Eddy hid his mouth in his drink and snickered. "Right after Ed grows a brain…" More loudly, he complained, "And why are you just standing there? I'm at my tropical island getaway, I wanna hear some tropical island music!" He snapped his fingers imperiously towards the pedal steel guitar waiting off to the side of the patio.
Edd crossed his arms. "Not a chance, Eddy! It's bad enough you have Ed and me toiling away in this self-indulgent cesspool of hedonistic delusions, but I refuse to subject myself to that insipid instrument solely for your amusement!" He suddenly ducked as a wadded-up paper palm frond sailed above his head. "Um, Ed? That's a musical instrument, not a crossbow, please don't do that."
"Yo-ho-ho, I am Robin Hood! Hand over your fruitcake, evil sheriff!" Ed fired a charcoal briquette through the air with a tinny 'sproing'.
"Ed, you're bending the pedal rods! It's going to take me forever to repair the damage you're – NO, WAIT, DON'T ED!" Edd tried to reach Ed before he could launch the charcoal grill, but it was too late. The last thing he saw before everything went black was the grill coming straight at his head.
Eddy grumbled as he looked over at the now-unconscious Edd. "Good one, Monobrow, who's gonna entertain me now?"
"Oops, sorry, Eddy." Ed brightened. "I know! I will sing you a song!" Ed pulled a pineapple-skewered plastic sword from Eddy's lemonade and held it up to his mouth like a microphone. He put on his most suave smile. "I know all the words to 'Copacabana'!"
Eddy made a face. "I think I can live without that, Ed – uh, never mind the entertainment…" He sat up. "Anyway, I'm bored of the resort thing now – let's think of something else rich people do…Uh, Ed?"
Ed had wandered over to stand next to Edd, and was now staring down at him with envy. "Cool stars, Double-D, can I have one?" He plucked one of the stars circling Edd's head and put it into orbit around his own. He laughed with delight as he watched it go around. One by one, he took the other stars and added them to the first. "Eddy, look at me! I am a galaxy! The Space Chicken Galaxy has come to – " as he put the last star in place around his head, he collapsed to the ground with a 'thwump'.
Edd stood up, his own aches and pains suddenly gone. "That was…interesting…"
Eddy came over to join him. He stared at Ed. "Well, he's original, I'll give him that…" He shrugged dismissively, then grinned at Edd. "And his timing was great – I'm ready to move on from the resort scene and I need you to make me a limo!"
"A limousine? But Eddy, you're not old enough to drive!"
"Yeah, right – I'm not gonna drive it, Sock-head – I'm the millionaire, remember?" He poked Edd in the chest. "But I'm sure YOU'D make a great sho– …um, showfff– …driver!"
"A chauffeur, Eddy? You want me to waste a beautiful summer afternoon driving you around in a ludicrously ostentatious conveyance that you also expect me to build – no doubt without any help on your part whatsoever?"
Eddy patted him on the back. "I'm so glad we understand each other." He shoved him in the direction of the garage. "Now get going, will ya, we don't have all day! One limo, extra snazzy!"
"A limo!" Ed sat up, the stars finally clearing from his head. He bounced up and down. "Oh boy oh boy! I have always wanted a limo – they are so soft and cuddly, and they can spit really far!"
Edd considered this. "Um, I believe you mean 'llama,' Ed…"
Ed nodded. "That's what I said, Double-D! A limo!" He started carrying Edd to the garage. "Hurry, I want to make a limo-hair sweater!"
"Oh, no, this has gone on quite long enough!" Edd squirmed out of Ed's grasp and dropped to the ground. "It's time for Eddy put to rest these egotistical pipe dreams before…" Turning back around, he saw that Eddy had reloaded the guitar/crossbow with the patio table and now stood, grinning maliciously, with the device aimed straight at him. Edd put his hands on his hips. "Violence, Eddy? This is what you've been reduced to?"
"Yep." Eddy pulled the table back farther. "Now what's it gonna be, Double-D – you gonna build me a limo, or would you rather put on another daytime astronomy show for Ed?"
"A cute and fuzzy limo, and more stars?" Ed gasped in excitement. "I can hardly contain my toenails!"
Edd refused to be derailed. "You do realize that if you hit me with that table I'll be incapacitated – unable help you with anything?"
Eddy paused. He glanced at Ed, weighing the likelihood that he'd be able to put together something that wouldn't burst into flames or reek of gravy. Scowling, he accepted the inevitable and slowly disarmed the pedal steel guitar. "Fine! Don't build me a limo!"
Ed sniffled. "But I love limos, guys!"
"Sorry, Big Guy, looks like the Selfish-Minded Professor here doesn't want to be a team player." He glared at Edd. Suddenly, a light bulb illuminated within his mind. "I mean – " He flashed a smarmy smile. "I'm sorry, Double-D, that was pretty dumb of me! I wish I could be a genius like you…"
Edd cast a sidelong glance at Eddy. "Oh, so now I'm a genius, am I?"
"Of course you are!" He walked over and slung an arm around Edd's shoulders. "Like I've always said – where would me and Ed be without the brains of this outfit?" Behind Edd's back, he gestured for Ed to come play along.
"Up a creek without a porcupine, Eddy!" Joining in on the fun, Ed came up and threw an arm around Edd's shoulders from the other side.
"Right you are, Lumpy!" Eddy noted with satisfaction the reluctant smile tugging at Edd's mouth and the gradual uncrossing of his arms. "I'm sorry I never help you build all that stuff, Double-D, but I'm just not as smart as you are! No way could I be as good at all that inventing!" He looked away and rolled his eyes.
"Why, Eddy, you demean yourself unjustly! I'm sure that with a little effort and some concentrated study time, you would be just as adept at engineering – "
"Uh-huh, yeah, sure." Eddy started walking, propelling Edd in the direction of the garage. "But with you, it just comes so naturally! I mean, if I wanted to build, oh, say, a limo out of things I found around my house, I'd probably start with a big cardboard box…maybe a few roller skate wheels…the motor from an electric toothbrush…"
Edd was in his element now. "But Eddy, think! How could an electric toothbrush provide enough power to propel the weight of both the limo chassis and us?" He pulled his notebook and a pen out of his pocket and hastily drew up a few diagrams. "Now look, the amount of force required to move any given object is equal to the mass of that object times the rate of its acceleration…and if we assume the mass of the limo plus passengers to be…hmm…" He jotted down a series of calculations. Nodding to himself, he held up his notebook. "See? It just won't work. Now, if we were to use something more substantial…"
Grabbing Ed by the back of the coat to halt his progress, Eddy came to a stop and watched smugly as Edd continued on into the garage, picking up and discarding objects while still yapping on about the physics of limo-building.
Ed laughed. "That was a good one, Eddy!"
"All you've gotta know is which buttons to push." Settling back into his lounge chair, he added, "Now, how about another lemonade? What's a millionaire gotta do to get some service around here, anyway?"
"All you need is loafers, Eddy!" Ed ran off to fetch the lemonade pitcher, his mind still on 'limos'. "I think I'll call him Sparky!"
Eddy stretched back, enjoying the warm sun as he awaited his drink. He drifted off in daydream. "'President Eddy' – no, wait, 'All-Supreme World Commander Eddy'…yeah…now that'll be the life…"