It had been almost three weeks since the West Coast Tech incident, and while he still felt like a fish out of water, Stan definitely thought he could get used to at least some parts of the 21st century.

For one thing, television was better: it was pretty much all in color now, except for reruns of shows like The Duchess Approves, with way better special effects (and a lot more explosions). Star Wars (the first trilogy, which Dr. D told him was the only one he ever needed to watch) in particular utterly hypnotized him, even as he tried not to think about someone else who definitely would've loved the concept of artificial intelligence and space monks who could move objects with their minds, or wonder if he'd gotten his head out of his books long enough to watch these beautiful, beautiful movies.

And don't even get him started on the Internet: a giant, glorious world of information that could answer all your questions just by typing in the right words into the search thingy-if he wasn't careful, he found himself staying up late into the night just randomly looking up whatever came into his head, or watching funny cat videos. He worried about this habit a little less when Dr. D reassured him that it was perfectly normal behavior nowadays.

Stan also noticed that people drove a lot more now (making him feel an ache of longing for the Stanley Mobile), and used these things called "cell phones," which were like regular phones except you could take them with you when you left the house, and everyone had their own personal computers that were basically typewriters with Internet (aka vastly superior).

One of the downsides to the 21st century was that everything had also become a lot more expensive. Stan had tried in vain to persuade Dr. D not to waste money on new clothes for him (Ten dollars for a T-shirt?! Pa would've made him and Ford go naked before spending that kind of money!), and even though he liked his new threads he planned on going out of his way to make them last so they wouldn't have to get new ones anytime soon.

It wasn't just clothes: food, gasoline, cleaning supplies, even things like bottled water or a pack of bubble gum-all of it was so freakin' expensive.

The other, bigger, downside was the one always lurking in the back of Stan's mind about what he was supposed to do now.

Legally speaking, he had been dead for a little over thirty years.

His birthday, his driver's license, even his own name weren't really his anymore, as far as the government was concerned.

He was an unperson.

Heh, if this was a movie he probably would've been approached by some secret government agency by now and asked to take advantage of his anonymity and start working for them, like Perry the Platypus.

...Nah. The hat and gadgets were cool, but that'd mean he'd have to take orders from other people and 'respect authority' and stuff.

Not really his thing.

But the question remained, if he was legally dead what was he supposed to do with himself?

How could he ever get a job, or a new driver's license, or anything else, since apparently people cared a lot more about all that crap now?

Don't get me wrong, he liked living here in the penthouse; Dr. D was a little weird, and had a tendency to go off on really long, rambling tangents about whatever was going through his head at that moment, but he was also a pretty nice guy who never got impatient with Stan when he mixed stuff up or got frustrated, and was willing to explain stuff about the modern day to him whenever he asked (even if Perry or Vanessa had to correct the stuff he was wrong about afterwards). He also made sure Stan had plenty to eat, and after finding out he was a boxer he'd started working on a Rock'Em-Sock'Em-Inator for him to practice with and keep in shape, and stuff like that. He'd even cleared out another one of the spare rooms, right next to the one reserved for Vanessa whenever she was here, and designated it as Stan's, and occasionally they would go out on "field trips" together, to teach him more about the 21st century and help him adjust to it.

...But he didn't want to spend the rest of his life stuck in the penthouse. He didn't know what he wanted to do yet (aside from the occasional pang of longing if he thought about things like the ocean or boats, but he pushed those away), but it definitely wasn't that.

Speak of the devil, after some more afternoons in court, Dr. D and his ex-wife had finally reached an agreement that satisfied all parties regarding the custody of their daughter: Vanessa would spend two weeks with her mother, and the next two with her father, and so on in a regular pattern. The girl herself still wasn't thrilled about her parents splitting up in the first place, but she had calmed down some from her previous rage, at least enough to accept that they were probably happier this way. And since she understood some aspects of modern technology and youth culture a lot better than her dad, a lot of the time she was the one called on to teach Stan about them.

So far, even though she didn't seem to think he was trying to steal her dad anymore, he was still struggling for a decent way to connect with her.

Aside from Carla and a few other girls he'd flirted with in high school, Stan's experience with females had mostly been limited to his mother; unlike her, though, Vanessa was not overly invested in things like the validity of tarot cards, besides thinking of them as a cool goth decoration.

Trying to connect with her in other ways wasn't working too well either, since she'd never gone fishing in her life, and wasn't old enough to drive (though she did hope to have her own car someday, despite Dr. D's insistence of certain meteorological conditions having to occur in the infernal region before he allowed that to happen), and while she liked weird stuff it wasn't to the same extent as...other people Stan had been able to connect with that way.

In fact, until the day that she asked her dad if he could take her to the new arcade that had apparently opened downtown, he'd begun to assume that the only things she was really interested in were her friends and her phone.

"Hmm...I don't know," Dr. D said thoughtfully, rolling out from the underside of the Rock'Em-Sock'Em-Inator. "How's your schoolwork been lately?"

"Da-adddd!" Vanessa whined, with all the pre-adolescent fervor at her disposal. "It's summer vacation, I don't have schoolwork!"

"Oh. Yeah. Well, um, have you finished decorating your room to your satisfaction?"

"I can do that later!" She bounced impatiently on her toes. "It just barely opened, and I wanna get a chance to check it out before Lacey and Johnny do so I can brag to them about finding it first!"

"Huh, well, I do admire your level of pettiness." Dr. D rubbed his chin, leaving the obligatory grease stain on it, and looked uncertainly between her and the oversized robot game. "...I can be done with this in about an hour; think you could wait for that long?"

Vanessa groaned. "You've been working on it for hours already!"

"Well, it's a delicate procedure, pumpkin, even if it's not specifically evil-based. I mean, technically it is evil, since I'm making it, but I'm not using it to conquer the Tri-State Area or anything." He sat up. "I mean, there's all these wires I need to connect together in just the right way to make sure the robots don't explode, or develop sentience and turn against their master-"

"Ugh, forget it!" She threw up her hands and turned to stomp away to her room.

And then everyone, including Stan himself, was surprised when Stan looked up from the work he was doing on the engine and said, "Hey, I could take you."

Both Doofenshmirtzes turned to look at him in surprise.

Stan felt his face growing warm, and focused his attention back on the part he was working on. "...Never mind, bad idea."

"No no no wait!" Dr. D wiped his hands on his lab coat, beaming. "That's actually perfect, Stanley! You can take Vanessa to the arcade, then I can come join you when I finish with this part of the -inator!"

Stan glanced at Vanessa; she didn't seem completely hostile toward the idea, but from the look on her face she wasn't overly thrilled either. Time to implement sub-clause A of plan A.

"You promise that's gonna take just an hour?" Even he knew by now how absorbed this guy could get in his work.

Dr. D nodded. "I just need to finish this part and then I can stop for a while. Scout's honor."

"You were never a scout," Vanessa deadpanned.

"I was too! It was long ago, back in Gimmelshtump…" The air around him started to fade and turn sepia-colored.

"Okay, we get it, there was some kind of tragic backstory that made you quit scouts and someday you're gonna create an -inator to help you get revenge on them by taking it out on a group of people who weren't even alive back then!" Vanessa snapped, waving her hands and making the sepia dissipate.

Dr. D looked taken aback, before at last stammering, "...Technically I was kicked out-"

"Whatever!"

The hurt, confused look in the doc's eyes started turning to the kind of anger that would probably lead to something between 'don't you take that tone with me' and 'you're not going anywhere unless you change your attitude young lady,' and definitely more yelling on both sides.

Had it been another time, with other people, Stan would have wanted to get popcorn so he could better enjoy the upcoming fight.

Right now, though, his stomach began to squirm, and he quickly interrupted. "...So where's this arcade at?"

Dr. D took a deep breath, and deflated. "I think it's down on Main Street, but Vanessa can show you where it is, right?"

Vanessa nodded stonily.

"Great! We'll look forward ta seein' you there, then!" He tossed his lab coat onto the recliner, and quickly herded Vanessa to the door before things could escalate further.

Personally, I hate it when parents try to tell children to "change their attitude." Not least because it's not very effective, usually having the opposite effect of making them more upset and/or defiant.