Biz Sim meeting, where each team was a company, trying to sell a random, imaginary product, competing with each other by putting a random, meaningless number down for how much they were planning to spend on marketing, bank loans, production, and inventory. The winning team received stock in some Laundromat chain, which, ironically, was sponsoring the dreaded prom.
There were a number of ways to go about it. They could put the majority of their funds into paying off their debts, or taking out more debt. They could put money into marketing, or production.
The green team had already decided on everything, but the cost of each of their product. Kyle, knowing his friends, had an idea of what they were doing in their respective Biz Sims.
Stan was probably trying to be involved and throwing out ideas, but most likely was rather befuddled and was secretly planning on going out to the local Telluride book store to buy a copy of Small Franchising for Dummies, as he jiggled his foot and chewed on the end of his pencil. The blue team would most likely start off with a medium price, not too high, not too low. No risks, until they had to. But when they did have to, they'd risk everything. Kyle wished he could have been on the blue team, if only to watch Stan fidget.
Kenny, if he was back from the dead, would probably be tilting back in his chair, humming one of Chef's old songs, until he lost his balance and cracked open his skull on the wall. It didn't really matter to him, so long as he could put in on his resume, so Kyle had no way of guessing what the orange team's strategy would be. Nevertheless, the orange team would like having him on their team. Everyone liked him. Perversions aside, there was something almost innocent about Kenny, who was off in his own little world most of the time, but still prominent in the physical world, where he was willing to be the martyr for the sake of God's twisted sense of humor.
Cartman, however, was an entirely different story from Stan or Kenny; he was going to take this seriously. Cartman was going to go for the Wal-Mart approach, no question about it. Put all the money into manufacturing a plethora of products, selling them cheaply, but no variety. Every bargain you could want, but individuality was sacrificed. The high cost of low price. Bébé, despite having pockets of wisdom beneath the thick mane of blonde frizz, was an idiot about these things, so she would let Cartman take over as team leader.
So, thinking logically and playing a guessing game, the green team was best off putting the majority of their funds into manufacturing and marketing, but having the most expensive product. Kyle and the team were in agreement that when given the choice, they would all be more likely to buy the more expensive product, although in the back of his mind Kyle could hear his cousin's nasally voice whining about getting ripped off…
God damn it, I'm going to prove once and for all that I'm not a stereotype! Kyle thought, and recorded the numbers on the "official" leaflet document that was to be turned in to the counselors.
Biz Sim away.
"…----mmfft----…"
Bébé paused the music blaring on her iPod, and asked Kenny to repeat himself.
"I said, you do realize that Apple is turning us into a nation of disconnected zombies, and your only promoting it? And that being a zombie totally sucks ass?" He said, after loosening the drawstring of his parka hood just slightly.
She threw her head back and laughed loudly.
"Geek. I didn't think you'd know that much about current technology…considering your…um…situation." She said.
"Yeah, well, people always tend to study and obsess themselves with what's lacking in their lives. According to Kyle, it's a Freudian thing." He responded, leaning back against the surface of the hotel front, and taking out a pack of cigarettes.
After two more lectures, they'd been free to go for the night, until curfew. They were allowed to be released into the town as long as they stuck with their teammates. Kenny, who hadn't bothered to bring any money and was thus pretty much stuck in the center of Telluride with no funds and nothing to do and no reason to go out because of it, wasn't entirely surprised to find Bébé returning on her own.
"Oh, so that explains your preoccupation with sex?" She said.
Kenny fumbled with his lighter and dropped it to the sidewalk.
His response was particularly muffled, which suggested that it was particularly obscene because of the way things worked in their Universe, but she could tell that he was smiling beneath the hood. He bent down to pick up the lighter, but she stepped on it.
"You are much too young to be smoking." She informed him with a smile.
Kenny just shrugged, and went to retrieve the lighter again. This time she let him.
"Suit yourself, but it's gonna kill you." Bébé said. A plastic bag that looked to be filled with boxes of confectionary hung loosely about the elbow of her right arm, the hand of the same appendage carrying a glass bottle of orange soda pop.
"Yeah? Let's hope it happens before you go into some kind of diabetic coma." He said simply, and lit his cigarette.
She wrinkled her nose as the nicotine filled the air, but didn't comment, and joined him with her back resting lightly against the wall as she dug through the bag searching for whatever brand suited her fancy for the moment.
They were silent for a very long time. This was mostly because she was once again lost in thought and music, back to transforming into a zombie, but Kenny also attributed it to the fact that he really had no idea how, exactly to talk to Bébé. Or any attractive woman, for that matter. Oh, sure, once a conversation was struck up, he was fine, and found that they could communicate with one another quite well. But…it was starting the rapport that was awkward. This time, he hadn't actually meant for her to hear him, he was just musing to himself. Generally, he didn't really try to talk to women so much as try to get in their pants, which would result in getting bitch smacked, no, wait, more like ho slapped, which was so much worse. Kyle and his personal Messiah, Freud, attributed it to repressed sexual frustration towards his mother, which was just incredibly sick and nasty. Truth be told, Kenny did have a very good, strong, relationship with his mother…when she was sober or mentally stable. If genetics had anything to do with it, there was a chance he'd wind up a drunken wife-beater, too. Life was a bitch, so maybe his utter inability to interact with females had a hand in his losing streak. Or God's sense of humor really was that fucked up. Or both.
"Hey, you know what you remind me of?" Bébé suddenly spoke up again.
Kenny looked at her, and shrugged.
Bébé reached up and pulled his parka hood away from his face, and as he was opening is mouth to protest, she poured some of her soda down his throat. He chocked on the bubbling, synthetic citrus flavour of orange saccharine, and was almost horrified to think that somehow she was trying to off him because he had offended her by merely being in her presence. When he was finally able to swallow, and he surfaced with eyes teary from gagging, he was relieved to notice that she looked genuinely concerned and had a hand over her mouth to censor the train of profanities that had escaped.
"Um, perhaps it's better if you try. Don't worry; I doubt I'll catch your cooties." She joked, obviously trying to shoo the tension out of the air, as she handed him her soda.
He took a swig of his own free will. Then another. And then he finished off the bottle, because even though it was a fizzing orange liquid of death, there was this strange hint of a vanilla-y cream flavour that was just so pure and so addicting, and he was a little thirsty. But, he didn't really see it, the basis for comparison. He looked to Bébé for an explanation, muttering an apology for drinking all of her soda.
"Its ok," She said, smiling, and now having found a bag of peanut butter m&m's, "And I'm not really sure how to explain it, really. I guess we'll have to contemplate it."
And so, they started their contemplation, because they were at a Camp for Business Enterprise which neither were particularly interested in and just wanted the credit, so naturally they weren't in the position to have much more of a life at the moment. Kenny smiled, put out his cigarette, and dropped it in the empty bottle. They resigned themselves to silence again, both contemplating how, exactly, Kenny was like orange cream soda, during which Bébé was more than happy to share some peanut butter m&m's, for the noble cause of self-contemplation, because hungry minds never were very good for that.
When some purple members arrived, Wendy was among them and seemed to have an agenda that included her best friend's private audience, based on the bee-line she made toward Bébé. Kenny wondered how it was that someone as punctual as Wendy could have such remarkably hideous timing.
Bébé, on the other hand, was happy to see her friend, and curious about what was on her mind, and gave Kenny a single look before taking Wendy's hand and skipping off with her.
Damn, they'd be hot as lesbians. Kenny thought as he lit another cigarette. Then he decided it would be fun to harass the purple kids who were socializing about the front door of the hotel. He swallowed the cigarette, and when it came in contact with his irritated throat, it causing him to choke, asphyxiate, and eventually expire, sending the purple team into hysteria.
And so, Bébé was correct; smoking had killed Kenny.
In the mean time, as the girls walked, Wendy was informing Bébé that she was going to make sure Stan and Kyle stopped beating around the bush and make out already so that she could get the twenty bucks that Cartman had promised her back in fourth grade, and because Wendy was a closet slash fan girl.
"They belong together, and they know it. They just need a little prodding, maybe. Plus, the bookstore here has the special edition copy of 1984 that I've been wanting, and I'm a little short on cash." Wendy said.
Bébé, amazed that Wendy was still entirely serious about a six-year-old bet, reminded her friend about the simple joy that is Amazon.
"So, really, I think you should wait, Wendy," Bébé concluded her twenty-minute long lecture, "I mean, there's so much sexual tension already. It'll happen sooner or later. And a little push might make them fall over and then they'll have to get back up and go back to where they stated."
"Yes, but that doesn't mean that they can't brush each other off in-between. I'm not even really sure how to go about doing it either. That's why I need you. You're the flirty, buxom blonde chick who's always been the person I can go to about this stuff! You should be a master at these kinds of things." Wendy said.
"No I'm not! I'm staying out of the Stan and Kyle saga for this chapter. Besides, when I told Stan that he likes having cooties for Kyle, he didn't freak out, so at least their partially in acknowledgement." Bébé insisted.
"You didn't tell me about that! You've been holding out on me! Keeping all the good, slashy details to yourself!" Wendy cried, grabbing Bébé's shoulders. Bébé grabbed Wendy's shoulders in return.
"You're shaking me!" Cried the blonde, as she started to giggle.
"You're shaking me!" Wendy corrected.
Then they did the only logical thing there was to do. They shrieked as loudly as they could, and dissolved into a fit of giggles.
