The following Sunday, Squidward and Spongebob were at work again. A rough-hewn, white-painted wooden sign hung by the menu. It read, 'WE SERVE ONIONS! TELL US IF YOU'RE ALLERGIC!' in big black letters. Our spongy friend went right to work, laughing and flipping patties, assembling the sandwiches, and getting drinks. It was just another quiet though busy day at the restaurant (A mundane day, thought Squidward) until closing time. Squidward stretched out his upper tentacles in relief and stuffed his hat under the cash register. He was already thinking about practicing his clarinet, but before he even stepped out from behind the cash register, Mr. Krabs came scuttling up, tripping a little. Coming out of the kitchen, Spongebob gave one of his big, adoring smiles—one of those that would annoy you after a while.

"Quit grinnin' like you won the lottery, lad!" Mr. Krabs ordered. Spongebob reduced the wattage of his smile. "We need to figure out how to regroup me five thousan' dollars!" the red crustacean continued. "Idea conference in my office, now!"

And seeing Squidward open his mouth, Mr. Krabs added, "No, Squiddy, you cannot go home right now, so whatever you've got to say, don't say it."

Squidward rolled his strange red eyes and followed a business-like Mr. Krabs and an eager Spongebob into Mr. Krabs' office.

"What will bring in money, lads?" Mr. Krabs asked as they sat down in the bare office. Not surprisingly, Spongebob was full of ideas.

"Another talent show! Bubble-blowing classes! Or art commissions! Yeah! I can paint!" the eager sponge rattled off.

"Quiet, boy. Squidward, do you have any ideas?"

"Clarinet lessons, taught by the master—me!" Squidward suggested in a prideful voice.

Mr. Krabs curled his lip. "I don't think so, Squid." he shook his head. He thought Squidward sucked, but he didn't want to risk offending the guy and having him quit now, so he hastily added, "I don't think anyone would get as good as you—they'd get frustrated and quit."

"That's true!" Squidward replied, smiling for the first time.

They swapped ideas back and forth, but most of the ideas were brought up by Spongebob. After turning down idea after idea, Mr. Krabs banged a claw on the table in frustration. He was all out of ideas, and now his employees were offering the stupidest ideas. That was, until Spongebob, after several minutes of thought, came up with a brilliant idea. Or at least he thought it was brilliant.

"Let's have a singing contest and call it…uh…er…um…" he paused a moment, and then jumped up in excitement. "We'll call it Islandia Idol!" he shouted, referring to the country that Bikini Bottom was in. "People can come from all over and sing, and whoever is the best wins! We'll eliminate the worst singers in the auditions, then…uh…have people vote off the top twenty! Yeah! Harlem Golden said the human have something like that on land and it was a success!"

"How does Harlem Golden know?" Squidward asked, curious.

"He was in a fishbowl on land once." Mr. Krabs said sadly, for he knew the story, too. "He learned a lot about humans, but when the humans lost money, they flushed him down the land toilet and he ended up in the sea!"

"Oh, he's that one who knows nothing about life in the sea!" snorted Squidward.

"Anyway, Spongeboy, me bob, that's not a good idea." Mr. Krabs said. "We'd have to buy microphones and set decorations and we'd have to advertise—sounds expensive."

"Mr. Krabs, we could rent seahorses!" Spongebob chirped. "There's lots of seahorses at the shelter! People like to ride seahorses. You have that old barn, don't you? And they don't eat much!"

"Spongebob Squarepants, you're brilliant!" Mr. Krabs shouted. "To the shelter!"

"Yay!" Spongebob cheered.

I have a bad feeling about this, Squidward thought.