Commercial 4: More Meatball-Filled Spaghetti
"Not perfect?" Nami snorted. "It's way beyond that. It's horrible! I am not humiliating myself—and if you people had any sense, you wouldn't want to humiliate yourselves either—by displaying any of those twenty takes to a public audience!"
"Come on, Nami," said Usopp with a roll of his eyes. "This isn't a public audience. The only one who's going to see it that hasn't seen it before is the Boss!"
"And he has the power to fire us if he sees anything too grotesque!"
"Chill, Nami," grinned Luffy. "It was fun making it, at least."
Nami turned on Luffy with a look that probably should have sliced him, diced him, twisted his very bones, and thrown him ten feet under.
"Tell me, Luffy," said Nami, her voice dangerously sweet. "Who's fault is it, exactly, that we could only do twenty takes because we had to keep making new spaghetti and meatballs between takes?"
Luffy gulped.
"Yes—you! So don't you dare tell me to chill! I'll chill when you're far, far away from me and I can just make a commercial in peace for once! Do you have any idea how broke we are? Why do you think we're even doing a job like this? You-"
"Shut up, Nami," Zoro grumbled. "I'm sleeping here."
"And you!" Nami's wrath was instantly redirected Zoro's way. "Remember the fourth take? Remember how it was going so well, and we were almost done when you, who were supposed to be holding onto Luffy, fell asleep and doomed the take? Remember how Luffy ended up ruining the camera in that take?"
Zoro was cautiously edging away from the irate navigator.
"I wasn't the only one holding onto him..."
"No, but you were the strongest! What makes you think that Usopp and Chopper and I could hold Luffy still on our own?"
"There're three of you and one of him," Zoro grumbled. "Can I sleep now?"
"No!" Nami's brandished fist suggested a drastic show of violence within the next few seconds—something the Boss hated about working with these people—so the Boss cut in.
"Why don't we just watch these takes and hope that one of them is marginally suitable?" he suggested.
Nami, Usopp, and Chopper stared at him like he was crazy.
Robin, however, reached into her bag and pulled out a videotape. As she handed it to the Boss, she didn't forget to warn him, "Make sure you fast forward through the first half hour. I can promise you that you won't find anything suitable there."
The Boss, however, apparently did not hear Robin—or maybe he just didn't feel like listening to her—because he pressed the 'play' button as soon as he had out the videotape into the VCR.
The screen was blank for three seconds. A cafeteria table with a plate of spaghetti and meatballs was visible for about a second. Then a red ball of energy leapt in front of the camera with a loud yell, and there was spaghetti and meatballs and sauce all over the place.
"Ugh," grimaced the Boss. "You call this a commercial?"
Robin shrugged.
"I told you to fast forward the first half hour."
The Boss sighed and pressed the fast forward button.The scenes that shot past grew increasingly disgusting and made everyone glad that it was at least just in fast forward mode. Finally, the disgusting displays of Luffy's determined attempts to eat all the spaghetti escalated to a sauce-covered camera lens.
The Boss was now looking faintly green, and moved to stop the tape and fast forward so they (he, rather) didn't have to see any other traumatic, disgusting scenes that lay ahead.
"Oh no," said Robin, and a hand sprouted from his arm to hold his hand away from the button on the remote that he so desperately wanted to press. "After the camera got splattered, things got better."
Of course, she neglected to mention that in this take they had been so furious at Luffy for ruining the camera and at Zoro for following asleep that it had taken a while before anyone realized that the camera was still on. Even in fast forward mode, they were left staring at a sauce-splattered screen for longer than they should have.
A finger sprouted from the remote and pressed 'play' just as the scene changed and the room was visible once more.
"Ah," said the on-screen Robin musically and dramatically. "That spaghetti that I just ate was so wonderful! I couldn't possibly ask for better spaghetti and meatballs! Darling, you must get me more of that spaghetti! Or I shall not be able to go on living!"
"Er," said the man beside her who was playing her husband. One who knew Franky could easily make out that his fidgeting was neither nervousness of being on camera nor pretended nervousness at his 'wife's' dramatic statement. He was wearing pants, and was severely uncomfortable (who knew how many years it had been since he had last had to wear pants?), and that accounted for the fidgeting. Still, the Boss might have liked the 'realistic' nervousness...
If a red ball of energy hadn't shot past the camera (towards Sanji, who was holding a plate of spaghetti and meatballs off camera, as the Straw Hats knew) just then, effectively ruining the take with a shout of, "Yes! More meat!"
The next take, obviously, was trying a different tactic.
"I loved that spaghetti!" said Robin.
"Yes, let's have some more!" said Franky.
They proceeded to begin to gobble up the spaghetti as though the world would come crashing down on them if they weren't finished in seconds.
The red ball of energy that shot out to join them was delayed and expected this time.
"We could use the parts before Luffy got on screen," Nami suggested hopefully.
"That was far too abrupt!" snorted the Boss. "Absolutely not!"
"Well, it had to be abrupt if we didn't want Luffy getting away and ruining the take," Franky grumbled, but was careful to do so quietly enough that the Boss could not hear.
"Oh, spaghetti and meatballs are so wonderful!" Franky began this time onscreen.
"Of course," Robin replied. "But you've never tried the best kind of all!" She pulled out a small sample of the spaghetti and meatballs they were advertising.
"Really?" said Franky, and hastily ate up the spaghetti with a nervous glance at someone (Luffy, of course, as even the Boss could guess) offscreen. "Yes! It was great! Let's get that same kind next time!"
The screen went blank.
"That's all? Two 'suitable' takes out of twenty?"
"I told you you wouldn't find anything there," sighed Nami, not really feeling like even glaring at Luffy anymore.
"But you could use the last one," suggested Franky hopefully.
"Absolutely not!" snorted the Boss. "It's so abrupt! Far too abrupt!"
The Straw Hats had all known that it wasn't suitable anyway, so they just shrugged when the Boss announced that they were moving on to the final commercial whether they liked it or not.
Author's Note: Sorry for the delay... And I'm sorry to tell you that I'm going to be on vacation for ten days, so you're going to have to wait until I get back for the next chapter. But it's already finished, so I'll be able to post it as soon as I get online when I get back.