When he looked at the morning in hindsight, Mr. Krabs, owner and proprietor of Bikini Bottom's favorite fast food eatery (aptly named the "Krusty Krab"), should perhaps have suspected that something was amiss with his fry cook.

The first sign was the boy's absence when, bright and early on a crisp Monday morning, he arrived to unlock the front doors and begin another fruitful day of pushing patties. SpongeBob wasn't technically late; it was only 7:30am and employees were not required on site until 9:00am. But usually it was all Mr. Krabs could do to keep SpongeBob away. He had to pry him from the grill, often literally, at the end of each work day, and it was very rare that he didn't arrive in the morning to see the boy already pressed eagerly against the glass of the double front doors, aching to get inside and fulfil his duties. Today, however, SpongeBob was nowhere to be found, although there was still a pair of smudged little hand prints on the doors from earlier in the week. As he unlocked the door, Mr. Krabs made a mental note to get one of his employees to clean it later. SpongeBob would probably jump at the chance … if he ever turned up.

It was two minutes past nine when SpongeBob finally burst into the restaurant, breathless and holding a stitch in his side, and Mr. Krabs was ready to scold him for his tardiness but took pity upon seeing the dark circles under his eyes and uncharacteristically crooked uniform hat. He had clearly had a rough night. That was the second sign.

"I'm sorry – Mr. Krabs -" wheezed SpongeBob, straightening his hat and brushing ineffectually at his clothes in an attempt to make himself look more presentable.

"Where have you been, lad? It's not like you to cut it so fine." Mr. Krabs wrapped a claw around SpongeBob's back and steered him toward to the kitchen in order to speed up the proceedings and make up for lost time. Then a thought occurred to him and he stopped, grasped SpongeBob by the shoulders and surveyed his pale complexion and slightly bloodshot eyes with a look of suspicion. "You're not sick are you, boy? You know you're not supposed come to work with a disease."

"I'm not sick, Mr. Krabs." said SpongeBob, shuffling his feet and seemingly eager for his boss to release him from his grip and let him get to work. "I just … it's a long story."

He clearly thought that this would bring an end to the conversation, but Mr. Krabs' curiosity was now well and truly piqued. He cocked an eyebrow. "I'm listening."

SpongeBob blinked. "I, uh …" He looked away nervously, almost as if he were ashamed, his gaze coming to rest on his shiny, black shoes. "Stopped to tie my shoe?" He looked up at Mr. Krabs again, blushing furiously. He was a terrible liar.

Every passing minute eating into service time and therefore his profits, Mr. Krabs made an executive decision to drop the matter. "All right, boyo," he sighed, giving SpongeBob another little shove toward the kitchen. "Just don't let it happen again."

"Aye aye, sir!"

As the day progressed, Mr. Krabs was relieved to see SpongeBob gradually return to his usual, bubbly self. Or, more accurately, hear him return to his usual, bubbly self. From his office where he sat alternating between serious number crunching and sorting crisp dollar bills into neat little piles (this latter task didn't really serve any purpose; he just enjoyed doing it), he was able to hear SpongeBob's sporadic giggling and snippets of warbling, tuneless ditties that he made up on the spot to express his happiness about a specific part of food service that he was particularly enjoying at that moment in time.

By way of accompaniment, Squidward punctuated the fry cook's largely meaningless outbursts with outbursts of his own. Conversely, they were nearly always irritable and snarky.

"Will you stop that incessant babbling?" he snapped, "And why haven't you taken that order out to table five yet?"

SpongeBob's chipper voice was audible from everywhere in the restaurant as he kicked the kitchen door open with a bang. "Order up!"

Mr. Krabs wasn't able to make out anything further as SpongeBob's banter with the customers became lost in a sea of other voices that filled the dining room. Perhaps ten seconds went by before SpongeBob's voice suddenly became distinguishable again – in the form of a deafening, high-pitched wail.

Mr. Krabs gave a little wail himself as, in surprise, he accidentally snipped the bill he was holding in his right claw clean in two. He sighed and got up to check the situation in the main restaurant. Poking his head around the office door, he was met with an unfortunately familiar scene. SpongeBob was crying like a fire hydrant, the customers looked mildly startled and Squidward was being Squidward.

"What?" smirked the cephalopod, "Wrong sized drink? Hah!"

Mr. Krabs, suspecting that this meltdown had little to do with food service, dealt with it using considerably more tact than Squidward and ten minutes later, sitting in one of the two chairs opposite his boss's desk, SpongeBob was finally ready to talk.

"Mr. Krabs," he began, swinging his legs and scuffing his feet on the ground nervously, "I have a confession to make. I … wasn't late to work this morning because I stopped to tie my shoe."

With an incredible amount of effort, Mr. Krabs resisted rolling his eyes. "I never really bought that in the first place, lad."

"Oh."

Mr. Krabs waited patiently for an elaboration, a part two to the confession, but none came. SpongeBob was staring at his hands, apparently lost in thought.

"So what's the matter with you today? What was all that about?" He gestured towards the dining room. He noted, for the second time that day, SpongeBob's pallid appearance and his earlier suspicion reared its head. "There's no shame in being sick, boy. It happens to the best of us. Do you need a ride home?"

"I'm not sick, sir, I swear." He paused again. This time, Mr. Krabs didn't break the silence. Instead, he waited, forcing SpongeBob to eventually raise his eyes from his lap and continue the conversation. "Well … it's just, there was a customer out there with a newspaper."

"A newspaper," Mr. Krabs repeated, hoping that it would make more sense if he said it himself. It didn't. "Help me out here, lad. Why did a customer with a newspaper make you cry? Do you have a newspaper phobia? A newsprint allergy?"

"Mermaid Man was on the front page. Because he died."

Suddenly, everything fell into place. Mermaid Man needed no introduction; he (and his sidekick, Barnacle Boy) had been a regular at the Krusty Krab for many years, and SpongeBob doted on him. Publicly. Unashamedly. And often to the annoyance of everybody in the vicinity, including the weary superhero himself. Seeing SpongeBob so heartbroken over the death of a friend made an unpleasant change from seeing him heartbroken over a burned patty or missing name tag.

"Why didn't you just say so, boy?" said Mr. Krabs, shaking his head. "You shouldn't have come into work today."

SpongeBob seemed surprised, bordering on offended. "Why not?"

"Well. When something like this happens, you're allowed to take personal time off. By law." Mr. Krabs wasn't usually a believer in time off, let alone an advocate, but there were certain exceptions, and this was one of them.

"Why would I want to take time off?" asked SpongeBob, still puzzled. "I stayed home for hours yesterday and it was terrible. And didn't you once tell me that any problem I have can be solved with a little hard work?"

"Er … yes, I did," admitted Mr. Krabs, too ashamed to add that he had only said it in order to make the gullible fry cook work harder and not because he thought there was any truth to it.

"I did feel better to begin with," mumbled SpongeBob, dropping his gaze to his lap again, "But it didn't really work this time because I still feel bad."

"This is one of those problems that can't be solved by flipping patties, boy."

SpongeBob looked so deflated at this revelation (literally: the usually angular corners of his head sagged dejectedly) that Mr. Krabs immediately felt guilty and cast around for a motivational pep talk or comforting anecdote. It was difficult. Normally, SpongeBob's problems were easily solvable as they were considered trivial by most sane people, but this time Mr. Krabs was struggling to think of anything to say. Grief was grief, and SpongeBob was quite right to feel it.

Finally, he was struck with an idea.

"So how is Barnacle Boy taking it?"

"Barnacle Boy?" repeated SpongeBob, sitting up a little straighter and shifting slightly. "I don't know. I guess I hadn't really thought about that."

"Maybe you should pay him a visit."

Although SpongeBob didn't turn down the suggestion, he seemed wary. Knowing him well, Mr. Krabs suspected that the boy was torn between the desire to see and possibly help his other hero, and the fear of returning to the place that now had such a negative memory attached to it. Also knowing that the only way to deal with that fear was to face it head on, whether SpongeBob wanted to or not, Mr. Krabs decided that it was time for some tough love.

"Go or you're fired."