Chapter 32 - Getting cleaned up
"... and that's how I got here.", my jelly boyfriend said as he finished explaining his long tale of his life to the two bunnies. Wait, you were in the sewers for 40 years?!, Ella asked. "Haha, yeah. It was pretty scary. I never really saw the sun or saw anyone. It was really, really lonely down there.", my jelly boyfriend replied. "Geez, you're older than our dad!", Barry jokingly said. How did you ever clean yourself? You must have smelled horrible when you finally found your way out!, Ella remarked. "Oh, I didn't have to worry about that, I'm anti-bacterial.", my jelly boyfriend replied.
"Anti... bacterial...?", Barry slowly asked. Quickly, my jelly boyfriend just said "My body can automatically clean things. That's why there's no dirty dishes in the kitchen. Speaking of which, those clothes you're wearing... where did you find them if you didn't buy them at the store?!" Ella rubbed her left arm with her right hand, grudgingly answering: We found them in the middle of the woods... We're lucky we found these, let alone having them be the right size.
"They look really, really dirty. Maybe we should clean them!", I suggested. Barry's chin turned from lavender to a sort of red-violet color. "W-Wait a minute! I'm a little self-conscious about my naked body, and you and I don't have to guess that my sister won't like that either!", Barry yelled. I said back, "Look, you can't think that you're keeping those clothes dirty forever!" Ella thought to us, It's true! We can't be all stinky in this place! There's so little space... At this point, Barry was rubbing his chin while staring at my jelly boyfriend.
"...Alright then. I don't want Mr. Needy here watching me, though.", Barry said, pointing at me. "Hey, what the fuck do you mean by that?!", I said as I wore an incredibly angry look on my face. "Chill, both of you!", my jelly boyfriend yelled as he walked in between us. "Look, we can just use the bathroom." Barry replied, "Alright! I volunteer to go first." Both Barry and my jelly boyfriend walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind them.
So... what can we do while we wait for them?, Ella asked. "Oh! We can watch some T.V.", I replied, walking over to the couch. I picked up the remote and turned the T.V. on. "Come, have a seat", I requested Ella. What is... T.V.?, she asked me, taking a seat beside me on the couch. "Well, us humans have this system in place that allows us to watch things that entertain us, pretty much whenever we want. This system is divided into channels, so we can choose to watch either cartoons or live-action shows. If I wanted to change the channel, I would push this button right here", I explained, pointing at the button on the remote. As I pressed it, I changed the channel from ABC to The Learning Channel.
This is very interesting! Can I try it?, Ella asked. "Sure!", I responded, handing her the remote. She looked in pure joy as she tried the buttons. Turning the volume up and down, switching channels, turning the T.V. off and on again. Hey, what do these buttons do?, she asked as she pointed at the numbered buttons below the controls. "Ah, these are pretty interesting. Let's say I'm on the sports channel, but I want to switch to the foods channel without clicking through all the channels in between." I turned to the sports channel, which was channel number 49. "The foods channel is 95, which is really far away from 49, so we just push 9 and 5..." I pushed down on the buttons, bringing up a small box in the corner, displaying the numbers. Then, in the blink of an eye, the foods channel appeared on the screen.
Wooooow! This is so much fun!, Ella thought as she clapped her hands in joy, finding a new thing to bring a smile to her face. At this point, I thought I could hear a faint groaning. I guess it's the refrigerator, I thought to myself. Ella switched channels left and right until... Oh wow, this looks interesting... I looked at the T.V. She stopped on PBS, with all the documentaries. "That's an educational channel. It'll show you lots of things about the world.", I explained. Oooooooh, Ella thought as she was hypnotized by that fact. There was a documentary on the sun that was on right at the moment.
After about 5 minutes of watching the documentary, the commercials came on. What? What's happening now?, she asked. "Oh, these are just commercials. This is how the channels are able to still run. Companies have products they want to sell to people, so they pay the T.V. channels to show advertisements on 15-minute intervals, to grab our attention." This is all so interesting... I'll ask more questions later on!, she thought. It was really weird, having her not speak, but still being able to hear her voice.
Then, the bathroom door open, with Barry walking out first, with only his jeans on, exposing his chest. He looked a little dazed, almost as if... oh no. "Are you two okay?", I instinctively asked. Barry replied, "Yeah... I'm... doing great!" He stumbled onto the couch, looking at the television, fighting to keep his eyes open. I was about to ask my jelly boyfriend what happened, but Ella stepped up, thinking to us, Well! Barry looks a lot better! My turn!
I looked at my jelly boyfriend with a face of pure confusion as he ignored me, inviting Ella into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.