Bikini Bottom hospital, the summer of 2012…..
"Barnacle! Barnacle! Barnacle! What should I do!? How will I live with myself!? Oh, Neptune, what did I do!?" Spongebob, sweating bullets and hyperventilating, was pacing back and forth in the hospital waiting room.
How could this have happened? He never would have guessed in a million years that his reckless and chaotic driving could, big shock, get someone hurt, or worse. Least of all Mrs. Puff, the person who was always in the passenger seat whenever he was behind a wheel. Actually, it was a miracle to end all miracles that this hadn't happened years ago.
"Spongebob Squarepants?" Spongebob was so caught up in his thoughts that he jumped as he heard the voice of Dr. Gill Gilliam, who was standing in front of him with a clipboard.
The purple spectacled fish's face fell as he recognized the sponge, as the latter was a frequent visitor at Bikini Bottom's hospital (emphasis on visitor), and sighed.
"I should have guessed you were somehow complicit in this." He deadpanned.
"How is Mrs. Puff?!"
The doctor sighed. "I regret to inform you-"
"Regret?! Oh, no! What happened, doctor! How is Mrs. Puff!" Spongebob clutched the doctor's shirt, tears welling up in his eyes.
"Is she still alive?! Does she need surgery?! Does she have to read old magazines?!"
Adjusting his glasses, the unfazed Dr. Gilliam looked at his clipboard. "Well…..unfortunately, this vehicular accident took a heavy toll on her. We tried everything we could, but-"
"Oh, no!" Spongebob was bawling his eyes out. "Poor Mrs. Puff! Why! Oh, why!" he cried to the heavens. "She was so young! So full of life!"
The doctor groaned. "Actually, that's not what I was-"
"Oh, Mrs. Puff! I'm so sorry! Please forgive me, wherever you are now!"
"Please, will you let me finish-"
"Please forgive me, cuz I'll never forgive myself!" Spongebob was now on his knees, sobbing uncontrollably. "There's a special place in Davy Jones's locker for bottom-feeders like me!"
Dr. Gilliam was growing increasingly more frustrated. "She's not dead-"
"I hope you and Mr. Puff are at least reunited in death!" Spongebob flopped face-first on the floor and continued sobbing, a small puddle formed around him from his tears, which he then absorbed and spilled out again, repeating the process several times.
"WILL YOU LET ME FINISH!" Dr. Gilliam roared, finally getting the sponge's attention.
"Huh?" Spongebob wiped a tear.
The doctor clutched his head, feeling slightly dizzy from his outburst, and collected himself.
"She's not dead. Mrs. Poppy Puff is still very much alive."
"She is?!" Spongebob beamed and got up, but his smile quickly turned upside-down. "But you said the crash took a toll on her?"
"That is true. She didn't get out of this unscathed." Dr. Gilliam continued professionally. "It appears that during the crash, her inflation sack got ruptured, which means she'll never be able to puff again. So congratulations, kid, you finally crippled someone for life. And an elderly woman at that."
"Crippled her?!" Spongebob gasped.
"Yes." Dr. Gilliam shrugged. "But here's something I didn't see coming? She requested that you visit her…. right now, instead of calling the cops on you or-"
Spongebob didn't hear anything after "visit her" and bolted past the doctor.
He opened the door to Mrs. Puff's room, and found his driving instructor, looking a lot slimmer than she did in years, sitting on her bed. Spongebob gulped, he really did a number on her this time.
He worried she would freak out when she saw him, but she was eerily calm, her eyes half-closed and her expression completely passive. He room was filled with balloons, several bouquets of flowers and several get-well cards on the table next to her bed.
"Spongebob, you're here. We need to talk." She said in a monotonous tone, not even moving a single facial muscle.
Spongebob nervously approached her. Why was she so calm about this? He hoped she didn't suffer brain damage on top of rupturing her inflation sack?
Trying to strike up a conversation, he tentatively picked up one of the get-well cards.
"So…uh….." he stuttered "….I see plenty of people are wishing you a quick recovery?"
"Yes." Mrs. Puff said blandly.
Spongebob grinned awkwardly and read it. "Um….so who are Bowhead Betty and Moira "The Mangler" Eel?"
"Two of my gal pals from the slammer." Mrs. Puff replied blandly. "We stayed in touch."
"Um…how thoughtful of them?" Spongebob chuckled nervously.
"If you're wondering why I'm so calm in spite of everything, it's because I'm on a boatload of sedatives." Mrs. Puff pointed at the IV attached to her right flipper. "It was necessary to calm me after my mental breakdown last night while they were operating on me."
Spongebob couldn't keep his composure anymore. He kneeled next to Mrs. Puff and started sobbing.
"I'm so sorry I crippled you, Mrs. Puff! I swear, I'll make it up to you in any way I can, I'll pay for all of your hospital bills!"
"That won't be necessary, I have insurances." Mrs. Puff told him. "And I'm not mad at you, I have no one to blame for this but myself."
Spongebob blinked at her, dumbfounded. Okay, she must have suffered some brain damage.
"Remember what I told you the first time you failed your driving test, 15 years ago? I told you that I never gave up on any of my students, no matter how hopeless they seemed? I encouraged you to keep trying. I was wrong, Spongebob. I made an enormous mistake. I was arrogant and fell prey to my own hubris. Now I paid the price for it. Poetic, is it not?"
"Mrs. Puff, don't say such things?" Spongebob stood up. "It wasn't your fault, I was the one behind the wheel?!"
"And I enabled you to be behind the wheel…" Mrs. Puff continued emotionlessly. "…when I should have just told you that you were unreachable and should never be behind a wheel. Ever."
"Ouch." Spongebob winced at her harsh words, but knew he deserved it.
"Yes, clearly it was never your destiny to be a licensed driver, and as a driving instructor I should have been the first person to realize that, but I did not."
After a moment of silence, Spongebob gulped and finally asked about the thing he was dreading to learn.
"So…um? What now?"
"Good question. In hindsight, I should thank the doctors for the sedative. It cleared my mind and quelled my emotions, allowing me to muse about my current situation." Mrs. Puff told him, still as monotonous as ever. "I wasn't expecting an injury to end my career as a driving instructor, but I suppose it was inevitable either way. I'm an old pufferfish and perhaps me surviving this crash is a sign from Neptune that it's time for me to pack it in."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm retiring, Spongebob." She replied bluntly. Spongebob couldn't believe his ear holes, and drew a breath to argue against it, but his index finger literally deflated and he didn't say anything.
"And….and I'm banned from your boating school?" he nervously asked instead.
"That much is obvious." Mrs. Puff nodded. "And I'll make sure to inform my successor to never let you step one foot there, for their sake and for all of Bikini Bottom's sake."
"Ouch." She really wasn't holding back any punches.
"And….am I going to jail for this?" Spongebob started shaking. He would never survive in jail, they would mop the floor with him.
"No, I'm not pressing any charges." Mrs. Puff shook her head. Spongebob was left agape.
"You….you're not?"
"I am not. Perhaps it's just the sedative talking, or maybe it's because, even though you have been the bane of my existence for over a decade, I have grown…..accustomed to you. I'm not sure myself, maybe it's because I have nothing to gain by pressing legal actions, now that my career is in the bucket. So you needn't worry about any legal threats from my side, on the condition that you never cross my path again."
Oh, this was really harsh. Spongebob knew he deserved everything she said, but it still hurt him to no end hearing her say it upfront. It seemed this would be the last conversation he and his former driving instructor would ever have.
He tried to think of any parting words that could hopefully end this encounter on a positive note, but he couldn't. He knew there was nothing he could say to end this on a positive note. He really screwed-up this time.
"So I guess this is it?" he said weakly. Mrs. Puff didn't say anything, which he took as a "yes".
"So….I guess I should leave now?" the dejected Spongebob pointed over his shoulder.
"Yes, you should." Mrs. Puff grew a slight scowl. "But make no mistake, Spongebob. I will make sure that you never participate in a driving test ever again. And neither will your children. Or your grandchildren. Or your great-grandchildren."
Spongebob took a step back as Mrs. Puff's face darkened and her tone grew harsher. "I will make sure that you get blacklisted from every single boating school under the seven seas, so that no other driving teacher will ever have to feel my pain again. You will never get your boating license! And Neptune help you, I will make sure that your filthy little hands never touch a driving wheel again."
Spongebob shrank as the pufferfish clenched her teeth and her eyes turned bloodshot.
"Now get away from me, you psychotic maniac!" Mrs. Puff roared. "Get lost! Before I change my mind and call the cops on your yellow behind!"
Tears welling up in his eyes again, Spongebob rushed out of the room, ran down the hallway and past the receptionist desk, grabbed his unicycle from the driveway and got out of there, sobbing dejectedly.
Sometime later, at the Krusty Krab…..
It was a slow day at the fast-food joint, and Spongebob and Squidward were sitting at a table, both resting their heads in their hands. For once, Spongebob was just as miserable as Squidward.
"So is this really the end of Spongebob's "epic" boating school saga?" Squidward pretended to give a barnacle, as he was bored out of his skull.
"Looks like it." Spongebob sniffed. "I don't think I should toy with Mrs. Puff's generosity."
"Yes. After all, you only crippled someone, and you got away scot-free." Squidward deadpanned. "Sometimes I really do envy your reality-bending good luck."
"Oh, Squidward? Why did it have to end between me and Mrs. Puff like this? I always thought we would part ways with her congratulating me and me walking into the sunset with my boating license."
Squidward rolled his eyes. "And I always thought it would end with you and her in body bags, so I guess the universe threw us both for a loop?" he shrugged.
Spongebob sighed. "Maybe she is right, I'm just not meant to drive a boatmobile?"
"Yes, maybe she does have a point." Squidward oozed with sarcasm.
"I just can't believe it's over, Squidward? Just like that? It's over." Spongebob moped.
"Nothing lasts forever, Spongebob. All things must come to an end eventually." Squidward shrugged.
Right then, an alarm went off and Spongebob and Squidward looked around as lights started flashing, bathing the restaurant in red. They both sighed tiredly, knowing what this meant.
The door to Mr. Krabs's office busted open and out came Plankton, wearing a helmet and carrying the bottle containing the secret formula and making his getaway with his jetpack, with Mr. Krabs in hot pursuit.
"At last! The formula is mine!" Plankton laughed maniacally as he flew past the fry cook and cashier.
"Don't jus' stand thar, idiots!" Mr. Krabs roared as he ran past them. "Help me catch this thievin' bilge rat!"
"Aye, aye, sir." Spongebob and Squidward obliged exasperatedly and joined him in the chase.
Some things though would seemingly never end.
"Why can't Plankton get run over by a bus or something." Squidward grumbled to himself as he, Spongebob and Mr. Krabs chased the microscopic fiend into the distance.
This one didn't wind up being particularly funny, huh? Then again, what can you do trying to lampoon one of the show's two most screwed-up episodes? "Demolition Doofus" really defies explanation. Even by bad modern Spongebob standards, this one is an outlier, feeling more like an extended Robot Chicken parody than an actual Spongebob episode. It goes into dark places so fast and doesn't even try to make these concepts humorous, even in a dark, twisted sort of way (like "The Nasty Patty"). Actually, it doesn't do anything with them. They just wrote a really screwed-up plot and it just had the characters going through the motions, as if this was a standard Spongebob plot.
This episode was even worse on rewatch. Spongebob is as bad here as he is in "A Pal for Gary", and like in that episode, this one's biggest problem can be summed up as "the flanderazation of a recurring plot thread hitting rock bottom". The writers just wanted to one-up all the previous boating school episodes, where Spongebob's reckless driving skills caused unimaginable havoc and harmed Mrs. Puff and we got the logical conclusion to this "story arc"; Spongebob crippling his driving teacher and her going off the deep end and wanting to murder him. Y'know, for kids! This kind of plot would be right at home on a show like Ren and Stimpy or The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, but not Spongebob!
Since the theme of this fic is to add logic to the worst Spongebob episodes, and since I already used the "Spongebob lost his brain" excuse for "A Pal for Gary", the only other option was to have the characters (not just Mrs. Puff) react realistically to this situation and treat this horrifying situation seriously, leading to the rather depressing conclusion to one of the show's overarching plot lines.
Hopefully, the next entry will be more fun.