Conch Street, the autumn of 2008…

It was the crack of dawn, and a small clam on a post crowed like a rooster.

Inside their pineapple home, SpongeBob and Gary were sleeping peacefully, when a familiar foghorn honked, blowing the former's blanket away and causing his eye lids to peel back.

He jumped off his bed, bounced around against the ceiling like a Mexican jumping bean, and ended up sliding towards Gary, greeting him with a great big smile.

"Good morning, Gary!"

"Meow." Gary groaned. Once, just once, couldn't his owner be groggy and miserable after being awoken early in the morning, like a normal person?

Hearing an all-too-familiar bicycle bell, SpongeBob leaped at the window, his face pressed against the glass, and sporting the most ecstatic and disturbing look of joy imaginable.

"Good morning, Mr. Mailman!" he shouted.

Outside, the terrified mailfish lowered his hat and looked away from the pineapple, all while muttering, "Just don't look at him and he'll leave you alone. Just don't look at him and he'll leave you alone."

Unfortunately, in doing so, he failed to notice the huge truck heading his way until it was too late.

"What a kind and jolly fellow." SpongeBob walked back, seemingly not hearing the loud crash or seeing the battered mailfish flying across the sky.

Strapping on his square pants, SpongeBob went on a cloying speech about what a wonderful life he had and how wonderful his friends were, along with having the best job in the world.

Meanwhile, his cephalopod neighbor was tossing and turning in his bed, dreaming about being held hostage by a deranged SpongeBob for the umpteenth time, who was carrying him into Sandy's molecular fuser, bridal style.

Screaming, he jumped up, flailing his tentacles around while trying to break free from his nonexistent straitjacket.

"No, get away! Someone help me!" he realized where're he was, panted heavily, and his head promptly fell back into his pillow. "Oh…just another SpongeBob nightmare."

"…and last but certainly not least." SpongeBob approached Gary in the kitchen, who was eating from his snail bowl, and picked him up.

"The bestest pet a sponge could ever ask for!" SpongeBob exclaimed while hugging Gary as tightly as possible.

"Meow!" Gary said worriedly but it was too late and the sound of shattering was heard.

Gary fell to the ground and got covered in hundreds of tiny yellow shards, which he shook off before looking at his owner, who was standing there with no arms.

"Meow." Gary said in annoyance while SpongeBob grew a new pair of arms.

"Sorry, Gare-bear." He laughed merrily. "Sometimes I forget about my own strength, or lack thereof."

"Well, see ya later." He fetched his Krusty Krab hat and stepped out of his home.

Once outside, SpongeBob's first instinct was to make sure his co-worker was punctual as well.

"Squidward? Oh, Squidward!" he kept knocking on Squidward's door until the enraged octopus barged out, still in his nightgown.

"Don't you ever wake me up from my beauty sleep, do you understand!" he yelled at the yellow sponge, but the latter didn't seem to register any of it.

"Good morning to you too, buddy. Just making sure you're not tardy for work." He waved.

To be fair to the ever-oblivious SpongeBob, Squidward wasn't exactly sleeping like an angel a few minutes prior.

"Work? What are you talking about, you dunderhead!" Squidward's eyes were pulsating.

"I'm talking about us going to the Krusty Krab, where you work as the cashier and I work as the fry cook, and we serve sustenance to the wonderful people of Bikini Bottom." SpongeBob explained helpfully, but the unintentionally patronizing wording only angered Squidward further.

"You idiot, the Krusty Krab is closed today."

SpongeBob laughed in response. "That's a good one, Squid. I always appreciate a little black humor."

"I'm serious! Or did you forget that it's Sunday today!" Squidward roared.

"I know, a great day for going to work." The sponge replied happily.

"No, we don't work on Sunday!"

"Of course we do, silly."

"No, we don't!"

"Sure we do. Just ask Mr. K."

Seething, Squidward extended his tentacle and brought back a conch shell phone.

"Hello, Mr. Krabs?" he asked in a surly tone. "Are we supposed to go to work in this episode?"

He cringed as his boss yelled at him from the other end of the line, responding like Squidward had asked the most idiotic question imaginable.

"Alright, I'll be there. Just asking. Sheesh." Squidward lamented before hanging up and shuddering with dread.

"So much for my beauty sleep…" he muttered.

"Glad we cleared this up, buddy." SpongeBob said encouragingly. "Don't worry, everyone gets a bit confused while they are drowsy. See ya at the Krusty Krab!"

And so SpongeBob started skipping towards his workplace, while Squidward stood at his doorway, seething.

"They always forget to send me the blasted studio notes!"

"I'm ready! I'm ready! I'm rea-"

Too caught up in his own happiness, Spongebob collided with familiar pink starfish and they both fell on their butts.

"Good morning, Patrick!" he greeted his best friend, before noticing something brown smudged over the latter's big belly.

"Say, what's that?"

"Oh, nothing…" Patrick said passively as he picked up the mushy object, before getting angry.

"Just the cake for my mom's birthday party, which I spent all night backing!" he threw it to the ground.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Patrick." SpongeBob got up before getting an idea.

Before Patrick could draw a breath to speak, the sponge said, "Just give me five seconds!"

He bolted away and came back just as quickly, holding a new cake twice as big as the original one, and covered in birthday candles.

"Here ya go, fresh from the bakery. I hope this makes up for my blunder?"

"Gee, thanks, pal!" Patrick picked it up, his anger completely gone.

"No hard feelings then?"

"Nah, accidents happen." Patrick said coolly. "Forgive and forget."

"Thanks, Pat. But I really gotta get to work. See ya later!" tipping his hat, SpongeBob continued skipping toward the Krusty Krab.

Patrick stood there where he was with a vacant look and smile, before his gaze slowly drifted towards the cake. Why was he holding a cake again?

"Yummy! Cake!" he exclaimed and scarfed it down in one gulp, before burping and walking off to do nothing.

Meanwhile, SpongeBob reached the Krusty Krab and looked at his wristwatch. Punctual as usual, which meant arriving an hour before his shift began.

"SPONGEBOB!" his boss busted out, sporting an angry look.

"Shame on ye, boy!" he pointed at the confused sponge. "Ye're ten seconds late, I oughta dock a month's worth of yer pay for this!"

"But, sir? I arrived an hour before my shift, as usual." SpongeBob replied. "I would never dream of being tardy. See."

He pointed at his watch, but Krabs pulled out his own watch.

"Nonsense, me own watch doesn't lie. You're ten seconds late!"

SpongeBob gave it a closer look. "Um, Mr. Krabs? I think your watch isn't working. The batteries must be dead."

"What are ye talkin' 'bout?!"

"I mean, those pointer thingies aren't moving at all?"

"Huh?" Krabs looked at his watch and realized that it was true.

"Argh! Blasted modern technology and its costly power sources!"

"It's okay, you just need to buy new batteries." SpongeBob gave his out-of-touch boss advice.

Krabs gasped in shock and shook his head.

"No, no, no. I'll make do with this." He moved the pointers to point at the right time, before gesturing at the eating area.

"What are ye standin' around fer, SpongeBob? That floor won't mop itself. I want me galley to look pristine when the hungry customers arrive."

"Aye, aye, sir!" SpongeBob saluted him and wasted no time attending to his duties.

"Hmmm…I wonder if I could save a few nickels by pickpock-eh borrowin' some device with batteries from an unsuspectin' customer?" Krabs considered.

SpongeBob, meanwhile, was happily humming a song while in the background, a miserable Squidward staggered towards his counter and dropped his head onto the cash register.

This might have been shaping up to be a banal and conflict-free day but all SpongeBob could think about was how grateful he was for all the wonderful things in his life. He should probably visit Sandy after working hours, just to make sure he didn't neglect any of his bestest friends for too long.

Yup. Pretty short. Pretty banal. Rather sappy, but hopefully in a satirical kind of way. Basically just the SpongeBob cast going through their daily routines. Minus Sandy. Why? Well, have you read the title of this fic?

Having rewatched "WhoBob WhatPants?" for this, twice, I realized that it was filled to the brim with plot holes and its very beginning, a.k.a. the catalyst for SpongeBob leaving Bikini Bottom, was utterly nonsensical and incredibly forced. SpongeBob's been called an idiot and worse countless times before and after. He's been kicked out of his friends' homes and the Krusty Krab countless times before and after. The latter more or less happens every tenth episode. Even when these events DID cause him angst, he never thought of just ditching everything and running away. The idea of all his friends lashing out at him in a row in one day could have worked for kickstarting this plot if executed well, but as you might have expected, it's not conveyed in a believable manner at all.

Squidward yells at SpongeBob, and his rant consists of two lines. He has chewed out SpongeBob far more severely on many other occasions, with the latter rarely ever even acknowledging it, and when he DOES, like in "Not Normal" or (I can't believe I'm citing this one) "Good Neighbors", SpongeBob didn't wallow in self-pity but tried to make up for his blunders. Same with Patrick. SpongeBob accidentally ruins Patrick's cake? A cake Patrick spent "all day" baking even though it's early morning? And what's stopping SpongeBob from buying him another one or make a new one himself? It's not like he was in any hurry to go to work, since he took the time to pay Sandy a visit. Except, he was supposed to go to work, with Mr. Krabs' first scene having him lament about SpongeBob being ten seconds late. But SpongeBob didn't oversleep, he was woken up by his foghorn (as usual), but then Squidward yells at him for disturbing his beauty sleep, even though Squidward should also have been getting ready for work and when SpongeBob arrives at work, Squidward is already there before him, and SpongeBob suddenly becomes a massive klutz and there is a puddle in front of the grill for no reason just so he can slip and punt Krabs into the deep fryer… (head explodes)

Yes, as is very evident from the opening segment alone, this script was clearly rushed and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it was a first draft that nobody took a second look at. This is, after all, the season that had four individual specials, three of them bad, and "Friend or Foe" just being kinda mediocre and lacking in comedy and substance. This would line up with the disjointed nature of the rest of the special, especially the rushed and half-hearted scenes where it tries to be heartfelt or have some pathos, which are beyond hollow and disingenuous, especially the ending, which especially feels like the writers are trolling the audience with how blatantly insincere it is. Add in a pointless amnesia plot and SpongeBob becoming the mayor of a big city, which add nothing to the story, and make the whole thing feel like two or even three disparate storylines mashed together, resulting in one big and underwritten mess of a special. There was the outline for a decent idea here, namely a story about SpongeBob's friends learning not to take their spongy pal for granted and realize how empty their lives are without him, but writing overly sentimental stories isn't my strong suit, and "Have You Seen This Snail?" already did this kind of plotline superbly but with SpongeBob and Gary.