It takes a bit, but Rigby does find the restrooms. Poking his head in the men's side, he looks for the goat,
"Yo Thomas, you here?" He gets silence in response, along with a strong whiff of ammonia. So he tries the other side, "Thomaaaas, you're not creeping in the girl's restroom, are you?" But still nothing. It looks like he's still picking up after a flake. The newfound pain pulses dully in his chest, reminding him of the meeting not twenty ago. Those ugly, awful words from Mordecai, the others laughing at him… Rigby slaps himself,
"No more of that junk! Gotta focus. This is my chance to prove to Benson how useful I can be." He quickly returns to the men's restroom and into the stalls, mentally burying those fresh memories. Sure enough, all the toilet seats have been plastic wrapped over, just waiting for some guy to come in needing the john only to squat and poop himself. Chuckling at the thought, he begins tugging at the plastic wrap.
"Hnggh! Hrrrrr… gnnnnaaaaaah!" Tugging and clawing at the plastic does nothing. Not even a wrinkle to gain purchase to tear through the thin material, "Ugh… ok, what if I-" he tries to lift the toilet seat next to try and find the seem and peel it off only to find that whoever did this knew their stuff. It's tough to see, but another layer is wrapped around the bowl, preventing someone from lifting the seat. And no matter how Rigby looks at it, the geniuses left it so there isn't a seem to be found that would give enough purchase for even a fingernail to slip in and peel it away,
"Rrrrrrrrraaaaah! This is impossible!" The humor from the idea of the prank is gone; Rigby stands there staring at what is rapidly becoming a monumental task. It's easily been, what, almost an hour? Three hours? Four? Maybe he should take a "No!" He yells at himself, "I'm not going to screw this up and prove Morde-turd right about me!"
"About what?"
"AAAAAAAAAAAH!" Rigby yells, feeling like he jumped out of his skin, "What the H man?!" Standing in the doorway to the stall is Thomas, the missing goat.
"Sorry, dude, I didn't mean to scare you." Says Thomas, "Also, not to be rude, but what are you doing here? Benson mentioned that you'd be working with Mordecai today doing the lightbulbs. You two fight again or something?"
…yeah, I mean you're fun… you're basically the opposite of useful… Well, I mean, it's the least you could do...
Rigby's tail curls around his leg again, and the pit in his chest swallows his frustration with the toilets, the pranksters, and the formerly missing Thomas.
"Yeah, we did. Benson said I'm working with you today instead."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Well, uh, I haven't started on this yet. Had to take a leak out in the bushes."
"What? Why? There are urinals, you know."
"Nope," He walks away, gesturing the raccoon to follow, and then points at the porcelain on the walls, "See?"
"No?"
"Watch this." Thomas reached into his pocket, took out a penny, and tossed it at the urinal, only for the copper coin to bounce off an invisible surface mid-air.
"Woah! No way!" Rigby quickly walks over and tries to touch the inside of the urinal only to, like the penny, be met by an invisible barrier,
"This is some next-level stuff, dude."
"Yeah, I would have fallen for it too if the light coming in hadn't been just right. So, I think it's safe to say that the teens doing this are pretty good at it." Rigby nods in agreement.
"But how are we going to get rid of it? I couldn't find the seem anywhere on the toilet, and I could see the plastic on that."
"No problem." Thomas then produces a wide Swiss army knife from another one of his pockets.
"Woah, sick dude! With that, we'll finish this junk in no time!"
"Heh, yeah. So I'll cut the plastic, and you run it all to the dumpster then-"
"Awww, but I want to cut the plastic."
"Dude, my mom gave me this. I don't want it accidentally getting dropped in toilet water."
"C'mooon, dude! How about we switch it up at every other bathroom?"
"Fine… just watch me do this first so you know how to do it right." He walks into the first stall and kneels down by the bowl with Rigby standing just outside looking in, "So it doesn't really matter where you start cutting, but if you do it in the middle, you'll have a higher risk of dropping the knife into the toilet so you just start here under the seat on the edge with a single cut and-" As the knife slices the plastic there's a sound of air quickly escaping from the newly made hole. Rigby quickly covers his nose, but Thomas seems to get a mouthful of the foul built-up gases and begins gagging. He drops the knife to the floor, the gagging quickly evolving to dry heaving and tears leaking from his eyes.
"Uh, on second thought, Thomas," says Rigby in a nasal tone from his covered nose, "I wouldn't want to risk getting your mom's knife all gross, so I'll throw away the trash."
It takes a little while and more than a few fresh air breaks, but the first bathroom on both sides is eventually all done. Thomas stretches as Rigby adds the newly cut plastic to the large, smelly wad he had rolled together.
"Man, that was a lot. Just look at this thing!" Rigby begins to kick it around like an improvised soccer ball, "Hey Thomas, want to see who can score the most goals into the dumpster?"
"Nah, man, we really need to get back to work. We have to clear 11 other public restrooms today, and we're already behind schedule."
"Ugh, fine. I'll just throw this in the trash then."
"Actually, Rigby, you have to recycle the plastic."
"Aw, what? You mean this stuff is gonna be turned into plastic bottles?" Thomas shrugs.
"That's the general idea of recycling. Anyways, you can't miss it. It's right next to the normal dumpster but has a green lid. I'm going to go get some plugs for my nose and some mouthwash. I'll meet you at the bathrooms by the Zen Garden, alright?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'll be there in a minute." They part ways, and Rigby, still treating the wad of plastic like a toy, continues kicking it about while on the way to the dumper. Partway through, he passes a woman feeding her baby on a park bench. She's cooing to the small lump in her arms while holding a bottle… a plastic bottle. Shaking his head, Rigby continues, but a moment later, he encounters a man twisting off the cap of a plastic soda bottle and taking a deep swig. Gagging a little, the raccoon picks up the pace, but everywhere he looks now, he seems to see more and more people using plastic utensils, plates, and toys. Then he comes across a party where everyone is drinking from plastic cups and on and on and ON, until finally,
"Oh, thank goodness." He made it, and like Thomas said, there is the recycle-only dumpster right next to the trash dumpster. The green lid is already open and waiting. As he is about to toss the garbage inside, he hesitates. Rigby looks down at the smelly ball in his grip. It is nasty, and rolling it on the ground like a ball hadn't helped. But even so, the smell of ammonia and other grossness permeates the plastic and the air close to it. In the end, the decision is an easy one to make.
"Hm hm, nobody is gonna spoil good soda with this." After opening the lid of the trash dumpster and taking a 3-point position, he aims, trusting his gut, then tosses the wad. It banks a few times off random objects before hitting the 'backboard' of the trash lid and falls into where it belongs, with the lid slamming on top of it.
"Oooooooooooo! I still got it!" Having had his fill of fun for the moment, Rigby returns to Thomas at the Zen Garden. From there, things went smoothly as Thomas, now armored against the pent-up stenches, made short work of all the plastic, and each time they finished, Rigby would toss the plastic wads away in the trash. It's a sound system, and before long, lunch rolls around, and they have only 5 more restrooms to go. When Rigby meets up with him by bathroom 7, Thomas calls it.
"Alright, dude, let's take a break; I'm starving."
"Finally! My stomach has been trying to eat itself for the last hour!" They both start walking towards the house. The silence is comfortable, but when he feels his stomach rumbling, Rigby asks, "So where are we going for lunch?" Thomas pauses.
"Going?"
"Yeah, Mordecai and I usually borrow the cart and head to the Café or a food truck for lunch. Oh! Maybe we can go someplace else? I heard there's this killer sandwich shop across town!" But the goat, instead of agreeing, just shakes his head.
"Sorry, dude, but I don't eat out."
"What, why?"
"I don't get paid to work here, remember. My mom packs my lunches for me."
"Oh." They resume walking; the comfort has vanished, but the silence remains. That, unfortunately, leaves Rigby in his head to mull over everything the others had said that morning about him. The more he thinks about it, the more it hurts. But Thomas hasn't said anything awful about him. He was even willing to trust him to use the Swiss knife his mom gave him earlier. Not to mention, Thomas is pleasant to be around. He's surprisingly quiet while working and laser-focused on his task, even if it does blast gross air at him. But he laughed at Rigby's awful jokes he cracked every so often as they worked, and Thomas didn't act like he was a burden to have around. It is really nice.
"Hey, Thomas."
"Yeah?"
"I'll buy you lunch if you drive me." Thomas blinks wide-eyed at the small raccoon as if he is an alien with three heads.
"Really. You want to buy me lunch?"
"Yeah."
"No strings attached?" Rigby rolls his eyes, beginning to regret even asking it.
"Look, if you don't want me to..."
"No, no! Sorry, I'm just… surprised. Nobody has bought me lunch before. It just caught me off guard, is all."
"So, do you want sandwiches or not?"
"Sure! That sounds great, dude, thanks." Thomas' smile makes butterflies flutter inside him somewhere. Rigby smiles in turn; it's nice being appreciated for once. The wide pit that was inside his chest felt like it shrank some.
"No problem. Just gotta grab the cash in my room real quick. Oh, also, could you talk to Benson about borrowing the cart? He won't lend it to me on my own anymore."