Garfield Oneshots
Air Conditioning
"It's hot," Garfield panted as he lay on the floor in the direct line of fire of a small electric fan. "It's hot, hot hot hot hot hot, hottest...waaaaait a minute." He raised his head enough to stick two fingers in his mouth and whistle.
Odie came rushing into the scene.
"Hey Odie," Garfield said as he pushed part of his body off the floor, "how many years have we been doing these summer heat jokes?"
"Hmmm," Oddie scratched his head and thought, and held up his front paws and counted, then barked cheerfully as he turned his paws frontward to show Garfield.
"That many, huh?" Garfield asked.
"Yeah! Yeah!" Odie eagerly grunted in response.
The wheels in Garfield's head started turning.
"Then isn't it time Jon got us an air conditioner for the house?"
"Hm?" Odie turned his head to the side questioningly.
"That's right, Odie," Garfield said, "If we had central air, this house could be our own personal igloo the whole summer long!"
Odie jumped up and down, barking gleefully in thought of that.
"Yeah!" Garfield got to his feet. "Come on, Odie, let's check through the garbage, I saw Jon throw away something in the mail the other day!"
The two of them ran into the kitchen and Garfield climbed on Odie's shoulders to look in the trash can. He saw the pile of junk mail and stuck his claws in it to take it out without touching the rest of the garbage.
"Let's see, 'You may have already won $10,000', 'You may have already lost that $10,000 you won', 'You have been selected for a credit card', 'Vehicle warranty', 'Jury duty', yipes," Garfield daintily stuck that one up on the microwave. "Here it is! Look, a flier for air conditioner installations!"
Odie yipped and jumped in excitement.
The sweat was running down Garfield's fur as he read, "If we get it installed this week, Jon will save $100 off the final price. Come on, Odie, let's get some AC!"
They were off and running and zipped into Jon's bedroom and jumped on the bed, jolting Jon out of an uncomfortable sleep.
Garfield showed him the flier and he and Odie sat a foot apart from each other, both looking at him with their wide-eyed, big smiles 'Christmas is coming and we're being good' expressions.
"Air conditioning?" Jon asked. He crumpled up the flier. "It's too expensive, boys, you'll have to find another way to stay cool."
The looks on their faces quickly turned to displeased scowls.
"Well," Garfield said as he looked to the 4th wall while he laid flat on the carpet in the living room, "if Jon wants us to find another way to stay cool, this isn't too bad."
He sighed as he felt the constant breeze from the cardboard fan that he'd taped to Odie's tail which was swinging up and down frantically as Odie chewed on a giant bone.
"You want to know the sad part?" Garfield asked. "Odie's tail can easily double the speed of the electric fan." He opened his mouth big as the breeze blew harder, "Ahhhhh..."
"Clearly this idea needed more thought," Garfield dryly commented as he furiously flapped a towel up and down creating a breeze to blow on Odie.
The yellow dog whined contentedly as he felt the cool breeze blow against the sweat trickling down his head. He folded his paws under him and curled into a ball, only lifting his head occasionally to suck some ice cold lemonade through a straw.
"Whew!" Garfield huffed as he wiped the sweat from his own brow and collapsed on the floor beside Odie.
"Odie, we gotta come up with a better plan," Garfield told his friend.
Odie whimpered in agreement.
Garfield looked straight ahead and slammed his fist against the floor, "This is a time for action, and we must take drastic action."
Odie looked at his friend with big eyes and let out a whimper that almost sounded like, "You mean?"
"Yes!" Garfield answered, "We must boldly go where we never dared go before, and take..."
"A bath!" Garfield bellowed as he and Odie jumped into the large tub filled with icy cold water. "Cannon ball!"
The two of them landed in the tub with a resounding SPLASH that knocked a lot of water over the edge and onto the floor. Just as quickly the cat and dog jumped in the air and tried to run as Garfield exclaimed, "Gaaaawsh that's freezing!"
Odie whined in agreement as his paws galloped in the air before they finally moved forward.
After disappearing from the scene, they calmly walked back into the picture and Garfield stood beside the tub and said, "Okay, that one was a drill...now we'll really get in."
He stepped over the side of the tub and made a few sounds of protest as he adjusted to the freezing cold water, Odie promptly jumped in without a second thought.
"Well, Jon's always on our case about taking a bath," Garfield said as he picked up a scrub brush and a bar of soap and started lathering up, "this should make him happy."
"Uh-huh," Odie grunted as Garfield used the brush to soap him up and started scrubbing behind his ears. "Ooooohhh."
Jon was changed into a bathrobe and slippers, with a scrub brush and loofah sponge tucked under his arm as he tried the knob for the bathroom door and found it locked. Slanting his eyes in a cross expression, he banged on the door, "Alright you two, get out of there."
There was a muffled commotion of Odie's whimpers and water running, then the sudden sound of paws hitting the floor running, and the door slammed open on Jon as Garfield and Odie ran out and shook the excess water off of them. Jon sputtered angrily as he wiped the water off and told his pets, "I'm going to take a bath, stay out of trouble." With that he stepped in the bathroom and shut the door behind him.
A few seconds later Garfield and Odie heard Jon screaming and yelping in the tub.
"You think we should've told him we used all the cold water?" Garfield asked casually.
"Hmmmm," Odie grumbled as he thought, then shook his head with a definite yip that sounded like "Nope."
"I didn't think so," Garfield replied smugly. "Let's get some ice cream."
"Yah! Yah!" Odie yipped as he springily hopped after his friend.
Before heading to bed, Jon decided to get a midnight snack. He padded into the kitchen and forewent turning on the lights since it was still too hot, and just headed straight for the refrigerator, and when the light hit him, he jumped back with a big eyed expression and a loud yelp of shock.
"Garfield! What are you doing in there?" he demanded to know.
"Bunking with the potato salad, thank you very much," Garfield answered though he wasn't visible in the scene.
Jon threw the door further open and pointed to the floor. "Get out of there!"
"Okay spoilsport," Garfield reluctantly conceded as he climbed down from the rack, clutching his teddy bear in hand. "Come on, Pooky, let's go find another cool spot to sleep."
Garfield stopped by the basement door.
"Hmmm...heat rises, I bet the basement would be nice and cool to spend the night in," he said as he reached up with his free hand and opened the door.
Turning on the lights, Garfield stared down the long staircase and down into the dark, musty, creepy looking basement. He listened to the sound of water dripping somewhere, it almost sounded like the inside of a damp cave full of bats and who knew what other forms of wildlife that would eat him. Oh and spiders, basements were always full of spiders, those disgusting, creepy, hanging, dangling, web-spinning, poisonous, biting-
"On second thought," Garfield shut the light off, pulled the door shut and sped over to the refrigerator, jumped back in and pulled the door shut behind him.
"Hey!" Jon exclaimed.
The door opened just enough for Garfield to stick his paw out, stick a 'Do Not Open Till Xmas' sign on the door, then pull it shut again.
Jon looked to the 4th wall and just rolled his eyes.
"Don't ask me, I just live here."
"An alcohol rub is supposed to be nice and cooling," Garfield addressed the 4th wall as he held a bottle of rubbing alcohol in his paw he'd taken out of the medicine chest. "Let's see if it works."
He unscrewed the cap, poured the contents of the bottle on the back of his head and let the cool alcohol run down his back and he massaged it into his fur.
"Hey, that's not bad," Garfield proclaimed as he walked away, "I could make a regular habit out of that. Garfield the cat, cool, disinfected..."
He walked into the living room just as Jon lit his pipe and carelessly tossed the match behind the chair.
FOOM!
"YEOW!" Garfield screamed as he jumped up before disappearing back behind the chair.
He came around and gave Jon the jolt of his life when he appeared, his fur all singed black, and said in a dazed done, "and extremely flammable."
Looking to the 4th wall Garfield thought to question, "Why does this seem familiar?"
"Jon finally decided to get us an air conditioner, Odie!" Garfield exclaimed happily the next morning, the sweat dripping off of him.
Odie barked happily at this news.
"It's gonna be great!" Garfield looked upwards, "With central air conditioning, it'll be like living in our own refrigerator. The whole house is going to be ice cold the rest of the summer! I can see it now!"
"Ta-dah!" Jon gestured to the window unit that had been installed in the living room. "What do you guys think?"
Odie and Garfield sat on the floor and sighed in disappointment.
"I got a great deal on this baby," Jon said, "and only 59 more payments to go. Now we can make the living room nice and cool."
Odie leaned over to Garfield and grumbled.
"Okay, so it didn't quite turn out like I planned," Garfield replied.
"Uh huh," Odie nodded.
"But it could still work out," the fat cat responded. "At least one room in the house can be nice and cold. Now all I have to do is move the refrigerator and my sand box in here, and I'll never have to leave this room for the rest of the summer."
Garfield, in rare form, was on all fours as he looked up at the window AC unit.
"Hmm," he thought, "I wonder if it's like the TV?"
He tried jumping up on the unit but he wasn't tall enough and fell on the floor. He stood up on two legs as usual and tried pulling himself up, all that happened was his feet dangled under him.
"I know what to do," he proclaimed as he turned and jumped on the couch and ran across the cushions and dove off the armrest, leaped halfway across the room and made a perfect landing on the AC unit.
CRASH!
"Oops," Garfield said as he lay on top of the unit, which was now laying on the floor.
The AC unit was back in the window again.
"If happiness is a warm TV," Garfield mused, "then happiness must also be a nice cold air conditioner."
This time he pushed a chair over to the wall so he could climb up on it and from there climb onto the air conditioner. He curled himself up and prepared to take a nap on it when it kicked on.
"REOW!" Garfield screamed like any other cat as he jumped in the air, then crash landed on the floor.
"That's cold, alright," Garfield commented. "And I just remembered there are certain places you don't want to be sitting on when freezing cold air starts blowing."
Garfield went outside to examine the part of the air conditioner that was sticking out of the window.
"Hmm," he thought, "if the cold air blows into the living room, I wonder what gets blown out here."
He stood up on two feet and stuck his face against the unit.
And got a face full of burning hot air blown on him.
Garfield yelped, quickly ducked back down onto all fours and quickly moved away.
"There's a reason curiosity killed the cat," he observed as he headed back inside.
Garfield opened his eyes in an annoyed expression.
"Hey Odie," he called over to the dog curled up a few feet away.
"Hmm?" Odie groggily mumbled as he woke up.
"Are you still hot?"
"Mm-hmm," Odie nodded.
"Me too," Garfield said as he stood up from his bed, "that window unit isn't even touching us down here."
Odie made a noise that almost sounded like he was asking "Now what?"
Garfield thought. He snapped his fingers as he felt a light bulb over his head. "I've got an idea."
The next morning Jon walked into the living room, and froze, and his whole body jerked in a double take at the sight of Garfield and Odie sleeping on the couch, which they had pushed over to the window to have the air conditioner blowing directly on them while they slept.
Garfield opened his eyes just long enough to look slyly to the 4th wall.
"Now this is how you do summer right," he announced before closing his eyes and resuming snoring.