Warning: this chapter verges on the boundaries of cross-over at this point. In fact, I am considering moving it to the Cartoon X-over genre.

I will need advanced critique on this about how well I do Sandy's Texan lilt (I've never written for Sandy before, and since Sandy is a key character for Too Much Love Will Kill You, the help will be appreciated).

Chapter 3: Echo, Echo, Echo, Guitar, Gecko…

It isn't fair.
That was the general feeling of the boat's three passengers as it drove its merry way along the city streets. It was this town. It had gone CRAZY. They shouldn't have to go on a road trip just because Mr Krabs was Chick Hicks in the Disney Character Claimer's Crew. (try saying that with a mouthful of mushroom marshmallows.)

"Wicmph Icmphs Mph Mehmph Mimphy Chermpher Climphmph Mph."
"Not literally, Plankton; y'all get that out of ya mouth."

But still, they had nothing better to do. So Sandy, Plankton and Patrick had to go along with it, whether they had green teeth even in the most extreme circumstances or not.

"Now, as ah was sayin'," added Sandy, even though she was the first to speak in eleven minutes; "if ah were a squirrel-"
"But you are a squirrel."
"I said shut up, Plankton. If ah were a squirrel, ah would knit mah little sweater all day to keep me wahrm."
"But you don't wear anything to do with sweaters. Plus, the name Flash is already taken."

That did it – next thing he knew, the activist mammal was growling dangerously close to the other side of his face. "Pipe down, pipsqueak. Ah was tryin' to tell the story of Abryham Linc'n."
Now Plankton was really confused. "Why? I'm busy working on the formula, the driving is driver, and Patrick is asleep." He obviously hadn't noticed the gluttonous pedantic screaming "I am a double boy!" in his wake.

Sandy just ignored the microscopic megalomaniac ("What is it with Band Geek and giving the characters titles?" he muttered to himself) and continued with the story. "Anyway, the moral is, y'all should never milk a chicken."
"Who?"
"I dunno – ah just picked the one with the pretty colors."

Unfortunately, Patrick overheard this, and he wasn't best pleased. "NO EXCUSES!" he hissed. "You know how to eat, so do it! I need workers to build my stature!"
"We're duhn trying, Patrick. But we're going to need better facilities!"
"Then you'll get better vicinities."

A pause.

A long pause.

A very long pause.

A very very very very very very very very very very very very mushroom mushroom very very very very very very very very long pause.

"Patrick," Sandy muttered, "sometimes ya make about as much sense as rancid meat in a chockpile o' fresh veg'abols."

Patrick scoffed over the Airwing (Star Basil Brush couldn't get the smell out for weeks after that.) "Poppycock." (Must resist urge to make sexual innuendo…) "Everyone knows that Truman is a better president than Bush. Like in that restaurant long ago…"

"Prosecution asks for Mr Eugene H Krabs to take the stand."
"Run around run around run around run around. Choo choo! I'm a jellycopper!"
"Mr Krabs, come back to the courtroom. With the witness stand."
"And while you're at it, for the love of god, put some clothes on."

Plankton squeaked "Help me", and promptly fell off the car seat.
"Ha! Ya see that?" Sandy laughed triumphantly. "That pieca bad gramma right there is what Truman brung to this country. I'm telling ya, Bush is the better president."
"Sandy Sandy Sandy." Patrick stirred his head (he wasn't a big fan of Bond-style martinis). "Remember Matthew 21:17?"
""There's gotta be a ducktape culprit"?" she pointed out.
"… Um…yeah. But it tastes nice."

Sandy rolled her eyes. "Look, basically what ahm saying is, the torture room needs a teensy bit more fleadom."
"Flea?!" Plankton perked up at this proclamation of prospect anti-perception. "I've got it!"
"What, what is it?!"
"Count the peas, add a pint of milk and divide what's left between you. The answer should be 7." (A/N: Try it – it really works!)
Actually, thought Sandy, I meant what he was duhn tryin' ta get at. Dang armadill.

"I'm glad you asked," Patrick answered for Plankton's benefit. ("It's all to do with focusing your mind on the question," as he said later in response to the question of mind-reading.) "I actually know a little story about fleas."
Sandy scratched the little boil that had suddenly appeared on her tail. "If this is about how ah transport the little critter into mah treedome and we west a whole episode cryin' about it, we're waaay ahead of you."
Plankton slapped his little knee. "We can advantage Bigger Fish later, Sandy," he shouted over her protests. "In the meantime, let's all sit back and let the flea do the talking…"

Pokedum! Gotta pick 'em all! It's you picking me—

"No, that's not it," muttered Plankton to himself as he sat on the coordinates.

"And what about the hunger solution?
"Well, my neck's there, use it."

"Whoops! Don't know how that got there, heh heh."
"Plankton, y'all are one nasty poivert."
"Definitely not our dino."

"I think so, Brain, but as a member of the No More High School Musical Club I am forced to disagree. Narf."

"Still not our story, but at least this one's a vegemartian."

Christmas. The time of --
"Ah, here we go."
-- giving for some, taking for others, and hibernation for those sad saps who don't believe in the holiday spirit. But it was never happier (nor stranger) than for Cosmo, Wanda, baby Poof, Timmy Turner and Goofy. (Don't ask how the principal characters of Fairly Odd Parents ended up with Goofy; I can only say it had something to do with Jorgen, soap on a string and a chocolate-eating bell monkey named Wiki.)

The happiness was there as was. The strangeness started when Wanda looked at the Christmas lists.

Timmy – VCube 1080, a date with Trixie, a giant hippo.
Wanda – money to pay the insurance company.

"Uh, there's a big ol' fire in the kitchen, by the way, but ah'll just eat around it."
"Hush up, Sandy."

Poof – "goo." (Presumably he meant 'goo' in both senses of the word.)
Cosmo – cheese. And lots of it.

Needless to say, Wanda wasn't happy with the latter list; "as a matter of fact, there couldn't be a sillier idea."

Goofy – "I want a flea."

"I stand corrected, Cosmo. Goofy's just had a far sillier idea."
"Yay! Numbers!"

"OK, whoa, hold up," interrupted Patrick. "What did that have to do with the price of cheese?"
Plankton shrugged.
Then he shrugged again as he realized he genuinely didn't know the answer.

"Did you feel a disturbance in the shrugging continuum, Gary?"

"Meow."

"What do you mean it was your fault?"

"Meow."

"Gary, what did you DO?!"

"Honey…I blew up Bin Laden."

It took another five hours for Sora to stop crying the world over but mostly America (why he couldn't burp for himself we'll never know). So in the meantime, Patrick attempted to amuse what little smoke he had by making a color palette for an art meme.

"Let's see, what does this red? 'Draaaaw your kah...ka-ka-karector in a re…la…tonship with Zak Efron?'" Patrick struggled to read the fifth question of the meme.
Then, "Oooh, I know! Asdfghjkl!" he cried, sketching a giant picture of a paper airplane. With that, he sat back and tried to fix his larryplz smile while sleeping.

Plankton and Sandy, raison d'être, were collecting stats. "Plankton, hav y'all noticed sumthink stinky stinky drag 'bout this whole set-up?"
"You mean, like is raison d'être an appropriate adjective?" Plankton sighed heavily. "Look, Sandy, let's be serious about this. They're too big for him, they're getting scruffy as hell… I mean, just, cheese, shoe, top bun, in that order."
"No, silly," she giggled. "I mean, the other thing we do for fun."

Her intrusions were met with a blank stare. This wasn't so hard for Plankton; the problem was making sure his mouth wasn't singing "Little Engines" in the process.

Sandy tried again. "What we do for fun in Not Chop Slap."
Blank stare.

"In this chapter."
Blank stare.

"For fun."
Blank stare.

"Nicholas Johnson."
Still blank stare.

Frustrated, she grabbed the collar of his antennae. "In the back of the boat, y'all…" she purred seductively. (For some reason, she wasn't wearing her pressure suit anymore. In fact, from her perspective she wasn't wearing anything. And if she was, she'd goomba it on the noggin soon anyway.)

Sensing that she would talk about sex on a kid's show, Plankton squirmed away as quick as he could. You could tell he hadn't done a Band Geek fan-fic before. He stunk of not knowing what to expect. Of that, and of chilli-dog on a bad day. "Whoa, kiddo," he cried. "I know the briefing said crack pairing, but isn't this going a touch toofar? After all, I am the ignorant gunpowder."

Ignoring him, Sandy sighed and stared out the window. "I wonder if we could have a fancy waht weddin' one day. Just like in the Disney Princess movies. Fairy princess dresses…" she drooled.
"OK, now you're just out-of-character."
"Gawsh, purposes of the narrative, Planky. Now shut up and marry me."
"Um, all right then," gritted Plankton, jumping maniacally on the Beryl Button. (Star Stories parody of Boy George, don't fail him now.)

Patrick finally decided to join in the narrative again after 1,881 characters (including spaces). "I had a dream last night."
"Uh, doesn't every'un, Patrick?" Sandy looked somewhat bemused. Plankton just looked.
"Does everyone have dreams of MermaidMan and BarnacleBoy making out?"
Strangely enough, after saying that, everybody (including the author) suffered a bout of old-people sickness. Namely, being sick of old people. There's a word for that, y'know: oldpeoplemakingoutphobia. Very common. A bit like someone standing up half-dressed.

Finally, Patrick snapped into three pieces. "Band Geek, for the love of god, can't you just admit that there's nothing for this chapter?! 3:14 GMT!"

I descended from the rooftops of the boat. "Hey, Chapter 2 was a tough act to follow! Squilliam-x-SpongeBob romance – you can't top it! You can't! I'm outta the business! And it's your fault, Patrick! You ruined me!"
Patrick turned away. "That hurts, Band. That…really hurts."
"There, there," Sandy patted him on the belly. "Don't you say anythink. Y'all done enough."

"Hang on there, bottom-dwellers." Plankton crusaded to the top of the boat wearing a make-shift hobby horse. ("Ah can't wait until we get some real horsies," muttered Sandy. "Dayam spendin' cups.") "I think I can salvage what is left of it with a little song I learnt over the radio."
"Ooh, a story!" I smiled. "Can I play? I'm an expert at the linen drying, so I know how to screw in a kitchen--"
"Get back to your cauldron, compadre."
I growled at this knock to Pratchett. "That's Wyrd Sister!" I screamed as I involuntarily got sucked away.
"And there goes Theodore."

Glad of the privacy, Plankton cleared his throat, ready to begin. (Ooh, he's so shiny, thought the boat.) "Anyway, it goes a little bit like this:

They allowed me to speak to the fairies
In the big pantomime song;
When Squill showed his new shoes to Squid
He found his shoes were gone;
Mama said be cool,
Or she'll take you for a fool;
When Santa got stuck up a chimney
Atchoo atchoo atchoo.

And that's what happened."

Sandy had to think about this for a moment. Hmm…25… "I see your problem."
"Maybe I should go to paw school," Plankton pondered, looking at his hand.

Unfortunately, it was only now that the driver decided to halt the boat and turn around. (Two secret identities in one fan-fic. Has to be a world record. Now where have you heard that before?) "If the three of you do not stop this chapter back there," hissed Squilliam, unibrowed millionaire (for it was him), "I will turn this formation around, and we'll go back home, and there'll be no Camp Wannahockaloogie for ANYBODY!!"
Saddened, the trio sunk back into their seats, planning to remain silent.

Squilliam turned on the radio. "Finally, a little war and quiet," he muttered, switching to his favorite radio station.
But alas, luck wasn't on his side today. "Twinkle Twinkle Patrick Star! I made myself a sandwich, my mommy named it Fred--"
"THAT'S IT! Back to Conch Street!!"

Before we leave, a Not Chop Slap Car Tune Short.

Squidward interrupted the end of the chapter with his wig case. And he wasn't very happy.

"Buster, it may come as a complete surprise to you that this is a Not Chop Slap chapter. And in Not Chop Slap chapters, my nose falls off. Yet, lo behold, it hasn't fallen off in the entire chapter. And in all the years I --"
I decided to shut him up with an anvil to the cranium.

Squidward's nose fell off in the end.