Monday Evening, The Internet Is Huge

[the_merriest]

So this internet stuff was pretty interesting. Rikku stretched out on her bed with her new laptop, checking the settings and doing searches for the weirdest things she could think of. What if you typed "nachos" and "monkeys" together? What if you searched on the word "machina"? What if you had a retarded kitten attacking your shift key?

"Petey, down," she giggled, scooping him out of the way. He gnawed on her fingers to show there were no hard feelings.

The door was wide open.

Comments

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

Sokka stuck his nose in the room, on the off-chance that whoever lived here had food.

"Oh, hey! Orangey! 'Sup?"

[the_merriest]

"Ponytail!" Rikku grinned. By now, it was a sign of affection. More or less. "There are crazy people on the internet-thing. A lot of them. With a lot of free time, it seems like."

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

It had better be a sign of affection. That's why Sokka wasn't kicking her ass.

"Other than the ones that send us email?"

[the_merriest]

"I think some of those people think 'Rikku' is a guy's name," Rikku mused. "'Cause they keep offering me pills that'll make ... some things ... bigger, and I don't have any of that to start with, you know?"

She waved him over to see her screen. "No, I mean, like, people posting things to other people and all of them are crazy. Like this guy talking about putting monkey meat on his nachos. And there are millions of pages about shoelaces." She gave him a look. "Millions."

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

"They offer you pills that WHAT??? For free???" Sokka was pretending to be offended, instead of interested.

"And don't be silly. No one would bother writing millions of pages about shoelaces."

[the_merriest]

"Not for free," Rikku said scathingly. Even she wasn't that dumb. "And I don't think they work. The person sending it can't even spell things right. They keep putting pound signs in the middle of words. Don't you get those e-mails?"

Now she was feeling oddly paranoid. Not only did someone think she was a guy, but apparently they thought she was a guy who was ... well. Inadequate. That wasn't right.

She typed "shoelaces" into Google and turned the screen to show him. "Ye of little faith," she said lightly.

Cuban Petey took this opportunity to mrowl a hello. It had several syllables.

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

"Oh, okay," Sokka said. If they were just quacks, he had no use for them. "I haven't checked my email since..." He tried to remember. "Sometime in the spring? No, maybe after that... WOW. People sure like shoelaces, huh?"

He scratched Petey's head absentmindedly without really realizing what he was doing.

[the_merriest]

"I think it's everything," Rikku said. "There are just millions and millions of people in this world with all kinds of free time and they put up this page-things about shoelaces or nachos or monkeys or their belly-button lint. I bet we could find a page about people comparing belly-button lint. I really do."

Hooray, attention! Petey began chewing on Sokka's fingers. In a friendly, conversational sort of way.

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

"Yeeeah. You can go ahead and look for belly-button lint people without me. I'll just... OW! Hey, kitty! Stop it!" Sokka shoot Petey off his hand. Only Momo Jr. was allowed to gnaw on him like that.

"...Since when do you have a cat?"

[the_merriest]

Rikku smiled. "Hey. Petey. Play nice."

Cuban Pete mrorwled in his own defense. He always played nice.

"Couple weeks now? The, uh, the weird people left, downtown, so I kinda ... kept him."

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

"'The weird people.' Yeah. You're going to have to be a LITTLE more specific, there."

[the_merriest]

Rikku made a face. "I don't know. I never met them. They had a store-thing and Valentine said that he's some kind of Oracle. A retarded one. Which is true. I mean, the slow part. Kitty's not too bright."

Petey chirped.

"No, no, it's okay, you're cute, so nobody minds. Honest."

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

Sokka grinned. "DUUUDE! The Sizzlers?!?! They were AWESOME!!! ... And this is the Retarded Oracle? Wow, you mean they actually remembered to feed him?"

[the_merriest]

"I guess?" Rikku shrugged. "I never met them. And I think they forgot him, when they left, so I kinda kept him. Do you ... think that's okay?"