***************************************************************************** This author's email address has changed to: Caelura@aol.com ***************************************************************************** Date: 11 Aug 1998 08:50:41 GMT From: StevensToy Subject: "J is for Jury Duty" by Heather Scotland Note: If you haven't read any of the previous ones, just jump right on in! None are related. You can just e-mail me for other parts if you want them. :-) TITLE: "J is for Jury Duty" AUTHOR: Heather Scotland CONTENT: H RATING: Pg-13 for 1 bad word **SUMMARY** Mulder tries to get out of jury duty, Scully gets high on marker fumes, Skinner turns into a giant tomato (tomah-toe) and a small rat befriends Mulder. DISCLAIMER: I don't own them. Don't sue me. Thank you. AUTHOR'S NOTES: The inspiration for this one came from my pal Veronika, who suggested the title to me and I ran with it. The Krychek inspiration came from Clair, who had a need to see minor characters frolic (and they will frolic more in the future). Also, thanks to RhymePhile, just because she's so damned funny. And she named the cow who ate Scully's hair. (For that one, you'll have to stay tuned to OUR FIRST STORY TOGETHER) Shameless plug, you know. ;-) Now go read my story! .:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:. Mulder sulked into the office, slammed the door, and sulked to his desk. Sulking into his chair, he pouted and sulked some more. Scully stared at him, waiting for the inevitable outburst that would follow. Eyes flicked to her watch...five...four...three...two... "Scullleee! I got a JURY DUTY SUMMONS!" he cried, flinging the offending piece of paper into the air. Floating on a light breeze from the fan, the paper fluttered to the floor and stuck to an apple core. Scully snatched it up with what might approximate a snicker. "I hope you have a wonderful time, Mulder...I know that the law process interests you so." She made the paper into an airplane and flew it back to him. "I have to get out of it. I'm not going." "Don't be stubborn! You have to go!" He pondered this for a moment. .:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:. MULDER'S TRAIN OF THOUGHT: Do I really have to go? I don't wanna. Why is she laughing at me? Not like she's never been to jury duty. I bet she enjoys it. Yellow legal paper seems to turn her on. I wonder if they make suits that look like yellow legal paper? Or ties? I need a new tie...Frohike might have one. With a camera in it. Yeah...one of those. With Pigs, perhaps. Or without. Aardvark. Ice Cream...mmm...that sounds good right about now...what's that rustling noise in my bottom desk drawer? I think it's a rat...I'd better not tell Scully...she'd have a fit. Uh-oh, she's staring at me. END MULDER'S TRAIN OF THOUGHT .:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:. "If we find a good enough excuse, I don't have to go." She stared at him for a minute, then sighed. "You're not going to quit whining until we find you a way out of this, huh?" He shook his head. "Uh-uh." "Then let's get going. Let's brainstorm on the chalkboard." "Does that mean we're going to the store to get Slurpees?" "BrainSTORM, Mulder...not brain-FREEZE." "Oh." He leaned back in his chair, the wheels and other assorted parts squeaking (or was that the rat?) and prepared to think his way out of jury duty. Scully was in the corner of the office, the dark one, looking for the big chalkboard that she could have sworn was there just yesterday. In its place, she found a big, shiny-new whiteboard with those foul-smelling dry-erase markers on the holder and those cool erasers. "Start thinking of excuses, Mulder. And they have to be good ones." "Uhhh.....I'm sick." "Nope." "I'm dying." "You will be in a minute if you don't quit wasting time with piddly little excuses. Think back to childhood...I bet you came up with some really good excuses then." "Like the time I had to explain how a girl's bra got under my bed?" "Mulder, I don't want to know." He looked down at the desk and saw two little beady rat-eyes staring at him from the top of the desk. The rat seemed to be favoring one of its front paws, and Mulder immediately felt sorry for it. "Hey, little buddy," he whispered to the rat as Scully drew on the board with a red marker, reveling in the squeak of the marker... The rat squeaked at him. It sounded very much like the noise Scully's marker was making. Mulder put a little pile of sunflower seeds down for it, and it squeaked loudly at him in what Mulder considered thanks. He didn't notice that Scully had stopped playing with the markers and was listening to him and the rat. "Mulder, who are you talking to? And what's that squeaking noise?" He drew a sheet of newspaper into a tent over the hungry rat, who was eating the sunflower seeds faster than Mulder could shove them under there. "Um...just muttering to myself...and I was squeaking because you were...with the chalkboard. I was trying to communicate." "Riiiiii-ght. So have you thought of anything yet?" "How about we just say that I hate everyone? I've heard that works." "Everyone uses that excuse." "I'm colorblind." "Mulder, how pathetic can you get? Come ON." "This isn't working, Scully...we need a better plan." Striding back to the whiteboard to play with the green marker this time, Scully pondered Mulder's situation. .:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:. SCULLY'S TRAIN OF THOUGHT: How can we get him out of this? Not like we can say he's against government, seeing as where we work. He can't use work as an excuse, since we have nothing to do for the next few weeks...hey, this marker's really cool. And that smell is getting to me...whew. Well, it's not that bad...let me take a closer sniff...mmmm...now it's smelling pretty good...and that NOISE! I love it! Squeeeeeek, squeeeeaaaaaaakkkkkiiieeeeee, Ha! Damn this stuff smells good. Maybe I should go back to teaching, if you get to smell this stuff all day...oh, yeah...I'm supposed to be thinking about Mulder. What was he going to be needed to...huh? Wait, that made no sense....What does he needed...No....What does he NEED to do? Oh, yeah...sounds about right...whooo this stuff smells great. END OF SCULLY'S TRAIN OF THOUGHT .:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:. Just then, the phone rang, snapping Scully out of her marker-fume-induced reverie. (This phone conversation was recorded and transcribed here using remarkably hi-tech thingies which we cannot tell you about, unless we kill you.) MULDER: Hello? FROHIKE: Hey, Mulder. We heard you got jury duty. MULDER: How did you hear that? FROHIKE: We hear everything, Mulder. It's our job. And what's that squeaking? MULDER: Just a friend of mine. What do you want? FROHIKE: Do you want me to help you get out of "The Duty", Mulder? MULDER: What do you want in return, Frohike? Listen, you have all my Celebrity Skin back issues already...what more do I have to give you? FROHIKE: I want a picture of your partner. MULDER: Naked? No way. FROHIKE: Did I say NAKED? What led you to believe I said anything about NAKED? You just have a dirty mind, Mulder. Would you tell your friend to stop squeaking? MULDER: He's hungry. FROHIKE: What the hell is it? A mouse? MULDER: No, a rat. I think I'll call him Krychek-Rat. That's a nice name. FROHIKE: Mulder, you're crazy. I'll get you off the jury duty list...just send me the photo soon. MULDER: Okay. (END of phone conversation.) Scully, meanwhile, had completed her whiteboard artwork. It was a cartoon of Skinner, complete with shiny cueball head and funky glasses. Mulder was shocked. What if Skinner came in and saw that? Scully, in her fume-induced state, didn't seem to care. And then of course the door flew open. Of course, it was Skinner. And, as usual, he was already in a bad mood. "What's going on here?" he asked when he saw Mulder, feet up on the desk, eating sunflower seeds, and Scully drawing on the whiteboard. Thankfully, he didn't notice the rat. Mulder put him back in the desk drawer, where he had made a little home out of the remains of Mulder's old expense reports. Scully did the worst thing imaginable. She turned to face him, giving him a full view of her Skinner-cartoon, and slurred "Nosssing's goin on, Shhhur. Jest Drawin some ideas for Mul-dar. Thas'all." She weaved. Skinner's face turned a bright shade of red. He looked like a tomato. Or a tomah-toe, however you want to say it. "What is that drawing?" Scully finally realized what he was talking about. "I'm drawing a picture of mine favourite ac-tor, Shuur. Isss Patrick....Patrick....um....The guy on the Enterprise. Capt'n Picard," she finished triumphantly before toppling over into her chair. "Whatever you say, Agent Scully," he muttered. "It's not that good of a likeness, anyway." Scully was incensed. Was he making fun of her drawing? Could he possibly DARE? Before she knew what she was doing, she picked up the whiteboard eraser and threw it at Skinner. It bounced off his forehead and fell to the floor. He stared at it. Scully stared at it. Mulder stared at it. Krychek-Rat ran to it and nibbled on the edge, prancing around on top of it. "Eeeek! A MOUSE!" Skinner screamed, running from the room. Neither agent seemed to notice the large, eraser-shaped, red and green mark on Skinner's forehead. Either that, or they neglected to mention it. Skinner looked like a demented elf with those colors on, and it seemed to amuse Mulder very much. And Krychek-Rat nibbled happily on the eraser, sniffing the fumes. .:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:.:~:. THE END Oooooh-kay....I still don't know where most of that insanity came from..hope you liked it! Send a little feedback...you've already bothered to take the time to read the story...just take a few more seconds to send an e-mail to me. Feedback is precious. If you don't know what to say, just a simple "I liked it" or "It was good" or "It made me laugh" is fine. Or even "Go away, evil-woman, haunt us no more with your insanity." I'll take anything. Stay tuned for "K is for..." whatever K might be for. Suggestions? Heather Scotland

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I'm a nobody, nobody is perfect, therefore I'm perfect.
The problem with reality is the lack of background music.
He who laughs last thinks slowest.
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