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A Case Study on Ritualistic Behavior

Janie went to bed the same way every night; she’d strip, take a shower, brush her teeth, throw on a pair of underwear and a tank top, tuck herself into her bed, and go to sleep. She usually slept fitfully. She could sleep restfully, which is slightly different than sleeping fitfully, but she would usually sleep, and there was rarely a night she found that she couldn’t sleep. And she always wore white underwear. Any other color just wouldn’t do. And black would make Gyro suspicious, the studying human psychology nut he was.

Janie also woke up the same way every morning. The alarm clock would ring for a half-hour, and she would hide her head under a pillow to muffle the sound. But, as things have a way of doing around that certain household some days, the morning ritual suddenly changed one day. Remember that part in the movie ‘The Exorcist’ where the bed begins to jump around? Well, that’s exactly what began to happen after the alarm clock rang for some fifteen minutes. Of all the things Janie expected in the morning, she never expected to be woken up by a bed that was more of a trampoline than a bed.

After attempting to suffer through this new form of torture for five more minutes, the head end actually rose up, effectively and uncomfortably dumping her out at the foot of her bed. Already she had had enough surprises. Despite the major annoyance this demon bed had caused, her morning ritual would continue as it had for the past several months. She sluggishly rose to her feet, rummaged through a bureau, and slapped on a pair of pajama pants. She would then proceed to wander around the house until she found the kitchen, and make herself breakfast. After having her morning meal, she would go back to her room, wash her face, then get dressed to do whatever she would do for the day.

The pajama pants were quite a comfort in the face of the morning’s early annoyance. They were soft, not scratchy, as the plaid pattern usually dictated, and they were light and airy. They were warm when they needed to be warm, and they were cooling when they didn’t need to be warm. Very comfortable indeed.

She looked out her window with half-closed eyes before she went on her morning scavenge. It was late winter outside, looked like it might snow a little later on. She did not know this, but it had taken less than a week for Proto, Gyro, Protocol, and Roller to install a heating system in their already-built house. They cleared way for pipes in the walls, added insulation, installed heaters in every necessary room, and so on and so forth.

The thing was that, in a house occupied entirely by robots and one marshmallow thing with enough energy in its body to last through a nuclear winter, they hadn’t needed a heating system. Whenever Rank or one of the other people Proto and company were acquainted with came along, they usually complained that the house was ‘too damn cold,’ and urged Proto to at least buy a space heater. This he did not do. At least until he realized that Janie would be staying. Then he and Gyro put their heads together, and proceeded to execute ‘Plan: Local Warming.’ Gyro thought it would be minorly amusing for it to sound like global warming, a threat lingering in the face of industrial areas everywhere, but, alas, it was not, even to his unusual sense of humor. So, with Roller and Protocol doing most of the heavy lifting and tool-handing, the job was done very quickly. Upon sealing the last wall shut, Roller proclaimed victory by announcing they had not blown anything up. Gyro then asked how they could blow anything up while installing a heating system, to which Roller shrugged, and muttered something about ruptured gas lines and sparks.

So, the house was warm. She was not shivering. So far so good, scratch that damn bed tossing her out of itself. Now it was time to aimlessly wander about the house until either someone guided her to the kitchen, she found it herself, or she heard the distinct sound of Kirbo gobbling away at some random foodstuff which she could easily follow to her destination.

Alas, neither aide came, so she had to wander until she found it. Keep in mind that were she perfectly awake, she could easily find the kitchen. But, unfortunately, Janie and mornings do not mix very well, especially if those mornings occupy a Monday. And it was Monday. That meant it would once again not be her lucky day.

In time, she did find the kitchen. Its only occupants at the time were Proto and Dave Stiles, professional social leech, letch and mercenary, all in one. Luckily for Janie, he had his face in a cabinet, looking around for something to munch on that wasn’t a cold cereal or a toaster pastry. That meant he would not stare as she staggered in wearing a tank top and oh-so-cute red plaid pajama pants. That was also lucky for Stiles, as he would not receive physical threats involving the words ‘knee’ and ‘nuts’ at least for the next several minutes. Proto looked up from the newspaper he had momentarily buried his face in, and gave a small ‘good morning’ greeting. Janie gave a soft groan, which signified that she had heard Proto’s polite salutation, and was mildly thankful that he cared. Stiles however, only heard the following:

“G’morning.”

“(incoherent mutter)”

Upon recognizing Janie’s voice, Stiles’ head popped out of the cabinet it had been occupying only moments ago, and looked to the source of the sound to confirm his suspicion. Indeed, that was Janie, in the usual groggy early-morning stupor.

Proto saw Stiles look around to Janie, and then proceeded to glare at him and wordlessly point in the general direction of the kitchen exit. He did not feel like any early morning shenanigans, and most certainly didn’t want to see one of his best mercenaries laid out with a single strike below the belt.

Stiles got the hint, then begrudgingly popped a packet of toaster pastries in his mouth before making a silent exit. Proto was his boss. What he said, or at least indicated, went.

In that short amount of time, Janie had stuck an arm into a different floor-bound cabinet, and pulled out a box of cereal. She placed that on the counter, then pulled a bowl out of one of the head-level cabinets, and a spoon out of a waist-level drawer. She poured the cereal into the bowl, put it back where it belonged, stuck the spoon into the bowl with the cereal, and approached the kitchen table. She pulled out a seat, and put the bowl on the space that went with said seat. Instead of sitting down, she went to the refrigerator, opened it up, and grabbed the jug of milk. Had Stiles still been around, he would’ve particularly enjoyed the view, as the refrigerator was a basic freezer-over-fridge design, and the milk was placed on one of the fridge’s lower levels, and she had to bend over to get it. He had no qualms about leering at teenage girls as long as they were pleasant to the eye. The entire experience would be dulled if she kneeled or squatted to get the milk, though. But, and Stiles usually wasn’t around, and none of the Five enjoyed looking, and Kirbo wasn’t exactly into humans, she didn’t worry about being stared at in the comforts of her own home and bent over to get milk and other assorted drinks in the refrigerator as she pleased.

It was then she claimed her annexed spot at the kitchen table. She sat down in the pulled-out seat, propped an elbow on the table, propped her cheek on the hand of the arm propped on the table, and poured the milk with the other hand.

Usually, it was best to do something like pouring a liquid with her eyes open. However, her eyes had shut as soon as her head rested on her face, and she ended up completely missing the bowl. What was even worse is that she didn’t realize it, and continued to pour in a very sleep-like state. Thankfully, she poured slow in the morning.

Proto, who was not hindered by the morning sleepies, noticed this after a second or three, reached over the table, and gave the jug a gentle push over her bowl. The sound of liquid pouring over bits of craggy edible solid material greeted his audio receptors, and he decided to break the wonderful silence that so far could only be called ‘Monday morning.’

“You know, you usually pour milk onto the cereal and not the table.”

Janie opened a single eye, and gave a glare with all she could muster. Given her unpleasant and slightly early wake-up call, that muster was not the usual grand muster she could manage during late afternoons.

After a few more seconds of milk-pouring, Janie took her head off her hand, capped the milk, and proceeded to put the milk back in the fridge. After that had been accomplished, she went back to the table, took her seat, and proceeded to slowly munch on the concoction of cereal and milk, which had been quaintly called ‘breakfast’ for the past several decades.

After a minute or two of absolute silence broken only by the sounds of ruffling newspaper and crunching, Gyro entered the kitchen. Why he would do so would be a mystery to most, unless he was harboring mold samples in the fridge again. Upon seeing Janie eating very slowly, Gyro, usually nondescript during early mornings, seemed to brighten a little.

“Good morning. Enjoy the new alarm system I installed in your bed, Janie?” Gyro had indeed modified Janie’s bed to act as a trampoline when she refused to wake up, and she almost always did.

Janie then did what could only be described as a half-body glare. From the waist up she turned to look at Gyro, and mustered up more than she had at Proto’s remark. “You have three more chances before I make you my own personal coat rack.” She then turned back to her cereal, and continued eating.

Gyro tried his best not to get flustered or angry at that remark. Sure, he had been mistaken for a coat rack before, but he was nobody’s personal coat rack. He would always toss the coats placed on him to the floor before whapping whomever hung their coat on him upside the head or at least give them a minor verbal thrashing.

But, since no coats had been placed on him as of this point, he merely delivered a slight “Hmph, a nice day to you too,” and then went to the fridge to root around for the mold samples he had placed in there a few days before.

Proto had bought him a mini-fridge exclusively for the purpose of storing mold samples and what have you that need refrigeration, that way no one would be greeted by the unpleasant smell of organic rust when they dug through the kitchen fridge in search of some orange juice. Alas, old habits die hard, and Gyro absent-mindedly kept placing his mold samples in the kitchen fridge instead of his lab fridge.

Within the past few seconds, Proto had deducted that this was indeed the reason Gyro was rooting around the kitchen refrigerator, as well as three separate ways he could’ve handled last year’s budgeting that could’ve saved a few thousand dollars here or there. But, right now, he was focused on Gyro’s flagrant forgetfulness, which was most likely getting on the nerves of every human being that went in their fridge, along with his own. And so, he proceeded to get up off his seat, roll up his newspaper, travel from the point he stood once he got up from his seat to a point directly behind Gyro, and tap his shoulder. This plan had a few parts, the next of which involved Gyro’s discreet and definitive interaction. If Gyro actually decided to ignore Proto’s invitation for communication, then Proto’s plan would most certainly not be able to be set in action.

In short, Gyro needed to get his damn head out of the fridge, so Proto could whack him upside it several times with the newspaper he just rolled up.

But, like anyone else who just received a hard tap on the shoulder, Gyro’s attention had been caught. He cautiously pulled his head out of the refrigerator, turned to look over his shoulder to Proto, and ask “Yes?” He could only raise his hands to his head to try and stop the multiple newspaper strikes that came his way shortly afterward.

“Dear lord, Gyro! I told you to keep those out of the fridge. You’ve got one in your lab, use it!” Proto gave the newspaper a threatening shake, as if to threaten Gyro with several more threatening hits with the non-threatening newspaper if he did not do what he was so threateningly told to do.

“Hey, hey! Sorry, I keep forgetting I have it!” Gyro kept his hands raised. Proto’s threatening manner had worked well. “What’re you so worried about, anyway? It’s not like Janie’s gonna eat the things.”

If Janie had been caring about the conversation or listening to it, she would’ve once again glared at Gyro for insulting her intelligence, then say something to the like of “Two chances.” However, she had bigger fish to fry, that fish being something that didn’t involve fish at all, or at least she subconsciously hoped, which happened to be consuming her daily cold breakfast.

Proto then held up a single finger, which if mentioned out of context could be construed as a gesture that would imply sticking something in an exhaust port Gyro didn’t have, and leaned in real close to someone that was usually taller than him, but about his height at the moment. “I have one name for you. Kirbo. I also have one phrase for you. Eating binge. See the connection?”

Gyro indeed saw the aforementioned connection, and that was that Kirbo usually didn’t look at what he was eating beyond unwrapping or opening it when he felt the need for some intense snacking. He had once disposed of an entire bread loaf in this manner, under the impression it was a sub sandwich with lettuce and bell peppers. Note that both lettuce and bell peppers are distinctly green. There was a reason no one had touched the thing, and that reason, as Stiles put it, was that the bread was unreasonably ‘funky’.

Gyro also recalled that the consumption of that bread loaf had some very messy repercussions, as they didn’t quite realize a being like Kirbo was able to vomit so much in such a small amount of time. They also had not seen the pinhole in the garbage bag they had let him unload his cookies in, as the pinhole quickly expanded due to the weight of Kirbo’s aforesaid ‘cookies.’ He, of course, did not want to see what cartwheels Kirbo’s digestive tract could pull under the influence of an item that was strictly mold and whatever else is usually found in a petri dish.

So, he took the hint much like Stiles had not two minutes earlier, grabbed the dishes, and proceeded to wheel back to his lab. They’d be more easily accessed there, anyways.

Proto gave a small a small ‘hmph!’ of victory, wheeled back to the kitchen table, sat back down, unrolled his newspaper, and once again buried his face in it.

Janie continued with her morning ritual, slowly eating the cereal she had poured for herself. Of all the things, she had never selected a favorite cereal. There were none that tasted especially good, nothing that could match the taste of fresh homemade pancakes, anyways. She would have to learn how to cook something other than fish one day. It would come in handy for the day she finally got tired of cereal. Or when she got her own house or dorm room, and had people over that just wouldn’t settle for cold cereal. Or, when the day came where all the bowls and spoons went missing. Though that day would most likely never come, as all of the spoons and all of the bowls had never disappeared altogether, in a single day mind you, it was still a handy skill to have.

Eventually, she finished her bowl of cereal, downed the milk, put the used bowl and spoon into the dishwasher, and began the treacherous journey back to her own room. She was more awake than she had been a while ago, but it would still be a confusing trek nonetheless. Once there, she proceeded to put on something that was passable to the outside world, passable usually being jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. She’d then brush her teeth, comb her hair just a little, and wash her face. Afterward, she would then do whatever she could to pass the time. As she had been adopted only a few months beforehand, and because Gyro thought it might be a bad idea to just jam her into a public learning facility without allowing her to get orientated with some of the locals and locales, she did not yet attend school. That would mean for the next year, she wouldn’t have to worry about going to sleep late, or not getting that assignment done in time, or whichever brat queen would try their hardest to attempt to injure her.

Janie, 1. Reality, 0.

But, since she also hadn’t been taking school for the past eleven years, Gyro was giving her a crash course on pretty much every subject required for that lost time...

Janie,1. Reality, 1.

...meaning Gyro was going to teach her in under a year what most students take around a decade to learn.

Janie, 1. Reality, 2.

However, Gyro wasn’t into the conventional teaching methods. He condensed math, geometry, and the sciences very quickly.

Janie, 2. Reality, 2.

Unfortunately, history couldn’t been too short without removing important details.

Janie, 2. Reality, 3.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t try and make it entertaining.

Janie, 3. Reality, 3.

The keyword being ‘try.’

Janie, 3. Reality, 4.

Well, she couldn’t win ‘em all.

Rituals were a funny thing, really. They were done naturally, sometimes without even questioning the reasoning behind why the actions were being done. For instance, later that night, the TV would get flipped on by Janie, out of boredom. She would pointlessly channel surf, until she came upon something that could hold her interest. Then Gyro would come, and he would point out it was nearly nine o’clock for a reason that, for the time being, would seem arbitrary to everyone but himself. He would go sit in his specially-made seat, and begin watching TV with her. Eventually, Proto, Tipe, and Roller would come around, and also take their standard perches. Proto and Tipe would sit around the couch, and Roller would sit behind the couch, as he was too damn big to sit on anything without breaking it. When Protocol usually would come around, as there were some days that he didn’t, Janie would jump off the couch to get some popcorn. Once she returned, the five or six of them, sometimes along with Rank, Stiles, or Kirbo, would sit around the TV, switch it to the USA Network, and watch pro-wrestling for the next two-and-a-half hours.

As ritual dictated, Janie would sit cross-legged on the couch, with the popcorn bowl in her lap. On her left would sit Proto. On her right would sit Tipe. Standing behind the couch would be Roller. In his specially-made seat to the left of the couch would be Gyro. To the right of the couch, also in a specially-made seat, this one made more to support his weight than to accommodate any structural oddities, would sometimes be Protocol. If he wasn’t there, then maybe Rank, Stiles, or Kirbo would sit there. Sometimes, no one would occupy that seat at all.

Not a sound would come from any of them in that 150 minute period of time, except the nigh-unnoticeable sound of Janie munching away in popcorn. They would just sit and watch, letting the light from the TV dance across the entirety of them.

It hadn’t started out inauspiciously. Gyro had been studying the attitudes of human beings, as it pertained to fantasy. Part of the research involved watching certain television programs that exemplified fantastical human behavior. But, by merely watching the programming of the World Wrestling Federation, as well as reading up on interviews with the mentioned wrestlers, he was able to deduct what no other television programming had made so clear as pro-wrestling programming had.

Humans liked to be flamboyant. They liked having the chance to be someone else other than what they already were, to be someone with more power than they normally wielded. Some people didn’t have the ability to do this in public. Those who could liked to show this ability off, to constantly switch masks and become a different person, to enact a role-change in ‘real-life.’ Pro-wrestlers made a living off of being flamboyant and such, and their fans loved them for it.

Naturally, there were better examples of this, ones with better acting and better stories to tell, but, to Gyro, the pro-wrestling thing just made it painfully obvious.

One night, Proto got real tired of merely waiting for the TV to free up until 11. So he watched it with Gyro. And he kept doing this until he realized that he always felt this little tugging at around 8:30 on Monday nights, where he would think ‘I wonder what’s going to happen next?’

Somehow, Tipe, Roller, and Protocol got dragged into the whole mess. Tipe and Roller too felt the tugging, and wanted to satisfy the curiosity. For Protocol, it was just something to do to pass the time. It wasn’t a priority, but it was better than nothing.

Janie was drawn into it because she wondered what fascinated the five of them enough to keep them quiet for two hours. Somehow, it became part of the Monday night routine. She just began to do it without realizing it.

Greyson once stumbled upon them while they were watching. He thought the image of five large robots and one teenage brunette slowly munching on popcorn, with the only light source coming from the television, was quite the unusual sight.

Rank, on the other hand, didn’t have such a neutral reaction when he stumbled across it. He thought that the absolute silence meant that someone had managed to deactivate all five bots, and was holding Janie hostage very quietly. On this train of thought, he pulled out his gun and dove head-first into the room, with a shout that made him sound like he was ready to kill if he had to. Gyro guessed that the dim light made Rank very paranoid.

Yeah, it was fake. But it was part of their weekly rituals. It couldn’t really be avoided now without someone feeling like something was missing.

Proto reads the daily newspaper, in the kitchen, in the same seat, every morning. Gyro has floating wall clocks in his lab. Janie would sometimes just stare out a window in her room, no matter what the weather was like outside.

Every single one of them has their quirks. It’s just that some of them are harder to find than others. For instance, Roller plays ambient Gregorian chants while cleaning his room. No one had found out yet because he played it very softly, and he had the on/off switch to his stereo hooked up to a tripwire on his door frame. Sure, the other four could pick up the sound of the stereo clicking off and about a half-second of chanting beforehand, but they didn’t care too much.

Every single one of them has their quirks. Except maybe Protocol. Maybe. Discount the wrestling thing, and he doesn’t seem to have any.

Janie did the same thing after watching ‘the programming’ every Monday night; she’d go to her room, strip, take a shower, brush her teeth, throw on a pair of underwear and a tank top, tuck herself into her bed, and go to sleep. She usually slept fitfully. She could sleep restfully, which is slightly different than sleeping fitfully, but she would usually sleep, and there was rarely a night she found that she couldn’t sleep. And she always wore white underwear. Any other color just wouldn’t do. And black would make Gyro suspicious, the studying human psychology nut he was.

On Monday nights, she went to bed sometime before midnight, but after 11:30. She would usually quasi-sleep for an hour or so before reaching deep sleep. She never dreamed about the same thing each and every night, for that would get boring after a week or so.

Somehow, that Monday night was slightly different from the other Monday nights. She bore through that hour of quasi-sleep thinking that she had missed something, thinking that she wanted to ask someone about something. Oh well, it would come to her in the morning.

So she indeed slept for about eight or nine hours, even if she slept with slight unease, and it did come to her after she woke up.

It came in the sense that it woke her up with fifteen minutes of ringing, five minutes of violent shaking, and about 5 seconds of upturning and dumping her out of her bed.

Gyro would pay for this injustice. Oh, Gyro would pay....



Written by Ren
Start - 03/13/2002
End - 03/31/2002

I bit I wrote on a whim, after getting slightly unnerved at all the dark stuff I had been writing lately....
 

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