A Reddit story from one of the Great Outages.
“Racecar.”
…
“Racecar?”
…
“RACECAR!”
The slumbering pillow sputtered back into consciousness. “Habbawha? Huh? Wah happum?” He’d only slept about an hour, far short of the twelve hours he’s supposed to get. Also short of the seven hours he normally manages to get, since daddeh “helps” Racecar to his “very fun” playpen before going to work each morning.
It’s hard to sleep while a Roomba covered in Nerf shoves you around the inside of your saferoom all day.
Daddeh was cross. Very cross. He normally doesn’t yell so loud at Racecar, and he only quite rarely makes such an unpleasant face. “Racecar, the community site has been down for days. Why are you wasting time sleeping?”
The befuddled and exhausted fluffy searched for words. It was true he’d been tasked with maintaining the website, but his liaison to the Admin was Baxter, and every time he asked Baxter to help him log in he got kicked in the ribs until he cried.
Then he got kicked in the face until he stopped.
So when the site went down, Daddeh demanded answers from Racecar. When Racecar tried to explain the situation with Baxter, Daddeh had been entirely unsympathetic and accused him of shifting the blame out of “a vile and rank cowardice” that “disgusts me to my very bones.” This made Racecar extra sad because while he didn’t know all those words, he knew enough to get his feelings hurt. He wasn’t scaredy! He wasn’t disgusting! But Daddeh wouldn’t have it. He told Racecar that this was a top priority and there would be no excuses.
Racecar knew this was serious, and in the last week he had managed to get logged in. Unfortunately, that was just to his own computer. Baxter had stolen his Fluffy Engagement Pad, so he had to wait for Arthur to be around to socially pressure Baxter into returning it. That only left him a couple days to dig in to the site.
Daddeh, of course, knew he’d do no such thing. He was honestly proud that Racecar managed to socially engineer his stolen office equipment back from Baxter, but demanding things of his easily vexed quarry was frankly too much fun. He wiped his dumb smirk off and walked back in.
"I just got off the phone with Virgil and he is furious." Racecar gasped. “Nuuuuu! Nu wan Biwgiw angwies!” Daddeh shook his head. “Well I told him that you were going to handle it and now he’s asking for an update. I can’t stall for you any more, Racecar. He needs results.”
Racecar was crying. He didn’t want Virgil mad at him! He liked Virgil! Every time they’d interacted so far wasn’t scary at all! Now he’d be extra scared, he just knew it. “Huuuu su sowwy Daddeh, Wacecaw twy weawwy hawd but nu knu hao immanet wowk! Am onwy Fwuffy! Nu hab weggies eben!” Daddeh frowned. “Racecar, when you became the face of the site, you assumed responsibility for this sort of thing. I’m very disappointed in your failure to follow through on your commitments.”
Racecar burst out sobbing. “Huuuuuuuu-hu-huuuuuuu bu Da-ha-ha-haddeh, nu unn-*hic-*unnastan hao website wowk! Nicest Biwgiw teww Wacecaw onwy haftu be in pitcha! Onwy du wittwe scawedies su can wook nice fow hoomins! Wacecaw nu wan du aww dat! Tuu tiwed! Nee west! Nee sweepies!”
Daddeh was angry, but Racecar passed out. The Roomba would roll him around for about nine or ten hours, and all things considered he’d sleep pretty well. Upon waking he rolled over to his workstation, an ancient IBM Thinkpad running Windows ME, and resumed his diligent work.