Marvin submitted patiently while his new acquaintance doused him in an oily smelling, highly flammable liquid. The maintenance room reeked of kerosene. Fred worked diligently, but progress was slow. Using a putty knife, he proceeded to separate Marvin from the shopping cart. It took time, but the process was easier than Marvin had anticipated. Fred scraped at the goo on the handle and the bars, pushing it forward, accumulating it, and carefully dislodging Marvin in the process. Then he transferred the entire mauve wad to a scrap of sheet metal he'd found lying on a work bench. Fred cut around Marvin with the edge of the putty knife, removing the excess mass of gum and scraping it away from Marvin and off the sheet. Then he stepped back and took a deep breath. His brow furrowed. He could not figure out how to get all the gum off Marvin without ripping him to pieces or, at the very least, leaving him bald or even limbless. He turned away, scanning the room for anything that might help.
Marvin sensed his frustration but didn't know what to say. In any other situation, he would be pacing. That always helped him think. But any sort of movement was difficult in his current state. He tried walking across the sheet metal, slowly and deliberately, pulling at each limb to detach it from the metal, setting it down, getting stuck again, moving another limb. His feet trailed strings of gum behind them. He gave up after four or five steps. He was a mess. And he stank of sugar and fossil fuel.
"Maybe the kerosene isn't the way to go, Fred," he ventured.
"Well, it works for removing tar. I use it on the carts, on fingers. It always works."
"Okay. But gum isn't exactly tar."
"Obviously." Fred turned back to Marvin and looked at him sharply. "But maybe there's another way..." He pulled a lighter from his pocket. The sheepish grin on Marvin's face did nothing to disguise the panic in his eyes. Reconsidering, Fred returned the lighter to his pocket. He went to the door and opened it to let some fresh air in. "Do you think I've never had to clean gum off a shopping cart before?"
"With a spider stuck in it? I don't know. Have you?"
"Well, no," Fred had to admit. "Not with a spider in it."
"Okay. I would've been surprised if you had. There's no shame in that. I'd even venture to say that most people haven't had this experience." Marvin thought for a second. "And while we're on the subject, just so you know, I don't usually find myself in this sort of situation either."
"I should certainly hope not. You wouldn't last too long."
"Actually, for a spider I'm surprisingly resilient. So what else removes gum?"
Fred scowled. "You might have thought to ask that question before you decided to chew some."
"Yes. I admit I was a bit hasty. But it was an experience I had been building up to for a long time."
"Getting stuck in gum? You wanted to do that?"
"No, of course not. I just wanted to taste a purple gumball."
"You could have picked a smaller gumball."
"Hindsight is always twenty-twenty." Fred looked at him, confused. "It means that it's easy to comment on what should have been done after something's already been done."
"That's true."
"But the fact is, I've never been one for regret. Everything I've ever learned that had any real value was the result of my getting into trouble first."
"Sure." Fred looked around.
"You seem distracted. I'm boring you," said Marvin.
"No. I'm just looking for a way to clean you off while we talk. So, from what you're telling me, it's better to make mistakes than to plan ahead."
"Not at all. But planning ahead doesn't stop you from making mistakes, nor does it stop stuff from happening to you that you weren't expecting. No matter how hard you plan, things happen without your consent. But those things, even when they annoy you, can bring you the most satisfaction in the long run."
"You still sound like you wanted this to happen." Fred's brow furrowed as he tried to understand.
"I assure you I didn't. This is just an unexpected consequence of a desired experience. But now that I'm here, I may as well get the most out of it." Marvin flashed him a periwinkle smile.
"But you really didn't think through the gumball thing at all before you did it, did you?"
"What can I say? Curiosity got the best of me."
"Curiosity killed the cat," Fred said, happy to be able to contribute his own hackneyed phrase.
"The last time I encountered a curious cat, it nearly killed me."
Fred laughed. "Must be a different world from your perspective."
"Different perspective. Same world. So, any other ideas on how we can get this gum off?" Marvin was enjoying the conversation, but he was anxious to return to the subject at hand.
"Just one." He looked over at the refrigerator freezer by the soft drink vending machine. "How well do you handle the cold?" And before Marvin could answer, Fred picked up the metal square, with Marvin still stuck to it, opened the freezer door, and threw Marvin in along with his makeshift pedestal. Fred closed the door behind them, muffling Marvin's shouts of protest. "Don't worry. It should only take a few minutes."
Marvin felt the pressure change almost as soon as the door closed and the interior temperature returned to something below freezing. It was pitch black. The minutes passed, but Marvin's eyesight refused to adjust to the light. There was no light to adjust to.
Something was different, though. With each passing moment Marvin was finding it harder to move. The cold was affecting him, of course, but it seemed to be having a bigger effect on the gum. Before long, he was frozen solid, and his sticky coating had become a hard, light-purple crust. He would have shivered, if he could have moved at all. But movement was no longer an option.
And then he was nearly blinded as the freezer door opened again.
"You okay in there?" Fred's silhouette said. Marvin couldn't see him clearly for all the light rushing in.
"Mnh mm muhn neh," Marvin grunted to the best of his ability.
"Good. It won't be long now." And the freezer door slammed closed again. Marvin felt the pressure in his head change again as the freezer vacuum-sealed against the temperature differential.
He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but the next thing he knew, the door was opened again and he and his metal plate were moving. Then he stopped in the air. Judging from his center of gravity, it felt almost as if he were crawling on a wall. As his eyes adjusted, he could detect Fred holding the metal square in his hand like a tray, or a shot put. His vision cleared more and he saw a dusting of frost that had accumulated on his purple shell.
"Hold still. Don't move," Fred said, somewhat unnecessarily. Marvin looked at him, trying to move his eyebrows and at least communicate his distress to Fred.
And then Fred launched Marvin at the wall with all his strength.
Marvin hit the wall with a deafing clang and crunch. Then he fell to the floor in a rain of purplish flecks. The square of sheet metal fell nearby.
He stood up, dazed, and brushed off a few large chunks of gum. He had a few bald spots, but otherwise he appeared to be fine. He picked at the remaining flecks of purple while they were still frozen.
"You knew that was going to work?" he asked Fred, who had bent to scoop him up and set him on the work bench.
"Of course," Fred lied. "Let me find you something to wrap up in. You're probably cold."
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