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It all started because I couldn't sleep.
No, not insomnia. If only it had been. No, I couldn't sleep because of Bender.
Six months ago he'd discovered robot self help groups.
Benders Who Can No Longer Bend.
Factory Recalled Anonymous.
Obsolete But Still Functioning.
Ascending Diode Malfunction.
Free and Clear (a nanocite infestation group-they had to wear Haz-Mat suits with special nozzles).
Name a robot disorder and there was a group.
Oh, Bender claimed he needed these groups, that his basic programming required the company and support of his peers, but I knew the real reason.
Free beer. Not even good beer. Sometimes it was even 3.2, but that didn't matter to Bender. The key word was free. The second key word was beer.
And when the Robot Meeting Hall closed each evening, Bender invited the groups back to our place.
Imagine, if you will, the continual rattle of gears, raucous robot laughter and the gurgle of a thousand beers glugging down a dozen mechanical throats.
This was my life.
Every night all night.
At first it wasn't so bad. Then I got hit in the head with a full can when Bender started a beer fight.
I tried sleeping in the offices of Planet Express, but Professor Farnsworth was just as bad. It seems there were self help groups for the quote unquote one hundred and fifty plus crowd too.
Even the ship wasn't a refuge, as Dr. Zoidberg had claimed squatter's rights since his eviction from his apartment. Something about the fish smell, I guess. When I said I could live with it, he just snapped his claws at me.
I am Fry's nearly amputated nose.
I tried staying at Leela's but Nibbler almost ate me, starting with my shoes. She just yelled at me then cooed at him when he coughed up my shoelaces.
So I wandered the streets.
That was how I met him.
He sat next to me on a shuttle. I noticed he wasn't wearing shoes either.
"Did you know," he said out of nowhere, "that if you mixed equal parts of cough syrup and Slurm, you have a very effective and tasty rocket fuel?"
I said, "Cool."
"Did you also know," he went on, "that if you add an olive, it makes a perfect martini?"
I was in awe.
And that's how I came to know Fryler Durden.
We rode the shuttle all night, until the robot driver kicked us out.
"I want you do something for me," Fryler said when I turned to go home.
"What?"
"Sing at me."
"What?"
"Sing something for me. Come on, don't you know how to sing?"
"Commercial jingles mostly," I said. "And almost all of the ones I know are from the twentieth century.
"Hey, those are my favorites. Come on, sing something for me. You wanna die without ever straining your throat?"
So I sang. The bah bah bah bah Pepsi jingle. I musically wished I were an Oscar Meyer Wiener.
Then Fryler sang. He started with the Dr. Pepper song, then segued into a medley of cat food jingles. He even did the little cha cha cha dance.
I am Fry's enraptured sense of nostalgia.
I asked Fryler to move in with us. Bender didn't care. In fact, I don't think Bender even noticed. At first.
Every night we wandered the streets and sang. Pretty soon people noticed and wanted to sing with us. We had tapped into man's overwhelming need for mindless jingles.
This was the start of Glee Club.
Fryler gave the rules at every meeting. "The first rule about Glee Club is that you do not talk about Glee Club. The second rule about Glee Club is that you do not talk about Glee Club. Third rule: if someone stumbles or forgets the lyrics, you have to raise your hand before you can jump in. And the fourth rule about Glee Club is that if this is your first night, you have to sing."
Buttoned down managers who wouldn't go online grocery shopping without a tie, stripped down and did a bump and grind to the Maxwell House song. Tone deaf sewage workers belted out that this was not your father's Oldsmobile. The crowd howled and whistled, they stamped their feet and cheered.
No matter who they were, every one got a standing ovation. For thirty seconds while they were on stage, they were singing gods.
"We are," Fryler said as Hermes limboed while singing the 7-Up song, "the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world."
I felt that crap was pretty strong. Some of us were actually pretty good. But good didn't matter in Glee Club.
I went to work and they all looked at me funny. Yes, I have a strained throat. Yes, it's from singing. No, I don't want throat lozenge. Okay, I did want a throat lozenge, but I was still smarting from the way Zoidberg made a better dueling tuba than me.
For a while, life was perfect. I had Glee Club, I had Fryler and eventually Bender grew bored with the robot support groups. This was shortly after Fryler rigged up a working still in our bathroom.
Then one night I heard them.
The squirt of an oil can. Fryler moaning and Bender shouting. Hard, rhythmic thumps.
Oh, I knew what they were doing.
Making pneumatic bookshelves. Without me.
I am Fry's smug satisfaction at not having to help.
This went on for hours. Those must be some bookshelves.
The next day, I looked in Bender's room. There were no bookshelves. Just Bender in sleep mode and covered in oil. No Fryler either. It occurred to me that I'd never actually seen Fryler and Bender in the same room at the same time. Then it occurred to me that we were out of Slurm.
So I went to Planet Express and grabbed one from my secret stash.
Zoidberg came in, waved at me and said, "Hello, Fryler," which was odd because my name is Fry.
But then Leela also called me Fryler, as did Professor Farnsworth and Hermes. Something was going on.
When Amy called me Fryler as well, I knew something was going on.
They were all insane.
"No, no," Zoidberg said when I told them. "You just have a split personality."
"I do not."
"Yes, Fry. You do," Leela said patiently. "You don't have to try to hide it. We all knew."
"You knew? How did you know? When did you know?"
"It was right about the time you started walking around and calling yourself Fryler, I think," Professor Farnsworth said reflectively.
"The singing was a definite give away," Hermes agreed. "As well as the ugly red sport coat."
"That and having sex with Bender," Leela added.
Amy chimed in, "I think that's so cute."
I am Fry's complete lack of comprehension.
"I have a red sport coat? And it's ugly?"
"Pretty ugly, Fry," Leela said.
After seeing actual pictures of me in the coat, I let Zoidberg examine me.
"I know what the problem is," he announced after taking x-rays, checking my teeth and giving me a rectal probe.
"What?"
"Blunt force trauma to the head. I think…yes. This should do it." He hit me with a can of Slurm.
I am Fry's fractured skull.
In a daze, I went home and looked for Bender. He was in the bathroom, happily filling a martini glass from the still.
"Bender?"
"What?"
"Are we, I mean, have we? Done it?"
"Done what?"
"It. You know." I made a vaguely rude gesture, one punishable by death on Omnicron VI. "Are we doing it?"
He tossed back his drink, then spit out the olive. "You mean having sex?"
"Yes. Sex."
"Are we ever! Just like Caligutron and the oiled slave boy in Planet of the Robot Roman Orgies."
I sat down, stunned. "Wow."
"I'll say. I didn't know humans were that bendable."
I am Fry's collapsible spine.
"You're telling me that humans and robots can have sex?"
Bender leered. "Only if the robot in question has the right attachments." He showed them to me, then demonstrated the use of the Dildron Mark IV, complete with auto-lube function and optional vibrate mode.
I am Fry's prostate gland.
After I regained consciousness, we each grabbed a beer and watched tv. There was a news report about Glee Club and how members were being rounded up for copyright violation.
It was a dumb idea anyway.