Red Dwarf

“Hold me back!”

Rimmer waggled his fists at the giant woman in front of him. She crossed her arms across her chest.

“I mean it! Nobody insults me like that and gets away with it. Call me tinchy little smeghead, will you? Impugn the size of my manhood? Suggest that my taste in music is infantile? Diagnose me, with absolutely zero rationale, as a self-centered malignant narcissist? Accuse me of having no more than a ten-year-old’s reading level? Of being a virgin?”

He glanced back nervously at Lister. "Uh... hold me back?"

Lister shook his head with a gleeful smile.

“I don’t understand!” Rimmer groused, pacing their small quarters.

“Of course ya don’t,” Lister replied with a resigned sigh.

“You don’t even know what I’m talking about!” Rimmer protested.

“Doesn’t matter. Ye don’t understand things generally. What is it this time?”

“Look at me!” Rimmer spread his arms. “Pink Mohawk. Faux piercings. Ripped leather clothing. This is peak punk! But they laughed and turned me away at the door.”

“Yeah.” Lister turned onto his stomach, gazing at his roommate. “Punk isn’t a look, Rimmer. It’s an attitude.”

Somehow, as a boxer-clad Lister cuddled his contraband cat, he was peak punk.

“Awww yeah!” Cat preened, looking at himself in the wall mirror, then admiring himself in his hand mirror. He spun to look at the back of his head via the reflection of the wall mirror. “I’m so gorgeous I don’t know how you people restrain yourselves from having sex with me.” He grinned, showing his sharp canines. “But I’m glad you do!”

“We somehow manage,” Kochanski replied, blandly, turning another page in the Technical Manager handbook.

She couldn’t believe Rimmer had given the fellow a haircut, and actually done a decent job of it. Cat would be insufferable for days.

I just flew in from Io, and, miladdos, my thrusters are sore!

Silence

Well. Erm. How about these Third Level Technicians? Isn’t it strange that all the pretty women want to be with those louts? Is there something about space that affects eyesight?

A cough, very loud in the silence

Tough crowd tonight…

A bray of a laugh. “Oi! Isn’t that the bloke what asked for his gazpacho to be heat up? Classless lout I might be, but I know fresh veg soup is supposed to be cool and refreshing!”

The audience joins in the laughter. Rimmer shuffles off, red-faced.