"I always present choices." "Where you can take the high-road or the low-road." "This is Pete Gilroy." "He runs others researches in develpment department." "Petes a low-road guy." "Is this anyone's hoagie?" "Anyone?" "No." "I asked." "I, on the other hand, try to stay on the high road." "Two?" "But only paid for one." "that's it." "Oh, almost..." "There." "Ted on his back, straining with effort?" "there's a mental picture I can call back later." "That's gonna hurt for a while." "Hey, Ted." "Strengthening your hand for that big date with yourself?" "Nope, just practicing for later when I squeeze your mom's boobs." "I'm not proud of that." "I actually had a lovely conversation with Pete's mom at the Christmas party." "The mat and the vest are both magnetized." "When a child puts on the vest and steps on the mat, the magnets repel each other, mang the child almost weightless, like an astronaut bouncing on the moon." "Now every child can have hours of repulsive fun." "Pete gilroy's team is working on a similar system, and the company's only gonna go forward with one." "So we need to make damn sure that it is "the floater."" "Yeah, that's not such a good name." "What about "the astro-nut"?" "You know, because it's crazy." "Has waving your hands ever sold me on anything?" "Remember "corpse-eating battlefield robot"?" "No." "What we have here is..." ""The dream glider."" " That's fantastic." " That's fantastic." "This technology also has a exciting military potencial." "Imagine soldiers hovering above a magnetized battlefield." "The Chinese won't know what hit 'em." "Oh, come on." "We all know that war is coming." "Can't we develop one product that doesn't end up being used to kill people?" "Even our fat-free cinnamon roll led to that new sticky bomb." "You're so moral and perfect all the time." "Do singing birds and mice dress you and brush your hair in the morning?" "no." "Although my dad does call me "princess,"" "and there is a grumpy dwarf in my building." "Ted, we need your help." "We were working really hard in the lab..." " And we had this pinata." " Pinata?" "That doesn't sound like really hard work." "It was stuffed with science." "And..." "Pinata!" "And now the thermostat's broken, and we were wondering if you would tell the company so they'll fix it." "We're worried if we report it, the coany will retaliate, like when I broke the flywheel and they canceled my gym membership." "I mean, you remember how ripped I was gettin'." "Guys, you broke the thermostat." "Just take the high road and report it." "And, Phil, they canceled your gym membership because no matter what class you were in, you did jazzercise." "But I don't want to take the high road." "It's high." "I agree." "We could fall off." "I can't stand that Veronica makes fun of me in meetings." "If the boss doesn't respect me, other people won't, including the little Linda in my head." "And even on a good day, that bitch never shuts up." "Veronica just has trouble relating to you." "She thinks you always want to do the right thing." "I don't alway do the right thing." " Hey." " Hey, daddy." "Hi, Linda." "Hey, sweetie." "Want to go smoke a cigarette in the bathroom?" "See?" "I can be bad." "Don't ever smoke, Rose." "Every time you smoke a cigarette," "Santa claus kills an elf." "What, helping or hurting?" "Because I can throw jesus into the mix." "I think we're good." "Honey, you ready to go down to the hive?" "The hive?" "I thought you didn't like veridian's after-school care because they use the kids for free janitorial work" " around the building." " Yeah." "Well, the hive has changed." "A lot of the executives' kids go there now." "So they teach music and Chinese, the weaknesses of the Chinese..." "Chet just call." "Oh, hi, Rose." "You look fabulous." "Have you lost weight?" "I have been playing a lot of dodgeball." "Well, it's working for you." "I'm trying to teach Rose that it's not all about looks." " She's also very smart." " Smart enough to stay skinny." "Anyway, Chet wants us to come up and pitch him the dream glider." "Dream glider?" "I know." "It's fantastic." "Of course, lady pope over here thinks it's immoral." "I'm no lady pope." "I once slept with my cousin's husband." "They were breaking up, and I was really drunk." "Oh, and don't ever do that either, or the tooth fairy will put other people's teeth in your mouth." "I'll meet you in Chet's office after I drop off Rose." "Come on, sweetie." "Let's go try to forget all the stuff that Linda said." "Allowing a child of 80 pounds or less to hover, roll, spin or flip without ever leaving their home planet." "We'll see what testing says, but I'm flipping for this." "that's funny, because you just used one of the words Ted just said." "No, that's great, guys." "It's a really good job." "I do have one question." "Um, are little boys gonna want to look like they have a set of boobies?" "hey, Chet, my eyes are up here." "wait, let's see if I can get the... the tassels going in... in difrent directions." "There we go." "no, anyway, I think it's a home run." "Pete, why don't you show Chet what our team has come up with?" "It may not sexualize children, but we think that every kid's gonna want to wear one of these." "Lower center of gravity." "Allows the kid to be even safer and jump even higher." "Sure, they're doing whatever they can to get out of that diaper." "Zing!" "Bang." "Pete and i have a long history of trying to undermine each other." "Solar paint." "It absorbs the sun's energy, cutting heating costs... fantastic." "I just..." "I have one question." "Uh, can you make the color look even more like barf?" "maybe add some bits of chewed-up hot dog to complete the effect." "zing, bang!" "it's a purification straw." "Any water you drink through it, no matter how polluted," " becomes safe for consumption." " That's a great idea." ""No dessert, kids, until you finish drinking your sewage."" "Bang, bang!" "Occasionally, Veronica tried to get her licks in, too." "Unfortunately, she took big swings but rarely connected." "Hey, Pete, with your diaper, kids won't have to stop playing to go to the bathroom." "Hey, Pete, do those come in disposable, or do you have to wash 'em out each time?" " Veronica..." " Wait." "I can do this." "Hey, Pete, is it true that in space, no one can hear you poop?" "Oh, come on." "That was hilarious." "I hate Pete." "We need to crush that wanker, teach him not to mess with us anymore." "I'm sick of this war." "It just hurts both our teams." "We need to change tactics, figure out a way to get along with Pete... you know, take the high road." "I don't take the high road, Ted." "The high road leads to pansy town." "Or maybe it ads to a more effective way of handling an adversary... ville." "You take your road." "I'll take mine." "look at that thing." "Somewhere, a naked sumo wrestler is looking for his pants." "Damn it!" "That's fantastic." "Hey, Pete!" "Veridian Dynamics doing the right thing... it's important." "What does it mean in business?" "We have no idea." "We know what wrong is." "Actually, no, we don't, because we're a successful company, not some boring ethics professor..." "Veridian Dynamics" "Right and Wrong." "It means something." "We just don't know what." "For guys who spend as much time thinking about boobs as we do, you'd think we would have caught this one." "hey, fellas." "Man, it is hot in here." "Yes, it's very unpleasant." "So you've decided not to report the thermostat, huh?" "You guys have more brains than a zombie Thanksgiving, and your genius plan is to do nothing?" "We're not doing nothing." "Doing nothing is passive." "We're waiting, from the action verb "to wait..."" "For someone who finds this heat so intolerable, they have to report it." "Can I get you some hot tea or Mexican chiles?" "For God sake, Ted, help us!" "Hey, I'm sorry, fell, but you made this bed." "Now you gotta sweat in it." "So I need you to look at Pete's version of the dream glider." "See if you can redesign it so it doesn't look like a bathroom strapped to your ass." "Why would we want to help Pete?" "Or you?" "Making us suffer like this." "It's a goodwill gesture." "I'm, uh, trying to make peace with Pete, you know, warm things up between us, get things cooking." "Light a fire under our friendship." "Sweaty, sweaty, sweaty, sweaty." "Oh, I get it." "Because zombies would eat brains for Thanksgiving." "Oh!" "That's outrageous." "you make no sound when you walk." "Then I am ready to leave the monastery and avenge my parents." "I'm kidding." "I just buy expensive shoes made from very soft animals." "So I know you're too much of a she-Gandhi to ever do anything wrong, but I need a person who will and thought maybe you could suggest someone" " who's not as..." " Me!" "Yes, exactly." "Not as you." "No, I mean, I suggest me." "I'm not some scout girl." "Well, you are eager and desperate for my approval." "And that's two of the three qualities" "I look for in a partner." "I need someone who knows about testing and is willing to cheat to make sure Pete's magnet pants test badly." "Then you need me." "As testing coordinator for our department," "I totally know how to manipulate it." "I mean, the testing process is so flawed anyway." "Really, the whole thing is a bunch of garbage." "I gotta go." "Okay, bye, daddy." "Bye, honey." "I'll be upstairs if you need me." "Okay." "Hey, Pete." "What are you doing here?" "Well, I come every afternoon for the juice boxes and story time." "I have a daughter." "What do you think I'm doing here?" "oh, so I see your daughter's into those pioneer girl dolls that come with the books." "Yeah." "Your daughter collect those?" "Only, like, all of 'em." "We just got Ida mae." "Oh!" "Ida mae kills me." "I know." "The girl has rickets, and she still wants to teach her blind brother to square-dance?" "I'm gonna die if she doesn't survive the typhus epidemic." "Well, she's a fighter." "So, Pete, actually, I was on my way to see you." "I had my guys make some adjustments on your magnet pants so they look less like something you'd drop a deuce in." "Yes, I get it." "They're diapery." "Wait, what's your game, crisp?" "It's just, we've been attacking each other's projects for years." "I think it's time we stop, you know?" "Let our ideas live or die on their own merits." "Yeah, right." "You're trying to glom on to my project because you heard it's testing first." "Wait." "You're testing first?" "Oh, ho, ho, ho!" "Ok at the big, saucer eyes." "Like you didn't know." "You're not testing for another week." "That gives me huge momentum." "By the time they test your boob vest, it'll be dead." "It's not a boob vest." "You're a boob vest." "look, that's not what I'm doing, anyway." " I'm reaching out to you, dipwad." " Screw you, Ted." "okay, fine." "I was trying to be a grown-up, except for the dipwad thing." "But I can see you're not interested." "So the gloves are off." "Oh, by the way," "Ida mae survives the typhus epidemic..." "But then gets trampled to death by a Buffalo." "You are a special kind of monster." "So Pete's project is testing today." "I want to burn his diaper and salt the earth beneath it so no new product will ever grow there." "Test groups are easy to manipulate." "People always agree with the strongest voice in the room." "All we have to do is get one charismac person and make sure that person is relentlessly negative, and then we'll be puttin' on a pair of brand-new happy hats." "what is it like in there?" "Actually, today is a pretty good day." "So Pete's product is gonna be tested by children." "Then we have to find a charismatic child." "We'd like to check out Rose, please." "Okay." "It's ready to go." "Now all we have to do is get Patricia to touch it, and it becomes her problem." "I called her." "She's on her way." "Have you ever noticed how much of men's lives are spent trying to trick women into touching something?" "Ooh." "Hey, guys." "Uh, you wanted to see me?" "Well, if you think it's so damn hot in here, why don't you turn down the thermostat?" "I mean, hi, Patricia." "You know, it is awfully hot in here." "We like it hot." "Keeps out the... penguins." "Yes." "There's a bunch of 'em back there that have been trying to get in." "There's no air in this room." "It's making you guys weird." "What did you do, break the thermostat?" "Yes." "I barely touched it." "Really, Patricia?" "Is that how you're gonna play it?" "But I didn't even... we're past that now." "Now we're on to how you're gonna fix it." "I can't tell the company." "They'll put something in my food to make me infertile." "They don't do things like that or cancel gym memberships." "Ooh." "I guess I'll just have to pay to get it fixed myself." "Really?" "You're going to fix it with your own money?" "Well, maybe you'll learn a valuable lesson and be more careful next time." "Yeah." "And so I joined Lem and Phil on the low road." "And since testing first is a huge advantage," "I need to make sure that my project goes before Pete's." "William." "Look what I found." "It is a signed first edition." "Harry e." "Wilson's "ethics in testing"?" "And it's yours if you do me one favor." "There's nothing I wouldn't do to get my hands on that book." "So you're going to be in a room filled with weak, malleable children, and a man is going to bring in a toy." "When he does, you're gonna say very bad things about it." " Why?" " Because we're telling you to, and you should always do what adults tell you to do, especially when they give you candy." "It's just a fun game we're playing... like dress-up, only instead of clothes, we're dressing up the things that are coming out of your mouth." "I want you to start by calling the toy a creative misfire, an ill-conceived design paradigm that's irrelevant to your demographic." " Is she talking to me?" " she's trying to, sweetie." "Come on." "She's a kid." "She has to say things that a kid would say, like, "that's not phat." "It's whack."" "Do the kids still talk like that?" "It was very hip when I was 8." "Yeah, let's put a pin in the lingo, flavor flav." "So if anyone says something positive, you dismiss it with a derisive laugh." "A what?" "No, no." "It's more like..." " like that." " No, it's not." "It's more like a... no, it's a... it's an actual laugh." "It... it's more of a gesture." "What?" "No. it's a scoff." "It's a, "huh."" "she's so sweet." "Our little killing machine." "She's gonna destroy Pete's moon diaper." "You're phat, Linda." "Why would you say that to me?" "I mean "phat" with a p-h." "I'm reaching out to you with your own lingo." "I couldn't have done this without you." "Well, ain't no thang." "Hi, kids." "My name's William, and I'm here to show you an exciting new veridian product." "she nailed the laugh." "She's very useful." "Oh, God." "That's our dream glider!" "Mother... holy... good news." "I switched the testing." "Hey, what's Rose doing in there?" "So any first impressions?" "Yes." "I'd never play with that." "I think it's stupid." "It looks dangerous, like it could kill a Jonas Brother." "No, no!" "Honey!" "Rose, honey, no, no!" "So any other thoughts?" "oh!" "I got an estimate." "Fixing the particle-based environmental control thermostat" " costs $2,000." " Wow." "That sounds like a lot." "But you did really break it." "I can't afford that, so I called my ex-boyfriend Rolf." "He works in air conditioning." "He'll fix it for free if I have sex with him." "Well... sex is good, right?" "not the way Rolf does it." "All right, Patricia, we're sorry." "Why?" "You guys didn't do anything." "We broke the thermostat and made you think it was you." "So in that sense, we did." "Well, why would you do that?" "I thought we were friends." "We are." "Maybe not good friends." "No." "Good friends would never do this." " We're not even good people." " We're really not." "You jerks get your own thermostat fixed." "Plus, each of you give me $500 or I'll tell the company you broke it." "We're not giving you any money." "No way." "Okay, then... fight each other." " What?" " That's crazy." "That's the deal." "Either you pay me the money, or I want to watch you fight." "And now it's $700 from each of you." "That's insane, okay?" "We're friends." "There's no way Phil and I.." "I can't believe that you involved my daughter in this, and you got her to lie." "She was a star, Ted." "And you're not so pure." "You're the one who switched the testing." "Yeah, what were you thinking?" "And pulling little Rose into it?" "Oh, wait." "That was us." "Switching the testing... how dare you?" "Testing is a sacred covenant between our company and the American consumer." " You defiled that trust." " Zing, bang." "Stop, both of you." "You must stop talking." "I think we're winning." "Look, the project is now dead because we all took the low road." "So I was right should always stay on the high road." "Lesson learned." "The end." "And you two are worse than me." "Actually, I think the lesson here is, when we're on the low road, we really have to coordinate better." "Now hear me out." "Ted, I need you to set up another round of testing." "Linda, you mentioned you have access to a dwarf." "We dress him as a kid... first of all, he's 74 years old." "And at the risk of you not respecting me," "I'm gonna have to say, I'm done." "I mean, I'm starting to feel like a bond villain." "Okay." "Here's what's gonna happen." "First of all, you two are gonna go tell Rose and those other children that what you did was wrong." "Most importantly, I need your word that the dwarf is gonna live out the rest of his life without our involvement." " Veronica?" " I can't promise that, Ted." "You never know when we might need an elderly dwarf." "Hey." "Listen, uh, I just looked over the specs that you gave me with my guys, and there's some really good stuff here, man." " So thanks." " Oh." "Well, you're welcome." "So maybe next time we can, uh, try not to undermine each other so much." "That's what I'm thinking." " Really?" " Yeah." "Maybe we can even be friends." "Yeah." "I..." "I'd like that." "Great." "Oh, I just remembered..." "I found out that you tried to rig the testing with your own daughter." "So we can't be friends, 'cause you're a douche." "Yeah, well, maybe I don't want to be your friend either." "You hear that?" "Even a douche doesn't want to be your friend!" "I'm not proud of that." "And then we went back to his place." "I mean, he was my cousin's husband, and I knew it was wrong, but they were splitting up." "And you know how it is when you're ovulating." "Okay." "I think we've heard enough about not doing bad things." "See?" "We're out of here in five minutes." "Told you that would work."