When Hell Freezes Over - Chapter 9

“What do you want woman? Why are you staring at me like that? Surely you should be sick of looking at your own face the amount of time you spend in front of the mirror, I know I’m sick of it…”

“Don’t play dumb with me Vegeta, you know what I want and that pathetic attempt to distract me by insulting me won’t work!”

‘Damn’ thought Vegeta

“Woman it is not my job to save your father’s business dealings from failure”

“Oh I’m sorry Vegeta, I forgot you’ll be too busy tomorrow with your real job… sitting around bored out of your mind insulting people and making my life harder!!”

“Whether or not I have better things to do is not the issue here woman! The fact is that I don’t want to spend one more minute having to pretend to be you! I’d rather just keep a low profile until this Freudian nightmare is over!”

“Well, fair enough…” Bulma decided to change her approach, if reasoning won’t work manipulation and blackmail would have to do “I mean I suppose that’s understandable, after what happened between you and Yamcha this afternoon”

“Yes woman that is exactly my point…” Vegeta began and then froze, realizing he’d been tricked

“And what exactly did happen that I didn’t see Vegeta??”

“Nothing!!”

“Well, I suppose I’ll just have to ask Yamcha about it when I get my body back and call him to reject his proposal…”
”Fine!!!” Vegeta screeched, “I’ll do this stupid presentation thing! But after this you WILL NOT mention this afternoon EVER AGAIN! Have I made myself clear?”

“Crystal” Bulma replied triumphantly and wandered of to go tell her dad that she had saved the day yet again.

‘Wait a minute’ thought Vegeta ‘did she just say she was going to reject that weakling? Why? She’s been complaining about them not being married yet every day since I got here. Humph, I can’t be bothered to work this one out, crazy fickle woman’

In Dr briefs’ lab the next morning …

“ So you see this shouldn’t be any trouble at all. I’ve prepared the presentation you just have to read it out,” Bulma said as if she were talking to a small child

“Humph” said Vegeta

“The difficult part comes when they start asking questions”

“Just get on with it woman, and stop patronizing me, I am capable of speaking formally to a room full of people! I’m royalty for kami’s sake, it is in my blood to command armies and address nations…”

“Yeah yeah whatever Vegeta I get the point. Any way on with the questions I think they’ll ask…”

Vegeta fumed but listened any way, he didn’t want to make a fool of himself and he’d do just about anything to avoid Bulma finding out about… *the incident*

“First” Bulma continued “they’ll probably ask when we’ll have the product ready”
”what exactly is the product?”

“It doesn’t matter, the guys you’ll be talking to are just on the business side they don’t even care what the product is so you’ll only hear it referred to as ‘the product’ or ‘your services’.”

“I wanted to know out of curiosity woman, if, by pure chance, they ask me something about it I don’t want to blow the whole thing do I? Or would you like the world to hear Bulma briefs announce that she is a man trapped in a woman’s body?”

“Ok ok, the product we’re developing a new high tech…um… cuflup…” she pretended to cough over the last part, Vegeta realized she was hiding something

“I beg your pardon?”
”Ok ok it’s a cat flap all right! We’re selling high tech doors for domestic animals!!”

Vegeta laughed cruelly

“So this is what you and your father do all day with your great big IQs!!”

“Yeah yeah say what you like Vegeta, everyone loves buying little gadgets for their pets, they thinks it’s cute! And my dad loves animals, he’s never without his cat…”

Vegeta was still laughing

“And besides” Bulma continued “it earns us a lot of MONEY”

Vegeta, reminded of his embarrassment at not knowing the meaning of this word just this morning, fell silent

“Finally!” Bulma sighed, “now can we please get on with this?” she didn’t wait for an answer

“So as I was saying, the first thing I think they’ll ask is when they’ll be ready”

“The cat flaps?” Vegeta couldn’t resist

“Yes Vegeta the cat flaps.” Bulma was really beginning to hate seeing him pull her face into that smirk. “Anyway, if they ask that tell them two weeks”

“Will they be ready then?” Bulma was starting to get really annoyed. Vegeta didn’t really care if the cat flaps were ready, as far as he was concerned the damn cats could give themselves a concussion trying to break their owner’s door down ‘but if she’s going to patronize me, I might as well act like a child’ he thought

“Vegeta, they’ve been ready for weeks, we just stall to make them think that we put a lot of thought and development into this project”

“I see” Vegeta was starting to like big business, manipulating people was always fun

“The next thing they’ll probably ask is whether they can see a sample, tell them they can schedule a demonstration next week.”

Vegeta nodded

“If I know these people they’ll probably then question the quality of our goods to try to force a sample out of you, if they do that, you have my permission to throw a hissy fit and remind them that they’re dealing with capsule corp., not some two bit outfit, and that we own half the world and that includes their houses”

“So I threaten them?”

“Always works for me”

“This sounds like fun”

“Yes, but it’s serious, remember that, if you screw this up my dad’ll have to work much harder on this project, therefore postponing our little solution.”

“Enough said woman, I won’t be taking any chances”
”ok. Finally the only other thing they’ll probably have to say is something about negotiating their contract, simply tell them that the only person who has authority in that area is my father and that they’ll have to fax him their query”

“That all?”

“Not quite, I still have to tell you a few things about the people we’re dealing with…” Bulma then realized the time, it was 9:30 and the meeting was at 10.

“Ok we’ll have to make this quick, I still have to pick what you’re going to wear! Ok so, the most important thing I suppose is that when you’ve finished, a big fat guy, that’s their boss, will offer you a cigar, you must take it, even if you don’t smoke it you still have to take it ok? Oh and this one guy, he’s kinda short and has a lisp, don’t even try to understand him, it’s futile. Finally I have to warn you about hasslehoff…”

“Who? If you want me to learn to pronounce that name, forget it!”
”No, that’s not his real name, he just looks like a guy on the TV with that name, and I don’t know his real name. He’s a slime ball he’s always got his top buttons undone even though he has this disgusting thick mesh of graying hair on his chest and a beer gut”

“I’ve been to planets were that’s considered attractive…”
”That is a blatant lie”

“Of course”

“Anyway, he always… oh kami no time for that now! You have to get ready its 9:45!”

‘Humph, whatever she had to say couldn’t have been that important, and I’m not easily shocked’ thought Vegeta

But he was wrong…