Zapp's Package
Major General Webelo Zapp Brannigan of the D.O.O.P. sat mightily upon his captain's chair of the good ship Nimbus as it thrust its way through the smooth, silky thighs of space.
He was lost in a particularly erotic daydream—involving none other than Captain Turanga Leela of Planet Express—when he found himself disturbed by a repeatedly aggravating sound, and opened his eyes to realize that the boy was talking to him.
"Sorry to disturb you, sir," Lieutenant Kif Kroker said dryly. "But we've received a signal from an oncoming ship. They wish to board us, sir, to deliver a package."
"Fire when ready!" Brannigan yelled in his most suave and commanding voice. It seemed the captain-iest thing to do.
Kif sighed. "I thought you might say that, sir, so I took it upon myself to give them the docking protocol. Oh—and here they are."
A crew of three had stepped into the room. One was anatomically deficient—a robot—another had the goods, but rather they were "the bads"—some redheaded whelp—and Zapp thus ignored them—but the third was not only curved in all the right places, but were curves that Brannigan knew from very close and personal experience. It could only be—
"Leela!" he cried. "Couldn't keep away from me, I see. Funny you should show up now, I was just having a dream about you. Care to come into my quarters and recreate it?"
The beautiful goddess that stood before him narrowed her one gigantic eye. "I'd rather recreate my fantasy of you, Zapp."
"Oh ho, do go on," Brannigan waltzed over to her, intrigued, where she proceeded to kick him across the head.
"Oh, baby," he said groggily as he picked himself up off the floor. "You do know how to push my buttons."
Leela sighed. "We don't have time to deal with you. We're just here to deliver this package."
"And what package is that?" Brannigan asked, for he had ordered so many in the last month it was hard to keep track of them all. "The life-size Amazonian dolls? The super-stretch girdles? Or perhaps the shipment of human horn that never showed up last year? Never trust those Omicronian-based websites, Kif."
"I'll keep that in mind, sir."
"I'm afraid it's nothing so perverse this time, Zapp," Leela said, and the robot lowered a large crate behind her. "Just 100 pairs of custom-made underpants."
"Ah, the underpants!" Brannigan said, hitting his fist against his palm. "Of course! Kif, inform the men and distribute our new regulation garments."
Kif took a crowbar, opened the crate, and examined the contents inside. "Oh dear lord, no."
"Incredible, aren't they?" Brannigan said, taking out a pair and rubbing it fondly. "One hundred percent velour. Of course the expense was high, but I just took it out of our defense budget." He laughed. "It's not like we ever use it anyway. Defense is for the sick alien bastards we blast apart and the planets I've never heard of that they come from."
"Charming, Zapp," Leela said. "Just sign here."
She held out a form, and after he signed it, he grabbed her hand.
"Leela, my sweet, if you ever want to, er, inspect the working order of the troops' new underwear, my door is always open."
"I'm sure."
And with that, the Planet Express crew departed, and Brannigan was once again left alone—he never counted the boy, after all—to ponder the mysteries of the universe.
"Um, sir?" Kif ventured to ask. "Why did you order 100 pairs of underpants? There are 101 crew members aboard."
"That's simple enough, Kif," Brannigan said, and he uncrossed his legs in his chair as though to emphasize the point, leading his lieutenant to utter a more disturbed sigh than usual. "I never wear them!"