Have You Seen This Snail?

"You're right, Mr. Krabs. If I'm going to find Gary, I'm going to need to work harder at it."

- SpongeBob

"Have You Seen This Snail?" is the third episode of season 4. In this episode, Gary runs away from home after SpongeBob ignores him in favor of accomplishing the Dirty Bubble Challenge.

Characters

 * Patrick Star
 * SpongeBob SquarePants
 * Gary the Snail
 * Squidward Tentacles
 * Alley snails
 * Granny
 * Eugene H. Krabs

Plot
SpongeBob is bringing snail food to his house. When he reaches home, he gets a package containing the Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy paddle ball set. Also in it is the Dirty Bubble challenge, requiring him to do 29,998,559,671,349 hits with the paddle ball.

He gets so carried away with the game that he forgets to feed Gary and gets angry with him for distracting him from his game when he wants food. This makes Gary leave SpongeBob and go out of town.

Later, Patrick comes to see SpongeBob, but it turns out he is still trying to complete the Dirty Bubble challenge. SpongeBob realizes that he hasn't fed Gary yet, but he eventually realizes that Gary is gone as he had been doing the challenge for a week. The two try to find him, and after awhile they find a note from Gary stating that he ran away.

Meanwhile, Gary is going through a town faraway from Bikini Bottom, and gets picked up by an old lady who thought he was another snail. At the same time, SpongeBob tries to look for his snail all over town, but can't find him.

At the Krusty Krab, SpongeBob is sad that he can't find Gary until Mr. Krabs unintentionally motivates him to work harder to get Gary back. He starts putting up papers and messages all over town in an attempt to do this.

Gary slowly gets overfed by the old woman, and at some point he sees the papers from SpongeBob telling him to come back. After realizing that the old woman has caused a lot of snails to die, he runs away from her and finds SpongeBob desperately wanting him back. They finally reunite and go home together.

Trivia

 * Moral: Don't take advantage of your pets.