Plot: Based off actual events. A group of friends prepare for an upcoming Lan tournament while dealing with big changes in their everyday lives. It's a comedy in the vein of Clerks/Office Space/Free Enterprise, ect.
***
Both sides of the student-packed school hall were covered with lockers, with students of varying ages at the lockers, as well as walking through the hallway.
Somehow a very short and young Jeffrey Long, from back in the year 2001, with a bookbag on one shoulder and wearing a bright red sweater, worked his way through the crowd inside of Wainwright High School; most of the people were larger than him by a fair amount.
As he walked by an intersection in the hall, a pudgy kid with messy blond hair, thick wire-rimmed glasses, blue jeans with the bottoms rolled up, and a bookbag that looked like it had been dragged on the ground behind a car for a few kilometers and patched up accordingly, located on his shoulders, rushed up to Jeff from an adjacent hall.
The kid, Mark Abbott, wore a rather large goofy smile and unfortunately Jeff's smile disappeared and was replaced by a look of annoyance once he saw Mark rushing up to him.
"Hey Jeffrey!" Mark greeted joyfully with a very high-pitched, pre-puberty-style voice.
"Hi Mark," Jeff sighed, hoping the geek wouldn't bother him too much.
"Where were you this morning?" Mark asked, his voice grating on Jeff's nerves. "Len mentioned something about hurting you when you get here."
"Why?" Jeff asked, wondering what bug crawled up Len's ass that morning – it seemed to be a different one every day.
"I don't know. He just said it out of the blue while I was telling him
all the details about this neato computer I built this weekend."
"Ahhh," Jeff nodded as realization dawned on him. He could only imagine how painful that must have been for his friend to sit through.
Nearby, Leonard Pothier closed his locker and rushed to join them. As soon as Len caught up, Jeff picked up on the glare he was receiving from the taller teen. Len wore a pair of glasses that were much thinner and more practical then Mark's, a plain gray T-shirt under a green camouflage-style jacket, and light blue jeans with a rip in the knee of one leg. "So where were you earlier?" he asked Jeff through gritted teeth as he approached.
Mark sensed that it may be best to get while the getting was good, and didn't wish to be caught in any crossfire between the two friends. "Well, I...Umm...have to go to class. See you guys later." And with that, Mark turned around and left the two friends to walk alone. Well, as alone as they could be in a crowded hall.
"I slept in and missed the bus, so my dad gave me a ride down on his way to work..." Jeff explained. After a pause, he continued, "So, Mark built a new computer over the weekend?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Len continued to glare at Jeff, anger beginning to fume. "Because you...were not here...he cornered me and told me
ALL about it..."
Jeff shrugged. "Yeah, he mentioned that you made some threat of violence or another towards me. Like
you could ever take
me.
"I've knocked you on your ass before."
Tired of that remainder, Jeff shouted louder then he intended, ""I was standing on
ICE!
Several people that were near gave the two an odd look before returning to their own business. Curtis Coates, a rather large kid, half-ran/half-waddled up to them with his arms out as if he was going to take off flying any second. He was wearing a large puffy black jacket, despite the fact that he was inside and it was the beginning of summer.
Curtis sneered as he reached them. "So Jeff, Allison get your Pizza Pop yet?"
It was Jeff's turn to glare at someone as he growled, "No, so shut up." He was tired of Curtis' daily ritual of bugging him about Allison Luk. "I already told her I didn't have one today."
As soon as the words were out of Jeff's mouth, a locker door closed right behind them and the voice of the occupier of that locker caused the group of stop and Jeff to shudder.
"Jeff...Jeffrey, stop right there! I heard that!"
"Oh ****..." Jeff turned angrily on Curtis, doing everything he could to not punch his so-called friend out. "I'm going to kill you, Curtis."
Curtis grinned widely. "Last I heard, you couldn’t even beat Len." Despite Len's distain for Curtis, he couldn't help but laugh at that.
"**** you both."
"Jeff, hand it over." Jeff finally turned around and saw Allison Luk standing there. Allison was the same height as Jeff, thin, and currently wore a tight red tanktop with her dyed-blonde hair tied back into a ponytail. She held her hand out, which was followed by her and Jeff having a short staring contest.
Jeff ended up giving in with a sigh and swung his backpack off so he could reach in and pull out a pizza pop. Allison snatched it from him before he could change his mind and walked off down the hall with a large smile.
***
Many years later, in the year 2006, Jeff stood in front of a microwave, taking out of a bowl from it that contained what seemed to be a mixture of Lipton Noodles and Kraft Dinner, with a few other unknown misc things thrown in as well.
At 5'5, Jeff was quite short for a 21-year-old. Add to that, he now always dressed like a teen gangster-wannabe, complete with massively baggy pants, a ‘wife beater’ tanktop shirt, a metal silver cross hanging from his neck, an earring, and a couple different kinds of cheap vending machine rings on a couple different fingers, he was often mistaken for being much younger then he actually was.
Not far away, Len stood at his full height of 6'3 in front of the opened fridge, wearing a black T-Shirt with the phrase ‘
Dammit Jim I'm A Sysadmin not a Babysitter’ written on it. '
Dammit Jim' is printed in oh-so-spacey metallic silver, and there is also a cartoon version of the Star Trek: The Original Series Enterprise whooshing around for dramatic effect.
Len looked in at the semi-stocked shelves with a frown; most of what was available would not be considered edible to the majority of the civilized world. Len straightened his glasses and turned to look at Jeff when Jeff started swearing and slammed his spoon down into his bowl of mixed food.
"What is it?" Len asked.
"This damned microwave," Jeff answered, frustrated. "It never works."
"Really?" Len asked with sarcasm dripping from his voice. "It couldn't be that you used water instead of milk in your little mix there?"
"Well maybe..." Jeff trailed off, thinking about it. "But the Microwave still doesn't work properly!" he shot out after, remembering many times the blasted device had screwed him over. "It never works for me. Besides, there was no milk left, so I had to use something in place of it."
With a defeated sigh, Jeff took his bowl across the kitchen of the large apartment, and opened up the garbage bin. He tipped the bowl, about to dump the contents into the garbage, when the third and final roommate, 21-year-old Curtis, entered the kitchen. Curtis was now 5’8, really chubby, and had a potbelly from drinking a bit too many beers. Also, his clothes, which were the exact same clothes he wore in high school, but now filled with holes and rips, were now way too tight for his bulging chubbiness. Overall, not a great sight.
Jeff raised his head slightly in a greeting gesture when Curtis walked in. "Sup, G?"
Len meanwhile, resumed searching the fridge for edible food. "I've just noticed the milk situation. What happened to all our food anyway? We just went shopping a week ago."
Curtis nervously scratched an itch on his head and chuckled. "Um, yeah, sorry about that. Had a few friends over yesterday."
Len looked out of the fridge and shot Curtis an evil glare. They had talked to Curtis many times before about the need he seemed to have about feeding his friends a three-course meal every time they came over to smoke pot.
Jeff began dumping his failed mixture into the garbage when Curtis looked away from Len's death stare and saw what Jeff was doing. He was over next to him in a split second, practically breathing down Jeff’s neck as he looked directly over his shoulder. "Hey, wait a sec, man. What'cha got there?"
Jeff looked back at Curtis, who was eying the bowl of food as if it was the Holy Grail and he was the Pope. "Umm, just a mixture I did up," Jeff answered, not exactly comfortable with Curtis' close proximity to him, nor his smell of stinky sweat. "Didn’t work out as well as I thought it would."
"Well giver’ here man, you know I love your mixtures," Curtis said as he stretched his hands out.
"Yeah, but I don't think you'll like this one," Jeff warned. "Most of them are made on purpose. This one was not..."
"Come on," Curtis pleaded, convinced that Jeff was hiding yet another awesome mixture of pasta food. "Stop holding out on me, man."
Jeff looked to Len and they both shrugged. Jeff took the bowl away from the garbage and let the lid close. He handed the bowl to Curtis who began to eat it instantly, without even changing the spoon.
"Damn man," Curtis said with his mouth full, allowing little bits of food to fall from his mouth. "I knew you were holding out on me. This is great!" Curtis turned and left with the bowl still in his hands. Len and Jeff were left just standing there, dumbfounded and amazed at the same time.
***
Later on that day, Len sat on the couch, watching the movie ‘
Free Enterprise’ when Curtis walked in and sat down beside him.
"What the **** is this, man?" Curtis asked after a few seconds of watching to figure out what movie Len was watching. "Some kind of Trekkie religious experience?"
Len tried to ignore Curtis, annoyed by this interruption during what was quite possibly the best ever William Shatner Film without the words ‘
Star Trek’ in the title. However, Curtis started laughing loudly, making it very hard for Len to ignore him. "Wouldn't you be more into it if you had some weird clay crap on your forehead? What race has that again?"
Len finally turned to glare at Curtis with a look so evil it could vaporize three cubic meters of Tritanium,
which as all good Trekkies know, requires a complete discharge of a Type 1 Phaser all at once.
"Oh right, that’s all of them, isn't it?" Curtis smiled, thinking he was really clever.
"Oh right, that’s all of them, isn't it?" Curtis smiled, thinking he was really clever.
Len continued his glare until he got an idea pop into his head, and then his glare turned into a quick smile and he jumped up off the couch. "Great idea! I'll be right back."
As Len rushed out of the living room, he almost knocked Jeff over, who had just entered after exiting his bedroom. Jeff caught himself against a wall and straightened himself back up, and walked over to the couch. He sat down where Len had been sitting a few seconds before and watched the movie for a second before realizing what it was.
"Wicked!
Free Enterprise!" Jeff exclaimed and then turned to Curtis. "I love this movie."
"**** man, not you too," Curtis stared at Jeff with revulsion. "I hate Trekkies."
"What are you talking about?" Jeff asked. "I'm not a Trekkie - I'm more of a
Star Wars person, but this movie rocks so much, I mean just look at..." He instantly stopped his sentence as he stared at the TV again. "Oh man, have you guys passed the school yard fight already? That part rocked."
"Man, y'all have got to get out more," Curtis stated, still looking at Jeff. "Go to some Keggers. Pick up some chicks..." Curtis got to his feet. "Come on, we still need to pick up our passes to get into the LAN party tonight."
Curtis waited several seconds before he realized that Jeff would not be leaving the TV any time soon. Curtis looked back at it and saw it was at a scene in the movie that was taking place inside a comic shop. On the TV, a girl walked into the store. He looked back at Jeff and could see slight drool coming from the corner of his mouth upon seeing the girl.
"Hello? You there?" Curtis asked. Jeff was so into the movie, that he was totally oblivious to the fact that he was on a couch in his apartment, much less that Curtis was trying to talk to him.
"Damn Trekkies," Curtis mumbled as he grabbed his large puffy black jacket and left the apartment.
About ten minutes after Curtis left, Len returned to the living room with fake Klingon Forehead ridges, a cheesy looking fake-goatee, and a Bat'Leth made out of tinfoil and cardboard. He sat down next to Jeff and continued watching the movie.
A few minutes later, without taking his eyes off the screen and still thinking Curtis was next to him, Jeff said, "Hey Curtis, we should pick up..." He let out a rather loud screech when he turned to face Curtis and instead came face-to-face with the Klingon-Len, who turned to face Jeff and just sat there as if nothing was out of the ordinary. After calming down and catching his breath, Jeff continued, "Where the **** is Curtis?"
"Oh he left awhile ago. So what did I miss?" The two went back to watching the movie, not caring about the rest of the world.
***More to come soon***
