Hey guys! Just a quick update, I'll be having a one week hiatus, so expect new stories this upcoming Sunday, January 15. I have some stuff to handle personally. And I am going through rest from writing, in reverence to my spiritual life. But stay tuned for the finale to "Real Boys", followups to "The Other House", "The Infant Years" and "Eleventh Heaven".
In the meantime, enjoy this one-shot (if not two-shot, depending on request for a continuation), which has a hint of another story I'm planning. Hope you enjoy the rest!
It is a lovely sundown in Royal Woods, Michigan. And Lori barges from the front door, excited of her upcoming date with bobby. She keeps squealing in delight as she prances to her room. Glad no one sees her as she flamboyantly frisks like a little ballerina. Just a further picture of how crazy she gets when it comes to her precious love life.
Tonight, the two plan for another dinner in Jean Juan's French-Mex Restaurant, as the aforementioned restaurant is holding on all-you-can-eat buffet that includes a new menu item, a s'mores chocolate ice cream cake, for only $9.99. Only guests with a special coupon pass can gain access to the buffet. And lucky for Lori she was able to gain two passes as a special incentive from her science project that she claimed she singlehandedly executed. (Lisa did half of the work.)
"Tonight's the night! Just literally the two of us, again. Aahhhh…" Lori utters as she mesmerizes about tonight's date, "My surprise to you, Boo-boo Bear. Where we get to taste my dream cake. Litterally this night couldn't get better without you." She ends this with kissing a photo of Bobby, getting her outfit for the night and dialing him through her phone.
She is not expecting an immediate answer at what she gets from dialing him. But unexpectedly, Bobby answers, much to Loir's joy.
"Bobby Boo-boo Bear, you there?" Lori utters.
"Lori, is that you?" Bobby answers back.
Hearing his voice just makes Lori squeal like a fangirl. "Bobby! Sorry, I'm just literally excited for our date tonight."
"Oh yeah, our date. About that…I think we have to cancel our date night," he despondently admits.
"What?! Bobby?! How? Wha…?"
"Sorry babe. The clearance sale in the mall got crazy. So, I have no other choice," Bobby, who is this time a department store clerk at the mall, says this while fending off angry customers in line to check out their items. This is just an unlucky period for the jack-of-all-trades to get hired at the mall.
Even one furious customer, a loud soccer mom, shouts at him, "You moron got time to chat on your phone while we have to suffer like zombies?!" She says this while pushing Bobby's face and body. This prompts Bobby to end the call. "Sorry babe. Gotta go. Angry customers approaching. Wahh!" he utters as he gets buried from the stampede of customers who rush past him.
"Bobby?! Hello?" Lori answers back, to realize that bobby hung up, "No!" Learning about Bobby canceling a romantic date is instant bad news for Lori that he refuses to accept it.
Just after that, the eldest Loud sister wails so loud and overly dramatic that it catches the attention of her mom Rita, who, while cooking dinner, encountered her daughter crying by the dinner table while wallowing with a tub of rocky road ice cream. Mrs. Loud is aware of her daughter's night out with her boyfriend. So she wonders why her daughter is out of touch, "Lori, sweetie, why aren't you preparing your date with Bobby?"
"No date. No date," Lori answers while crying.
"Ohh Lori, it's okay. There's a next time for you and Bobby," Mrs. Loud tries to comfort her.
But Lori rebukes, "Next…time? But Bobby promised me that he'll go…and then he cancelled…but I worked hard…mahh hard…mahh work…" She tries to explain the whole story but only mutters mumbles. Still, Mrs. Rita understands her daughter's feelings.
"It's okay, sweetie," Mrs. Loud sympathizes with patting her shoulder, "You'll always have dates with Bobby. There's a next time for everything."
But Lori keeps wailing dramatically, as shown by her eyeliner dripping horrifyingly on her face. "Well, time to go alone. Me, myself and I, and Mr. Chocolate Ice Cream Cake."
"Wait, just you?" Mrs. Loud asks, "You're not gonna bring someone with you?"
"Why would I…?"
"Aww sweetie, I know it's hard. For now, take a break. Why don't you treat one of your siblings? I'm sure you don't want to waste one hard-earned ticket."
"How about I give this to you?"
"Aww I want to, but I have to conduct a dental surgery tonight. Actually have to leave now once dinner stew is ready."
Upon hearing that, Lori gets dismayed evenly. But Mrs. Loud, as always bring a reliable mother, assures her, "I understand what you're going through, Lori. But you have to realize that not everything goes in our own way. But we don't just go with the flow. We make the best out of it. I promise, tonight will get better for you."
With that, Lori takes time to ponder of her hopelessness, even though her situation does not warrant her to be hopeless. Eventually, she smiles to her mother. "I guess so," she utters.
"That's my girl," Mrs. Loud responds, "Now off you go. You might get behind in line. Ask one of your siblings if they can. And tell the rest that dinner's ready. Oh, and have someone responsible to be in charge. Please Lori?"
When Lori nods in compliance, Mrs. Rita bids her daughter goodbye with a kiss on Lori's head and leaves the house. As for the latter, she is still downhearted of her precious date plans being utterly ruined. Still, she reluctantly drags her body to ask her siblings out.
The first of which is her roommate/closest friend in the Loud house, Leni. With that, she enters their room and straightly asks her, "So Leni, it's been literally awhile since we last hangout. I think it was last Christmas eve, when we went last-minute shopping. Anyway, I just want to ask if you would like to…?"
However, before Lori asks her, she spots Leni making a suit for Lana.
"Now I need five yards of yellow, green and orange fabric to work this out," Leni comments.
Lana then notices Lori's presence, "Oh hi Lori, how do you like my new dragon jumpsuit?"
"Just in time sis," Leni reacts as well, "Wanna help us?"
"What are you literally doing?" Lori asks.
"Oh, I'm making Lana's own dragon jumpsuit," Leni answers with a beam on her face.
"I'm gonna be a dragon for the Chinese festival in school," Lana emphasizes with doing dragon-like gestures and sounds.
"You mean literally part of a dragon?" Lori corrects her tomboyish sister.
"Nope. A real dragon," Lana corrects Lori, while growling chokingly.
"Whatever. So that means you're busy right now, because I was gonna treat one of you guys for…"
Suddenly, before Lori can finish, Lana raises a concern to Leni, "Hey Leni, why there's a tag on my front collar?"
"Oh, that supposed to be the tag where you see the shirt size and the label for the shirt," Leni answers.
"Then why is it in the front?" Lana queries.
Leni then realizes that she might have mistaken the back part of the shirt to be the front part of the shirt, thus making her do the frontal designs to the back part. "Ohh. Hehe. Oops, must have switched the front and the back," Leni admits with a shrug on her shoulder.
"Leni!" Lana reacts, "Does this mean I have to wait for another hours standing?"
"Sorry Lana. But don't worry. We can fix the design," Leni assures, "Just stand still again."
"You know my legs need rest you know?" Lana says.
At that move, Lori think this is not the adequate time to ask one of them to dine with her. "So, I guess that's literally a 'no' then?" she assumes, then exits the room without them noticing.
Next to her list is her supportive brother Lincoln. She is kind of optimistic with asking him, since he helped her in previous occasions. So, it says a lot that when she approaches his room, Lori sees Lincoln discussing with Luan and Lynn while looking through a blueprint that was placed on his desk.
"And so we just have to clog the toilets?" Lincoln asks.
"Bathrooms in the girl's locker room are the most notorious ones. I am sure someone would cry when the toilet overflows," Lynn explains.
Abruptly, Lori butts in, "What are you guys literally talking about?"
Hearing Lori's voice prompts Lincoln, Lynn and Luan to hide their stuff in a fast motion and to utter in unison, "Nothing."
Lincoln then defends hesitatingly, "We are just planning a secret project that is so secret that we cannot allow anyone to see or know about it."
"Well, sorry for that, if that's the case," Lori responds, "I was just gonna ask if anyone is interested…"
But her three siblings refuse her offer, "No Lori. It's fine. We're good. Now if you could just give us some privacy." They then push the door shut against Lori to push her out and lock it.
"Well, I'm just asking," Lori utters, "I was literally gonna ask you Lincoln for the buffet of your dreams. Guess you don't want it."
After that, Lincoln, Luan and Lynn rest by the back of the door in relief.
"That was close," Lincoln comments, "She almost compromised our plans."
"Yeah, we better be stealthy next time," Lynn adds.
"Yeah, we sure don't want to Lori ourselves to danger. Hehehe. Get it?" Luan agrees, but throws in a joke, much to Lincoln and Lynn's annoyance, "Okay, let's go back to pranking business."
With Leni and Lincoln crossed out, Lori decides to approach Luna since she infrequently bonds with her. But as she enters her room through her open door, Lori sees Luna comforting a presumably sulkier Lucy.
"Uhmm Luna, what's going on?" the eldest Loud sister wonders.
Luna alarmingly notices her older sister and tries to keep her away from her room. "Lori, I don't this is a perfect time to burst in," she insists, "Lucy's got her moment. Just between the two of us."
"Oh, so this is how you guys are literally doing in the Loud house? Keeping secrets from me?" Lori complains.
"It's not me. It's about Lucy," Luna reiterates, "So if there's something important you need to tell me, tell me later." The rocker sister then shuts the door from Lori and returns to Lucy.
"Is she gone?" Lucy asks.
"Yeah, definitely," Luna answers, "Okay dude, now let's return to the eyes."
It turns out that Luna is putting David Bowie-like makeup to Lucy's face for Luna's planned lip-syncing vlog, presumable a tribute for a known music icon. As for trying to hide from everyone else, Lucy demands this as she does not want to reveal wearing over-the-top makeup in front of her siblings.
"Shall we style the hair?" Lucy asks.
"If you want, we'll place color strands," Luna suggests.
"Make me cool Luna," Lucy demands. And after long moments of makeover, Luna and Lucy film their video.
The last option Lori has in the Loud house is Lily, since she is the easiest to handle (because she is obviously a baby). However, as Lori enters her room, she spots a little monstrous creature with a diaper munching on Lisa's books. Of course, she gets frightened by its presence that she screams aloud.
Hearing her, the creature lunges to Lori. But in the nick of time, Lola catches the creature with a net and tries to drag it to a cage. Thanks to knowledge from movie marathons, the 6-year-old is able to conceal the creature and silence it.
"That's for you, you monster!" Lola bellows.
"What's going on here, Lola?" Lori asks with a glare on her eyes.
"Uhmmm…not much, if you don't count accidentally pouring chemicals to Lily and turning her into a fuzzy-wuzzy creature, much," Lola says then shrugs.
"Wait, what did you said?"
"Uhmm…we accidentally turned Lily into a wolf monster?" Lola tries to hide off her guilt with a broken smile.
"Lola?! Haven't I told Lisa not to use anyone of us as test subjects for experiments?
"You better ask her that." Lola then points to Lisa's whereabouts – hiding in her cabinet.
Lori checks her out to see the 4-year-old rocking her body back and forth, clearly frightened from the proceedings.
"Are you okay there, Lisa?" Lori asks.
"Must. Never. Turn. Monster," Lisa trembles with her eyes wide open.
"Calm down, Lise. I trapped her in the cage," Lola assures.
"Good. Good," Lisa chatters her words, "Next I'll trap you in the cage."
"Touché," Lola reacts as they prepare the equipment to transform Lily back to her original form. Clearly, this gives the boost to be busy all night, providing a roadblock for Lori, since she already has no one to ask.
Later that time, Lori continues to mope in the living room. With her head buried on a pillow, she tries to shake off her dismay, to no avail.
"Why can't I let this evening go my away? Even for once?!" Lori languishes like a soaked-up drama queen, "Could this get any worse?"
As she says that, a knock comes from the door. However, she does not answer it. Another knock comes. And again, Lori does not answer it, feeling the unwillingness to not caring about anything. But then, the doorbell keeps ringing and ringing. To her annoyance, Lori marches to the door to answer it, "What is it?!" It is then revealed that the knocker was none other than Lincoln's wingman Clyde. "Oh, it's you."
Obviously, Clyde gets nervous or spaced out when Lori is near him. But currently, he is trying to retrain himself from doing such a thing, which he does here. "Lori…uhmm…is Linc around?" he asks.
"Uhmm no. He's literally working some project with Lynn and Luan," Lori answers, "What are you two gonna do? Hangout?"
"Well no, but yeah. More like that," Clyde answers, "Can I see him now? I have something to show him."
"That could be arranged if they hadn't said 'give us some privacy' or somewhat."
"Oh. What a bummer. Well, if he ever gets done, tell him I'm just on my house, doing nothing but reading the same old comics. Great pastime. Hehe." He then walks back home, kind of sulking. Lori can see from his expressions that Clyde intended a quality time with Lincoln. But it has to go cancelled, due to the latter being busy with his sisters.
Feeling pity for him and relating to his situation, Lori calls back Clyde, "Wait Clyde, why…why…don't you come to dinner with me?"
"Uhmm dinner?" Clyde asks back.
"Yeah. I was supposed to have my date with Bobby tonight but he had to drop out because of his shift at the mall. So, I asked the others, but they're all busy. And that literally leaves you and dad. And I just thought, since you came unexpectedly, that if you're not busy…"
"I'll take it!" Clyde instantly accepts Lori's invitation.
"Are you sure?"
"I gladly accept your invitation, my sweet."
"Okay, first, can you tone down being a romantic?"
"Oh right. Sorry."
"Just wait here. I'll change to my outfit." With that, Lori goes back to the house to prepare for the night.
Clyde cannot wait to actually have a quality time with the girl of his dreams. He only thought that it can happen to his imagination. But it just seems surreal for him that it comes to reality. But there he is, anticipating the moment he gets to see Lori dressed up for their dinner.
After minutes of waiting, Lori comes out of the front door, dressed in a knee-high cocktail party dress, a black blazer and a pearl necklace. "I'm here," she utters to Clyde.
"Whatever you say, my…" Clyde responds as he takes a glance at Lori with awe, "You look…great."
"Hmmm. I'm literally aware you would compliment me like that," Lori says, "Shall we?" She then offers Clyde her hand, to which he gladly accepts. "Promise me tonight Clyde. It's just us being friends."
"Well, couldn't argue you with that," Clyde agrees, even though he would seem be dismayed that this does not hit his expectations. Still, he is glad that he gets to bond with Lori, with just him and Lori. He then points to the readers, "Take this, Bobby!"
It would be a really crazy night for the two, once they arrive at Jean Juan's French-Mex Restaurant.