DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the characters here that I didn't make up myself. I don't own Lizzie McGuire, but she's not actually born yet at the time of this story, anyway.
Sam sat in his room Saturday afternoon, worrying about his date that evening. Over the past week, he had met Jo several times – after all, their lockers were right next to one another – and worked out details of how they would get together; Sam's mom would pick her up at 6:45. Sam thought that having his mom handle transportation for a date was rather nerdy, but couldn't think of a better alternative; the bus was hardly high-class date transportation either. "I can't wait until I get my driver's license," thought Sam. "Maybe I'll try to get my dad to give me driving lessons before I'm even old enough for a permit… that'll give me a head start. He keeps talking about how his dad let him drive the tractor on the farm at age 13, so maybe he'll be agreeable to that."
He had started off Saturday in a fairly good mood; there was a new episode of Land of the Lost, which had finally started its second season last week after many months of reruns. This was the only Saturday morning TV show that Sam still watched, having decided he had finally outgrown the likes of Scooby-Doo, but this show fascinated Sam with its intricately-defined fictional universe, where new facts about the Sleestaks, pylons, and other things in the show's fantasy world fit together into an internally-consistent whole. Unfortunately, the second season so far didn't seem quite as coherent as the first; the show was beginning to lose its focus, and maybe by the third season they would be introducing silly, pointless new characters and plot elements that made no sense, and the show would start to really suck. "Maybe it would be better if they'd cancel shows while they were still good," thought Sam, "instead of letting them go into a slow decline. If they cut them off at some arbitrary limit, like 65 episodes, then the fans would complain, but they complain even worse when the show continues and gets really awful… maybe 'putting it to sleep' earlier would be more humane!"
So far, however, the show was still pretty good, and it helped Sam temporarily forget about the problems in his personal life. But soon it was over, and Sam went back to worrying. "Just what have I got myself into?", he thought. "I don't know what to do and what to say… what kind of stuff should I talk about? This girl probably won't care about my theories about how the pylons work and the history of the Sleestaks… she probably doesn't even watch that show. And she probably won't care about my baseball card collection either, or the pennant race. Will she have anything in common that we can talk about? And, then, there's that roller-disco-ing stuff… I'd wanted to try it, but now that I think about it, I haven't even roller-skated since I was little; I'll probably fall flat on my face and embarrass myself. Why do I let myself get into these things? It would have been much safer for me to just stay home and watch a ballgame on TV!"
Sam tried to think of anybody he knew that he might be able to call for advice, but came up blank. "Howie and Larry… they know even less than I do about girls and dating… Cousin Ree-Ree? He'll just make some silly puns, jokes, and wisecracks, and then maybe he'll want to tag along on the date in order to film it on his home movie camera. Hmm… what about that actor guy who's 'like a brother to me'… at least, Mom keeps saying that… I think she feels sorry that I don't have a real brother. At his age, he's really more like an uncle. Somehow, this doesn't seem like the sort of situation I want to bring him in on… if I ever need advice on making a martial-arts film, he's the one I'll call, but for dating? I don't think so."
As if to underscore this point, Sam's radio started playing that silly song, "Kung Fu Fighting."
Jo spent the afternoon fussing with her makeup, and trying on different outfits. She couldn't even decide if she was trying to make a good impression on her date, or a bad one; that would depend on whether she actually wanted any sort of relationship to develop. At the back of her mind was a thought that she should perhaps aim for a quick breakup, so she'd be free to pursue some less-nerdy guys. "It would have to be done very carefully, without hurting Sam's feelings," thought Jo; "because I'll have to deal with him as locker neighbors for the rest of the school year – maybe for four years; do they change locker assignments between school years? I'm not sure. We'd better try to at least stay friends."
Her mom called up to her, "Jo, your date is here!"
Jo yelled back, "Coming in a minute…"