October 6, 2003
7:34 PM
"I'm gonna try something a little different today," said The Cheat. "I'm not exactly sure it this'll work, but who knows…it's professionally called 'power of suggestion', but you might know it better as—"
"Hypnosis," finished Strong Bad.
"Wha?"
"I'm studying that kinda stuff…conscious thought, stuff like that. I'm trying to get rid of those sleepwalk hallucinations."
"Quit bitin' my style. Anyway…we're going to try some aversion therapy. This should only take a few tries. I've brought some sleeping pills, and when you take them, I'm going to clap my hands twice, so you'll associate falling asleep with me clapping twice. Got it?"
"Aren't I not allowed to take any other medication?"
"Good. Here, drink this."
"Whatever you say," said Strong Bad. He then added, "O'Brien..." under his breath.
The Cheat handed Strong Bad a glass of water and a piece of plastic in the shape of a shot glass with two red pills in it. He downed the water and drank the pills. His eyelids suddenly felt like they were being pricked by pins. He tried to shut his eyes as quickly as he could, but he was so tired he could barely move them. The last thing he sensed before he fell asleep was the sound of The Cheat clapping twice.
When he woke up, The Cheat was shaking him back and forth on the couch. He glanced up.
"Huh? Wha?"
"Let's see if this worked," said The Cheat. He clapped twice. Pins on the eyelids, he was asleep. He was woken up again.
"Great! It worked!" said The Cheat. "IT'S ALIVE!"
"What?"
"Oh, sorry, man," said The Cheat. "Take this. It's chewable, so you don't need water."
Another plastic shot glass, this time with a yellow pill in it.
"It's a pep pill. You'll take it, and I'll clap, and you'll fall asleep, but youll've taken the pep pill, so you'll still be conscious. Then, you'll be hypnotized."
"Cool," said Strong Bad. "Clap like an audience at a classical music concert, man!"
S to the B downed the pill, and the little yellow guy clapped twice.
Strong Bad was awake and asleep at the same time. He could say anything. He wasn't afraid. The Cheat was a good guy. He trusted him.
"Now…tell me about your day."
"I made a new friend today."
"Real or imaginary?"
"Real."
"Would you like to tell me about this friend?"
"He's this guy called Strong Sad."
"What's he like?"
"He's kind of a wiener, but he's a pretty cool guy. Like, he's all smart, and he doesn't think I'm weird like everyone else."
"You're not weird," said The Cheat. "How good of friends are you with him?"
"Well…I don't really know? I mean, we just met today in English class…I guess he's my friend 'cause I met him in English, that's my favourite class."
"Why is it your favourite class?"
"Well, we're studying Nineteen Eighty-Four, and it really speaks to me. It's like the book, I'm the only one who really sees the truth about things."
"What truth is that?"
Strong Bad paused.
"I don't know," he said.
"How do you see the truth that others don't?"
"Homestar Runner."
"The man in the bunny suit?"
"That's him."
"I don't think you should keep associating with Homestar."
"I won't."
Strong Bad made a note to see if he was telling the truth.
October 7, 2003
9:06 AM
He began calling out the names of various students in the class.
"Aaron Armitage…Cherita Chen…Strong Sad…"
"Man, is this Literary English Class or Kids Whose First And Last Names End With The Same Letter Class?" murmured Strong Bad.
"Strong Bad," called the cop.
Strong Bad glanced up from his desk.
"Yeah?"
"It's your turn."
"Oh, right…whado'I do again?"
"Just go to the board and write the phrase."
"What's the phrase again?"
"'They made me do it.'"
"They did?"
"No, that's the phrase to write. Weren't you paying attention?"
"Yeah, I just forgot."
Strong Bad pushed up from his desk and quickly to the chalkboard. He picked up a piece of chalk and did that thing where you kind of spin the thing in your hand around between your fingers, then he neatly scribbled in a semi-bold Ahnberg Hand narrow the phrase, They Made Me Do It. He tried not to think about how he would write it.
"Try to pay a little more attention next time," said Marzipan friendlily.
"You got it," said Strong Bad, trying to sound friendly, but coming off as kind of mad for having to do this stupid exercise. He sat down in his chair and began chatting it up with Strong Sad.
The cop turned to his clipboard. He put a question mark next to Strong Bad's name.
"Question mark?" said the second cop quietly, glancing over the first cop's shoulder. "What's that mean?"
"It means that one, I don't know if that kid's writing matches the graffiti by the statue, and two, I don't know what kinda name is 'Strong Bad'."
"Yeah, I know. It's like…European."
1:04 PM
The scratchy sound, the lousy picture, the dull colour, the intolerably repetitive shots of fields and trees and the sun...it was a self-help infomercial.
"I realized that I had become a victim of scaredness," said an overweight lady on the tape, looking as sincere as possible. "I was feeding my pain with food. And food is something you should never feed yourself. You should feed yourself with scaredness. Oh, I mean—you should feed yourself with un-scaredness."
The lady paused and turned off-screen.
"Yes, of course 'scardeness' is a word! It's the adjective of 'scared'! I—what? Well, of course I know the actual word was fear! But I was told just to read what it says on that cue card, and 'fear' is all smudged, so I thought, like, even though my script said 'fear', it was supposed to say, like, 'scaredness' or something, but there wasn't enough time to write it on the cue card, so he just smudged it out or someth—"
The sound of a hand angrily hitting a malfunctioning camera to get it to turn of stopped right about now. The image changed to Bubs, that big orange guy with the blue face.
Meanwhile, the King of Town, the class' teacher, began smiling even more.
"Enough with the telescreen propaganda, already," muttered Strong Bad.
"Strong Bad!" said the KOT. "That's enough with 1987!"
"Eighty four."
"Watch the video!"
Strong Bad glanced back to Bubs.
"Seriously, peolebody! I'm Bubs! And all across the prairies and mountains, people are joining together for Bubs' Out Of Here With All That Fear program!"
"Ooh! Oooh!" said Homestar Runner's voice from out of nowhere. "Watch this part! This is my favourite part!"
Strong Bad glanced up. No one else had heard his voice.
4:33 PM
"You take one down, you pass it around..."
Strong Bad and Homsar just sat there.
"I said," said Pom Pom, "you take one down, you pass it around..."
"Oh, right," said Strong Bad. "Sorry 'bout that."
He reached on top of an old fence that him and Homsar were lying against. He took down a cold one from a row of them on top of the fence and tossed it to Pom Pom. Poms drank it down, aimed his pistol at another fence a few meters away and blam, fired at one of the cans lined up on the fence.
"...one-less-emp-ty-cold-one-can-on-the-fence!" sang Pom Pom.
Strong Bad downed a cold one for himself.
"Aaah! That's good carbonated yet unspecifically alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage!" he said.
"I'm a class ring on '94!" declared Homsar.
"You know, I hear they're coming out with raspberry cold ones."
"Cool! Red's my favourite colour," said Strong Bad. "As I gathered, from my mask and boots."
"I like yellow more," said Pom Pom. "As judging from my torso."
"What kinda yellow? Like…dandy-lion yellow or high-lighter yellow?"
"More like egg yolk yellow."
"Speaking of eggs, which came first? The chicken, or—insert that little squiggly line you see in dictionaries here."
"Duh. The egg. All chickens come from eggs."
"Well, maybe some kind of bird evolved into a chicken after it was hatched."
"You moron! Organisms don't evolve while they're alive."
"Then how do you evolve?"
"I dunno, before they're born, when they're in an egg or something."
"That's a stupid one."
"You got a better one, bro?"
"Well, what about, like, people go blind after they're born? That's evolving."
"No, that's losing a sense. That's more like de-volving."
"Things can't de-volve! That's stupid!"
"Course they can devolve! If your leg falls off or something, that's devolving."
"Okay, one, losing a limb is disease, not -volution. And two, e- or de- volving means the entire species changes too."
"Species don't evolve all at once! Moron!"
"How do you know?"
"How do you not know?"
"This is pointless."
"I'm a twirling sundog!" shouted Homsar.
"Shut up," said Pom Pom and Strong Bad at the same time.
Strong Bad glanced up at the sound of squealing tires.
The three of them looked down the hill at the street, where the King of Town was getting out of his car (which might've convinced someone that it was actually from the turn-of-the-century and not just made to look that way if not for the fact that it was neon blue) to walk the Poopsmith back to his old derelict house after he had just been standing silently in the road.
"Seriously, Poopsmith," said the King. "Quit standing in the road. You're blocking my Model T!"
The Poopsmith wandered to the side of the road. The King drove off, annoyed and very old.
"Hey, that hooplith is all jungajoom!" said Homsar.
"Yeah, how old is the Poopsmith, anyways?" asked Pom Pom.
"Legend has it, she's like a thousand."
"What legend?"
"You know. Local kind."
"Right."
"Oh look, he's checking his mailbox!"
"Is there mail in his mailbox?"
The Poopsmith opened up the slot with a big orange gloved hand.
"Ooooh! No cigar!" said Pom Pom.
The Poopsmith turned around, then around once more back to his mailbox.
"Oh! There's still a chance!" said Strong Bad.
No mail in the mailbox. The Poopsmith closed the slot.
"I'm a-free-add not," said Pom Pom with a grin. He did that thing where he closes his eyes and moves down his head to laugh.
"Poor guy," said Strong Bad. "I'd like to meet him."
"I represent the candy cane tribune!" said Homsar.
"Course y'are, Homs," said Pom Pom. "Course y'are."