Chapter 3.
It was now early afternoon on Sunday, Sheen and Carl were now at Jimmy's lab. Sheen had brought the "How to Impress the Ladies" book for Jimmy to reference. Jimmy had divided his dry ink board into three sections each with one of the "girl wants" as the column headers. Carl and Sheen were sitting on the couch flipping through TV channels on Jimmy's lab cable feed all while consuming flurp and popcorn. Jimmy was standing in front of the board busily flipping through the various chapters in Sheen's book using post-it notes on key pages. After he'd find something of interest amongst the inane streams of text, he would immediately try to apply it to his three basic categories for "wooing" girls. Sheen and Carl couldn't help but notice Jimmy's frantic page flipping, reading, and eye rolling. Jimmy finally slammed the book shut, groaned, and stared up at the ceiling with a look of defeat and disbelief. After a few seconds of collecting his thoughts, he looked over to Sheen while holding up the book.
"Where did you get this from again?" Jimmy asked in confused amazement.
"I found it in an advertisement and ordered it." Explained Sheen.
"Ok wait a minute, what kind of picture book or deranged periodical paired you with an advertisement for this book?"
"Well I….uh…ur…" Sheen gave a sheepish grin, "An UltraLord comic book…"
It was all Jimmy could do to keep his eyes from rolling back into his skull.
"Sheen! Was it the least bit suspicious to you that this book was not in the 'Self Help' section of the book store?"
"Book store?"
Jimmy let out a huge sigh, "Never mind! Is it still possible to get that one eighth of your money back?"
"Nah too late for that. Besides, I need this book to help make Libby my girlfriend. I'm still working on Pet names though, wanna here?"
"NOOOO!" Jimmy and Carl yelled in unison.
"So what are you trying to figure out anyway Jimmy?" Carl asked still gurgling on flurp. "I mean we already know you like Cin.."
"CARL PLEASE!" Jimmy snapped cutting Carl off before he could finish.
"This is important!" Jimmy explained. "I need to figure out what went wrong, or should I say what went right, that caused Sheen and I to make progress in the arena of…..girls…"
"Ooooh!" Laughed Carl. "You had me worried, I thought we were suppose to be liking girls now…whew!"
"Well Carl, we're getting to that dark time in our lives. Hormones will kick in and we'll become a bunch of tongue dragging, mouth breathing, knuckle scrapping idiots over these feminine creatures." Jimmy lamented. "I can't say when this will happen; all that is certain is its inevitability! I'm simply trying to get us a leg up on the understanding of the female mind!"
"Ohh thanks! Then why do I feel strangely un-assured now?" Mumbled Carl.
"Don't worry Carl! All this will hopefully give us the confidence to communicate with girls in a normal and civil way!" Explained Jimmy. "I just need to test a few theories!"
"Well you can count me out!" Snapped Carl. "You're always using me for your experiments and they usually end badly for me."
"Carl, I just endeavor to see you use your body for something other than converting flurp to gas!"
"What do you mean? I DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM!…..Burrrrrrrrrp!….Ok…a little one."
"Hey Jimmy!" Shouted Sheen. "You computer console is beeping and flashing lights, what's going on?"
"That's the proximity alarm Sheen!" Explained Jimmy. "Someone's out in front of the clubhouse."
Jimmy hit a button on the console to bring up a camera view of his clubhouse entrance. To his surprise, it was Butch! Jimmy couldn't imagine why Butch would be seeking him out, but fortunately he had a host of defenses if the big guy was sore at him for some reason.
Jimmy click the intercom button, "What is it Butch?"
Butch looked up at the camera with a distressed look on his face, "Neutron, I really need your help with something!" Cried Butch.
"What's the problem?"
"It's kind of personal, I can't tell you over the intercom so can you let me in?"
"Do you think he's faking?" Asked Sheen.
"No, he seems really worried about something. You better go up and show him in while I'll hide my current experiment on the ink board. I don't want the big guy to get lodged in the ingress tube." Laughed Jimmy.
Jimmy flipped the ink board over effectively hiding his earlier scribble and revealed a clean new side to analyze Butch's problem. Sheen led Butch into the lab where Jimmy was waiting. Jimmy could see that Butch noticeably uncomfortable and visibly shaken about something.
"Butch what's going on?" Jimmy said now very concerned at Butch's apparent lack of confidence.
"I need your help with something very personal." Butch said sheepishly.
"Ok, how can I help?"
"I want to ask a girl to the dance…" Whispered Butch.
Jimmy quickly looked over at Carl still sitting on the couch, "What dance?" He said throwing his hands in the air.
"Oh, The End of the School Year Dance on Tuesday night." Carl replied.
"Where the heck have I been?" Ranted Jimmy.
"On Mars running from Cindy!" Laughed Sheen.
"Annnnnyway!" Continued Jimmy, "Butch, have a seat!"
Butch pulls up an available chair near Jimmy, who seated himself on the stool in front of the ink board.
"So how do you figure I can help?" Jimmy asked.
"Well, you're the genius. I figured you could come up with a plan to make it go smooth or something." Said Butch hopefully.
Jimmy placed his hand on his forehead and began to slowly shake his head in disbelief. He knew Butch needed help, but what plan could he come up with? He paused and looked up at Butch who was looking a bit discouraged.
"Butch." Said Jimmy, "I'll help you but there's something you need to understand."
"What's that?" Said Butch now looking more enthusiastic.
"I really have no idea what I'm doing." Jimmy explained. "We're dealing with a force here than apparently can strike down both bully and geek at anytime!"
Jimmy thought for a moment longer. "Wait a minute!" Jimmy jumped up and looked at Butch. "Is it possible that your berserk pituitary gland has advance you further along with this whole boy to man metamorphosis?"
"What?" Replied Butch slightly angered.
"Never mind!" Said Jimmy. "You will be the perfect test subject! You see, we've been discussing this whole girl/boy relationship thing before you arrived so we may have a plan already!"
"Great!" Said a very relieved Butch.
"So who's the girl?" Jimmy asked.
"Linda Merrihue…" Whispered Butch.
Linda was the dark haired and slightly pudgy girl that sat near Jimmy in the front of class. She was genuinely nice, but rather quiet so Jimmy didn't know her that well at all.
"Linda eh?"
Jimmy flipped the ink board back over revealing his earlier "Girl Wants" chart.
"So Butch!" Jimmy continued. "The first step in unlocking a girl's heart is to make her feel special somehow. What did you have in mind?"
"Well, I thought maybe I could read her some poetry or something." Said Butch who had virtually no idea how to go about it.
Jimmy paused in thought for a moment; then collected his words.
"Butch!" He stated. "That actually could be more embarrassing for her than you!"
"Then what should I do?"
"There is a way to unlock Linda's heart making her putty in your arms!" Jimmy started writing on the ink board. "The key is an Unexpected Gift, at an Unexpected Time!"
"No poetry then?"
"No! Must be Unexpected Gift, Unexpected Time!" Jimmy Explained. "What does Linda like, do you have any idea?"
"Unicorns…" Said Butch looking sheepish again.
"Dang! What is it with Unicorns, Fairies, and Rainbows?" Ranted Jimmy. "Never mind! The dance is Tuesday night so we need to work quickly! Everyone to the hovercar, we need to get us a Unicorn guys!"
…..Next, Jimmy the love doctor!
