Things that I've learned from Phil of the Future:
1. They do background checks if you want to rent a bulldozer, but
if you pay with flawless diamonds you can drive it off the lot,
--No Questions Asked--
2. "Not in Face!" is the second phrase mastered by Serbian exchange students.
3. Cupcakes can make the world a happier place.
(Debbie is making me say that. help. please help.)
4. Sometimes it's better NOT to recallibrate the Temporal Pump Valve.
5. Never count on a ride home from a guest star.
6. We can change the future if we study hard enough.
7. Fashion Zombies will eat your date's brain.
8. Be nice to cavemen, one might be your boss someday.
9. Best friends don't care how many toes you have.
10. Annelids. Somebody ask me.
11. Never get too close to a Time Machine when it's gonna go into flux.
12. Girls like ice cream, unless you're covered in it.
13. There must be something in the chili that causes people to see a U.F.O.
14. The luckiest people are those that fall in love with their best friend.
15. Facial hair can be frightening.
16. Sound effects beat laugh tracks any episode.
17. If your buddies kid you about your hanging out with your best friend more than their parents do, smile and take it as a compliment.
18. Your little sister wakes up evil.
19. Rock back and forth when kissing.
20. Don't order the fish in any century.
21. It's not enough to be a quality show.
22. Don't be afraid to tell your best friend that you like-them like-them.
23. The shut-off switch on Robbie the Robot.
24. The Giggle does not have a centrifugal antenna, Doofus.
25. There's a shortcut between Kid Rock and Ricki Lake if you go through Tiger Woods.
26. Regifting.
27. Make any mistake at H.G. Wells and
expect to write a 5-thousand word essay
on a topic not of your choosing.
28. A penny saved is a penny earned, but belly-button lint is where the real money is.
29. Wallaberries are the new Crunchberries.
30. If you need an alibi,
tell 'em you were painting ceramic bunnies
and they'll never doubt your sincerity.
31. You don't need to cheer at billiards to always be your mother's love muffin.
32. Never insult Keely's kitty cat bag unless your goal is to make her mad at you.
33. Don't "Speckle" that prank. Plan an exit strategy.
34. Friends don't replicate friends without their expressed permission.
35. Next Valentine's Day, I'm giving salt 'n' pepper shakers. More powerful than roses and chocolates and the line is shorter.
36. I want a Giggle!
37. Never to have lunch with my great, great grandfather.
38. Birthday cake is not a choice foundation make-up.
39. Don't take anything from a girl: gum, mints, nuts of any kind because they all mean commitment.
40. Sometimes it's safe to pull Owen's finger.
41. The simplest things can make the best gifts, i.e., a beautiful picnic.
42. Never judge a girl by her mother's cat circus.
43. The BBQ should not double as a magazine rack.
44. Flowers and cakes make for a much better birthday present than balloons and banners.
45. Best friends always have each other's backs even if one of them calls the other an immature jerk.
46. Some rocks are better after dinner.
47. The Weather Channel must be funnier than I thought.
48. Proposition 48 made airsick bags complimentary.
49. Next time, Keely stays under the table and Phil should check if the coast is clear.
50. You don't have to win a mascot battle to come out the winner.
51. Mandy Teslow doesn't know her daughter's name, either.
52. Folk music ends up sounding lame in any century.
53. I actually played a musical spit-catcher in high school.
54. The last hurdle baring magnificent athletes from immortality is girl-germs.
55. Hide your sister's last butterscotch pudding cup in her shampoo and she'll never find it.
56. Pickford, California is the ketchup/catsup capital of the world.
57. Shower curtains don't look out of place in the kitchen.
58. Replacement pencils cost $6.00.
59. Sometimes you have to create your own timing.
60. Groundhogs get their own day, but we don't send them gifts or cards.
61. Even when you can count on your dad not being able to fix the time machine 97.674418605-percent of the time, that's just not good enough.
62. When volunteering to babysit your teacher's nephew, be prepared to deal with his moustache...I mean mother!
63. Raising a sack of flour isn't woman's work, it's parent's work.
64. Tennis Master of the Universe in this or any century is determined not by your tennis skills, but by proper hand placement.
65. Looking serious is no way to devise a plan to foil even little sister's plans to dominate the universe.
66. You can't be the hostess with the mostess if you can't make toastess.
67. If having problems with hair loss, quack at any mention of date and bust a dance move every 10 seconds.
68. "The People Rule" is the motto for Arkansas.
69. In Pickford, teachers can write anything on the board, but the date.
70. Shave off both eyebrows when in doubt.
71. I will always wonder why Pim needed the measuring cup.
72. Unification Loaf "settles."
73. Principal Tillywack did replace Neil Hackett with Keely Teslow, so I can forgive him a lot.
74. Between Olivia and Jean Claude, you can swing a screaming cat in Pickford and not hit anyone with U.S. Citizenship, but they'll have at least a "C+" average.
75. I don't want to know what "... or else" means either.
76. Never tell someone you don't like them through poetry, unless you want a smoothe or a form of beverage poured down your shirt.
77. Whenever you wish you could tell everyone in the universe your big secret (such as being from the year 2121) remember to fall asleep first. That way, when things don't work out the way you had hoped, you can always wake up from your 'nightmare' and find that things are back to the way they're supposed to be and no one ever remembers finding out your secret.
78. Always leave your caveman behind when traveling back to your century. It gives you a good excuse to turn around and head back to your significant other. It also opens up options for a third season (unless you happen to be a show on Disney Channel)
79. Even on balmy days of 86-degrees, students in Pickford wear two layers of clothing.
80. I learned that a bunch of teenagers can't do anything in the dark without adult supervision, so it's better to just go home --
81. I also learned that you can create an underground tunnel that leads to the kitchen from a room on the second floor of a house--
82. Never stare Pim straight in the eyes while she is giving her 'sweetness smile' could cause eye damage.
83. Popstar pants are hot in any century.
84. Always expect revenge from Pim. Always.
85. I don't want to meet the East Side Diffies.
86. I will, always and forever, HATE whatever future geek made the 'Thanks to the Diffies Law' And I LOVE Curtis for being so clueless and getting left behind!
87. When things have gone out of style for awhile, they end up on vice principal Hackett.
88. You get the girl by touching her heart every day, not just by grabbing her butt while getting a picture taken.
89. Pim's bark is worse than her bite.
90. To Disclaim: I don't own PotF.
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•• NEW RULE FOR REVIEWERS •• NEW RULE FOR REVIEWERS ••
All Reviewers -- that means you! -- are to also list at least one thing that they learned from Phil of the Future. See? Not hard to comply with at all!
•• NEW RULE FOR REVIEWERS •• NEW RULE FOR REVIEWERS ••
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The F-Word – Chapter Two – "Quantifying Truth"
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"Based on the laundry schedule at the Teslow household, tomorrow there is a 68-percent chance of Keely wearing slacks and a mock-turtleneck. 42-percent chance that the predominate color will be off-white with silk fuscia accents. 74-percent likelihood that she will come early to walk you to school. Mandy Teslow has not made any purchases from the Pickford Pantry for 11 days. High probability of Keely's metabolism craving fresh veggies and dairy products. Suggest stocking the locker bar with celery sticks stuffed with cream cheese and sprinkled with grated parsley, her favorite. 11-percent chance of ..."
"Enough. Remind me to pick up some fresh celery after dinner." Future Boy silenced his Wizrd and secured it again inside his shoulder sack. Keely and Via were doing research for their language arts class, leaving Phil with a rare Keely-less evening. What to do, what to do? Homework? Laser Squash? Survey sites with breathtaking scenery to take Keely skyaking to on dates? Yep, sounds like a plan.
He rounded the hedge at the end of the block and looked forward to kicking off his hot sneakers. Whoops! Pim and Danny on the porch, shouting. What gives? I thought th—Whoa, Bradley's there, too. Didn't see him at first. Sorry, Bradley. Oh, this oughta be good!
"She's mine!" they both yelled. Now the boys had gone from being in each other's faces to using Pim in a tug-o-war. Pim wasn't enjoying their attention any longer, but was still caught too off-center to express her opinion gutterly. Then she spied her dear brother coming to her rescue.
"Hi Gentlemen. Mind if I pass by? Just heading in, oh and Guys, I don't care which of you gets the bigger piece and wins; just hose down the porch before you go. Deal?" The door closed and I collapsed against it laughing until my sides couldn't stand the ache any longer. Wiping away the tears, I rose and hung the shoulder sack over an end of the banister.
"I'm glad Keels and I don't have to go through that." Hmm – so what do we do differently and why? I mean, we spend time together, we're a couple, because we love each other, we're friends because we get along and we can count on one another. Is that it? I mean, they say passion fades or dies, that it can't keep burning brightly for long. What if ...?
He spied his parents in the kitchen and thought that the quirky room had become the center of the household. Strange, because in 2121, few homes had kitchens. They were as necessary as a music room in a house filled with iPods and radios. Most families separated when they walked inside and went into their own little rooms and into their own little worlds. This house was different. A good kind of different. The kind of difference that his parents had recognized and enjoyed.
Piddling with some time machine equipment on the kitchen table, there was Lloyd again, using it as an excuse to be around his wife. The time machine probably wouldn't be used much again, if ever, but his part-time job at Mantis left him with time to spare. He could be skyaking, or being worshiped as the great originator of some of their future gadgets, but no, by his own choice he was in the family kitchen, being underfoot, while the love of his life was chopping fruit for a soup. His wife liked it that way, as well. This is how Barbara had felt a couple should be: together.
"Need the sonic synchronizer, back in a sec," Lloyd mumbled, shuffling out the back of the kitchen and managing to lightly stroke Barbara's left shoulder blade as he passed behind her. It didn't go unnoticed by his wife; she smiled – the kind of smile that exercises the corners of the mouth up to the eyelashes.
Phil noticed it, too. Something was forming in the back of his mind, or maybe it was there all along and he'd just noticed it. "Mom?" The words weren't picked out yet.
"In here, Honey. Hope you're hungry; I'm trying something special for dinner."
"Mom, why'd you marry Dad?" Barb stopped preparing dinner. "And why'd you want to have kids and have to put up with me, well I'm not so bad, but there's Pim! What were you thinking, Woman?" His mother's eyes teared up and then she – belly roared!
"Pollyanna has finally cracked! Frankie, where's a net?" Rim-shot! Barb gave him such a look.
"Philip, what brought on your questions? Did something happen? Where's Keely?"
"Keely's fine, Mom. No, I'm just wondering, is all; I've got parents that are going on two decades of being in love and they're happy. The where and the when and the what you've got to work with doesn't seem to enter the equation. I'm just trying to figure you out. Trying to figure out life, I suppose."
This really is my favorite room, Barbara Diffy mused as she sat down at the table. "Son, you've lived your entire life with us, can't you answer your own questions?"
"No, and it's not the kind of thing that the Giggle is capable of understanding the question to, either. I mean, as kids, we have to do what adults tell us to. We spend our childhood wishing that we were grown up so we could do anything we want, whereever and whenever we want. Then we fall in love and want to make the other person happy, so our wants don't seem so important; trivial in point of fact."
"Uh-huh," Barb was following, but was still preoccupied with what had sparked this conversation. She leaned forward to signal to her son that she was interested. Phil? Well, he was almost, no, he was panicky.
"Uh-huh? That's all I get?" Phil started pacing. "Uh-huh? It doesn't add up, and then kids just introduce variables that make things more confusing. I mean, it's not like there are not enough people in world and we need to make more or we'll run out." Phil was running out of breath now and perspiring.
His mother took a breath for the both of them. She'd been waiting for this talk. Finally! "Honey, remember the very first time Keely asked you to go clothes shopping with her? I know how much you hate shopping -- clothes doubly so. Why didn't you just tell her, "No," and offer to see her later? That would have been the honest thing to do."
"It's not about honesty, Mom. Sure, maybe at first, but I learned to endure shopping if it got me more time with Keely, to smile, to carry ten shopping bags and like it. I like being with Keely shopping. That's the difference."
Barbara clapped her hands together and jumped up to give her boy-who's-becoming-a-man a celebratory hug, "TA-DA! You get it! I'm so proud of you, Phil! Now, go wash up for dinner, Honey. Honey?"
Phil didn't get it. Phil couldn't do the math. Barbara was a little depressed, thinking that she had explained it so well. Oh well. "Phil, your father is in the garage, go see if he can make it clearer." They both sighed and Phil started toward the back door.
"One thing before you go, Phil -- Did you really think that Keely asked you to tutor her just because she wanted to get a better grade in algebra?" -- and then she winked. Well, yeah, he had.
WHAM! BASH! CRASH! Not since the visit of Friar Fred had the Diffy's front door fallen. Pim scrambled over the door's surface and hurriedly wedged it in place. "MOM! Wizrd! NOW! A quick dive into the silverware drawer and Barb wizrded the door into place. "Somebody locked the door! Somebody is going to die. Come here, Somebody!"
"Pim, what's going on out there?"
"Nothing Mom, just the usual, my adoring fans -- "
"Try odorous fans. P.U.! Somebody has been messing around with pheromones, huh Sis?"
"Pim!" Barb gave a maternal stare, but Pim's full attention was focused exclusively on her soon-to-be-deceased sibling.
Phil knew that look. It said, "I'll get you Diffy, if it's the last thing that I do." Tonight, he'd have to --
• Knock, knah-knah, knock, knock--knock, knock! •
"The Diffys! What's going on here?"
Pim was issued another "Barbara-stare." Pim pulled the traditional Diffy roll of the eyes and then opened the door. With the grace of a chicken flying out of a revolving door, Neil Hackett staggered into the entryway. "There were H.G. Wells's students rough housing on this porch moments ago, and I have the sneaky suspicion that there is a connection to what happened in the girls' locker room today at school. Now I'm not leaving until I get some answers," and he turned and locked the door.
Phil and his mother exchanged glances that signified, "I got nothing." Phil's dad entered from the kitchen, playing with the sonic synchronizer against his front teeth, "HhhEee-eyyyY, LllLiiIiiSsststeennN t-t-Tuh-eww Mmm-Mmm-eeEeeEee, Buhharrbb!!-!!" Then he saw Hackett. "Moldy Gumdrops!"
"Ah, the plot thickens. Come over here, Mr. Diffy. We have a matter to settle, and I'm not --"
-- Pim reached over to an extra light switch --
"-- leaving until--"
-- truly, it wasn't much of a reach, then a modest flip --
"-- I—YI!"
Pim started chanting, "See Neil. See Neil fall. Fall, Neil, Fall," and then evilly chuckled. The floor had fallen away from beneath Neil's feet. Trapdoor. SplaSH! "Swim! Swim! See Neil swim! Swim, Neil, Swim – for your miserable life, and all the while I'll be taking over the Hackett assets, meager though they are."
Pim triggered the trapdoor back into place.
When they got over being stunned, the rest of the Diffys somehow got out, "PIM."
"Yes, dear family? Now, before accusations are made and punishments are proposed, I'd like to make it clear that this device was authorized as part of a security network by none other than the head of our proud household," smirked the master strategist.
"Lloyd?" blinked Barbara. "You agreed to this?"
"Sort of. I mean, there were a lot of ideas on the blueprints and the salesperson was so convincing."
"Pim was the seller, Dad. She probably planned to do this to Hackett all along."
"Now Philip, that's just not true. Mr. Hackett doesn't come over nearly enough to justify this degree of preparedness," smiled his evil sister. "I built it for Blondie."
Barbara stepped in, "How are we going to explain all this?"
"All automatically taken care of, Hon. It was covered in the brochure, right Pim?"
"True, Daddy-Dearest, but, uh, I better talk to you all later. I've got to see to the alligators now," and Pim grabbed a Wizrd and made her way to Tunnel Fivezy's entrance, her mother at her heels.
Silence.
"So, what's on your mind, Son? Have fun at school today?"
Phil gasped, not knowing where to begin. The last 30 seconds were a great example of what he was trying to get across to his mother moments ago. "I-I—I was going to ask you why you had kids, Pim in particular, but some questions are just too mysterious, too enigmatic, for the universe to comprehend," and with that Phil rescued his shoulder bag from the stairwell and dragged himself up the staircase. No energy for romantic locations tonight. Bed. Oblivion. Good.
"Oh, that's an easy one, Son. Your old dad was there, y'know."
Phil winced, "You're not talking about the 'Birds and the Killer Bees' lecture again, are you, Dad?"
"Huh? Did we ever do that? I thought that your mother handled that one. No, I was talking about the decision that your mom and I made about going from a couple to a family."
Maybe this time. "That's exactly what I was trying to talk to Mom about." Lloyd smiled. Phil would have smiled, but he had seen that same smile already once today, so he wasn't exactly filled with confidence, but maybe he had just enough energy to try this one more time. "I wanted to know why any sane person would continually tie himself down with more and more commitments, limiting his freedom to do what he wants to do in his life."
"Phil, you've been a Diffy for 16 years. Sixteen years of watching your old dad and I'm sure you understand the answer to that. Come on, what's really bothering you?"
Am I really that thick? Why can't I see what is so obvious to them? THIS is important; I have to get it or, or, OR WHAT?
• Ding-dong •
"I'll get it."
About time Pim got the door for once. Oh look, it's Keels. "Hi Keely."
"Step right on in, Princess." Pim's finger was on the extra light switch.
"NO-o-O!" Phil leaped over the railing and knocked Keely down just as her calves fell into the shaft.
"OW! OW!" This is not my night. Maybe I should talk to Phil tomorrow? Remember Via? Yeah, Via, the British Bruiser. Okay. I can do this. "Phil, I think that I hurt something."
"I'll help you in."
"No offense, but I think that I'll be safer outside."
Phil nodded and helped me outside to the bench swing, carefully avoiding the brass light shade hanging on the outside wall. "Don't worry about a thing, Keely. I'll be back in just a sec and fix you right up."
I smiled, but I couldn't help but wonder what that splashing sound was ...