Not long after the mess regarding the Maellards, the park had to close down for a few days to clean up as a result of a disastrous funeral service and the fact that a wreckage of a house have crashed into the building. Once that was done, Skips made his return from the hospital and Pops have inherited the position from his father as the owner of the park, however he still remains as the manager as well since he still enjoys spending time with the employees. It does looked as if Pops have recovered from the death of Mr. Maellard but some of the employees aren't convinced.
"Hey look at that, Pops seems happy but I have a feeling he's still hurting inside." said Mordecai.
"I know man, acting all goofy and all that, it's just not natural." said Rigby.
"Actually, he's always like that."
"Oh yeah, I almost forgot."
Suddenly, they find themselves covered in shadow accompanied by a familiar grumbling voice.
"What are you two doing?"
The two groundskeepers turned to see Skips standing behind them.
"Hey Skips, feeling better?" Mordecai asked.
"I had worse, but what are you two doing spying on Pops?"
Neither of the two were able to find an answer to the question without sounding like stalkers.
"Whatever you guys are doing right now, you better not bother Pops, I don't think he has fully recovered from what happened to his father so you two better leave him alone!" said Skips before skipping off.
"Geez, what's his problem? He really needs to get laid, literally!" said Rigby.
"Dude, do you even know what literal means?" asked Mordecai.
"Who cares? It's not like it will matter or anything, besides, Skips does needs to get laid." Rigby answered.
Later that day, Mordecai and Rigby were playing a video game as they have often does. After losing handedly to Mordecai on the latest fighting game, the raccoon became frustrated and toss the control to the sofa.
"Arrrg, this game literally sucked!" he yelled.
"Dude, you did it again!" Mordecai said.
"What?"
"You said the game literally sucked, you really have no idea what literal even means do you?"
"Why do you care? I heard people using that as a sort of a expression, this shouldn't be a big deal!" said the raccoon.
"That's figuratively! Figuratively is what used as a part of that sort of expression, not literally..." said the blue jay.
Then he continues, "If you go and say that the game literally sucked, then the game would have been sucking on something!"
Rigby then visualize the game console offering to perform a sexual act toward Pops and shudders.
"Ew..."
However, Mordecai chose this as an opportunity to kick Rigby further.
"Not only that, maybe if you hadn't dropped out of high school, you probably would have known the difference between figuratively and literally!"
This irks Rigby.
"That again, you better stop."
The blue jay grins and said, "In the end, who has a high school diploma?"
"Stop it!" the raccoon growls.
"What's even worse is that you failed in special education, ohhhhhhh!"
"YOU BASTARD! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I HAD BEEN THROUGH!"
In the spring of 2003...
One day in class, a huge kid named Steve was looking around when he saw Rigby sneezing. Being that Steve had a mental disorder that causes him to mutter "dumbass" to someone who sneezes, he quietly insults the raccoon.
Rigby heard it and said, "Steve, stop that!"
But then, Steve mutters, "Retard"...
"Stop it!"
"Retard."
"Stop it!"
"Retard!"
"Stop that!"
Eventually the whole thing would come to a stop as Rigby ends up taking the blame for the mess and was suspended. Bad enough that because Rigby had to take the "cheese bus", he was mocked by many who were "travel trained" because apparently, being able to take the public transportation all by yourself is really cool. I know how that felt, people can treat you like an idiot but on the bright side, at least those who had to take the yellow bus won't have to wait outside in the rain, not to mention it's more consistent than the "hit-or-miss" nature of the public transportation.
Then there was Chris, nicknamed "Pikachu" due to his obsession with the first generation of Pokemon which led to him being mocked. However, as long someone like Rigby exists, even Chris was able to receive some level of comfort knowing how much of an imbecile the raccoon is. Often times, Chris would call him "Rattatta" which annoys Rigby as he would often insist that he's a "Sentret".
Because it happened in the middle of the class, it led to further humiliation of the talking raccoon.
Rigby would never recover from that day.
Later on, during lunch time, at the cafeteria, the raccoon would get beaten up for his lunch money...the usual. But the problem is that after stealing his lunch money, one of the bullies would hold him down and drop the "mayo grenade" right in front of him, causing the mayonnaise to splatter all over the raccoon's face. This demonstrates that even in the special education portion of the school, there are thugs that exists...then again, that's probably the reason why they were there in the first place, just like that certain person who joked about killing his brother an-
"I get it already, stop talking nonsense, get back to the story!"
Okay fine...dumbass.
"STOP THAT!"
Picking on Rigby never gets old does it?
Anyway, back to the story, due to the constant problems he faced, as well as his horrific grades due to lack of motivation to succeed, the raccoon would eventually drop out of the school think that it's nothing more but a waste of time.
Back to the present...
"Besides, the only reason why I was in special education is because I heard the school works are much easier, but those kids...they're even worse than the ones I had in classes before I got there!" Rigby yelled.
"Actually, even if you haven't slacked off and got yourself demoted to special education, you still would have wind up there anyway." said Mordecai.
"What?"
"What I'm saying is...you're just not smart, remember, who was the one who dropped out?"
Rigby then runs out of the house screaming.
Thinking that Rigby will cry himself out, Mordecai simply waited until his friend returns. However, after an hour of waiting, the blue jay begins to feel guilty for making fun of his friend so he decides to look for him.
"Rigby, where are you? I'm here to apologize for what happen." he yelled.
There was no answer.
"Where could he be?" he wondered.
The blue jay then heads to Skips' garage in hope of finding the raccoon but to no avail.
When Mordecai explained to Skips about what happened, the yeti shook his head and said, "You shouldn't have said that to Rigby."
"I know and now I don't know where he is." said Mordecai.
"I do have an idea where he could be."
"Really, what is it? I need to know!"
The yeti sighed and said, "Remember the fight you two had?"
That's when Mordecai remember what happened that time.
One day, the two had an argument over who gets to be "Player 1" and often times, it gets settled through Mordecai's favorite pastime known as "punchies" in which he would break Rigby's arm. Because Rigby always loses in "punchies", the raccoon suffered from series of humiliation at the hands of other people as well, including Pops. One of the greatest injuries he had came from when he tried to challenge Skips to "punchies", only to wind up in the emergency room and from that day, he was known as the "One Cheek Wonder".
But then Rigby went to learn martial arts to exact his revenge and the mess was made when Mordecai did the same to stop him, resulting in a massive damage to the park.
"Oh crap!"
The blue jay then runs off.
After spending the next several hours looking for Rigby all over the city, the weary blue jay returns to the park where he would find a surprise that awaits him.
"Where have you been Mordecai" someone said with a sinister tone.
"Rigby?"
The raccoon gave an evil grin and said, "So I'm a loser for dropping out of high school am I? Today, I will make you regret what happened today!"
Stunned, Mordecai then said, "Okay...but what you just said seems a bit redundant..."
"Keep mocking me while you can, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can literally hurt you!" Rigby yelled.
Suddenly, Mordecai finds himself being pelted by something and could see the words appearing out of nowhere as they begins to fly toward him like projectiles.
"What th-"