The final weeks of school seemed to go by quickly for the students at Springfield High, and everyone agreed that it was such a relief to be finally over and done with. Most of the students were ready to move on and go to college, while others, mainly Homer, were now planning on attending an extra three months of high school to finish what they started. Homer had passed his other classes like he wanted to, though barely in Speech after giving everyone a lecture about why they should bring the minimum age to drink down to fifteen. So far, Homer had talked Barney's uncle into giving him a job at the bowling alley, he planned to work there during the weekends during the summer and then for as long as he could with Barney once he was done with school. Both were not looking into college yet but both planned on buying an apartment as soon as they got enough money from their paycheck to move out of their parents houses.
Barney did not need to attend summer school and was out there with the rest of the class getting ready to graduate. Homer of course did not want to miss out on his best friends graduation so he happily sat in the stands with Mr. and Mrs. Gumble while Barney walked up to receive his certificate. The graduation went in alphabetical order of last name, so the first person that Homer really cared about getting a certificate was Marge, who he loudly whooped and hollered over causing most of the graduates to turn around and wonder who was being so enthusiastic over her. Marge of course only rolled her eyes while Artie sat in his seat grumbling under his breath at how ridiculous Homer was being.
Next came Carl Carlson who Homer also gave a round of applause to for finally graduating. Barney's turn came after a very long gap but that did not stop both Homer and Barney's parents from cheering him on as he reached the podium and shook hands with Dondelinger before waving at everyone and looking all proud for finally finishing high school. Lenny Leonard was next and actually danced onstage as he received his diploma. Apparently the rest of the school loved it because everyone started yelling and hollering happily for him.
Now that Homer's friends were all done, there was no one else to cheer for, but decided to stay put when he remembered that the last person up to receive his diploma was Artie. Homer knew that it would be fun to jeer at him since he was also the valedictorian to the class. It was a long wait but Homer was ready for it when it finally happened. Dondelinger announced Artie as the last person to receive his diploma and as soon as Artie showed himself, Homer booed him as loud as he could, even though his classmates around him were clapping over him, so no one really heard him until the entire auditorium went silent as Artie made his way to the podium to give a speech.
"Boo, you suck!" Homer yelled.
Artie stared at his notes for a moment before looking up at Homer with a smirk. "I suck huh? Well I'm not the one watching all of his classmates graduate while you have to wait another three months am I," Artie said. The auditorium let out a roar of laughter. Homer only glared back until the room was silent once again.
"Eh well you still suck any way," Homer called out before getting up and walking out. He was in no mood to listen to the guy who took the woman he loved; he had better things to do. There was a new record he had recently bought at home waiting him; at least he could count on that.
It was now five in the evening and Homer was rummaging through his record collection wondering what song he could waste a few hours with now. If he had graduated, he knew he would be doing something tonight; perhaps his father would actually care enough to take him out to dinner like his friends were most likely doing for the evening. He knew a party was going on sometime during the week, but he knew he was probably not invited; only the people who were graduating could attend. He had no idea if he was the only one who failed this past year in two classes and he didn't really want to know. He just wanted to prove to Dondelinger that he could pass, and maybe perhaps become successful in something one day, he had no idea what it was yet though. Nothing seemed to catch his eyes, not even the new nuclear power plant that Lenny would not shut up about.
Homer stared at the cover of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, wondering if the record would be worth wasting a few hours with when the phone rang. For a moment he wondered if it was his father calling him to ask him what he wanted for dinner, or that he was working late. One of those rare instances in which Abe cared about Homer. Homer ran to get the phone and was surprised to hear Barney on the other end of the line.
"Hey Homer, whatcha doing tonight?" Barney asked.
"Oh nothing spectacular, just thinking about listening to Pink Floyd," Homer said with a bored sigh.
"Oh good, so you're not doing anything. Lenny, Carl and I were wondering if you wanted to help us crash Ryan Thurston's graduation party tonight, we got some whisky to put into the punch," Barney said as he shook the bottle loud enough for Homer to hear on the other end of the line.
"Oh I don't know Barney, it sounds tempting, but I don't think I am invited, seeing as how I haven't graduated yet," Homer said.
"You can be our guest," Barney said as if trying his hardest to convince Homer to come. Homer of course was more nervous about the fact that Ryan Thurston was holding the party, one of Artie Ziff's friends. Artie would most likely be there and so would Marge, so Homer was of course nervous about the idea of showing up and trying to avoid her or even trying to get near her after drinking some of the whisky. It was probably best not to go.
"I bet they got finger foods!" Carl said excitedly knowing full well how Homer loved small samples.
Homer thought about the foods in his mind for a moment, cheese squares, crackers with dip, sausages, even sushi. Those foods were never easy to pass up. "Mmmmmm…horse doovers," Homer drooled while he mispronounced the name.
"So is that a yes?" Barney asked.
"Yeah, I have nothing better to do, and if Artie gives me any trouble I'll just fight back, after all I got you guys to back me up," Homer replied.
Barney only let out a nervous laugh. "We'll pick you up in fifteen minutes."
The party was already well underway when the four friends arrived, the song "Pinball Wizard" by The Who was blaring out loudly through the windows and doorways, while several students danced and played air guitar to the song by the open windows. Nearby the four could see three well known students hiding behind some bushes, a small smoke trail rising up above them. Another bush was shaking a few feet away; this was definitely a wild party outside, but what about inside?
Homer followed his friends inside and were quickly greeted by one of Ryan's friends named Stuart, a tall fellow known to have given quite a few concussions in his days as a football player. Homer of course stared at him with a nervous gulp; he could sense Stuart knew all about his inability to graduate.
"I didn't know you were invited?" Stuart said with a huff.
"Oh he's with us, we thought we could bring a guest," Barney replied as bravely as he could.
Stuart stared back at Homer for a moment while Homer slowly started backing away; knowing it probably wasn't a good idea to be there. This guy could beat him up if he made one bad move and he really did not want to take that chance.
"Awww come on Stuart old pal, do this as a favor after I got you out of that scuffle last junior year," Carl said as he patted his friend on the shoulder.
Stuart rolled his eyes and wiped Carl's hand off his shoulder. "Alright, but if he makes any funny business, out he goes." Stuart quickly stepped aside and let the four boys into the room.
Jackpot, Homer was now among friends, ready to have a great time and enjoy the evening as he tried to get the idea of not graduating yet out of his mind. And the best way for him to do that was to go straight over to the finger foods table where he immediately got a plate and started to pile it all on, at the same time, the guys began pouring a bottle of Jack Daniels into the punch bowl.
As Homer was getting all excited over the idea of chicken wraps, Ryan appeared next to him watching him take as much food that could fit onto his plate and occasionally his pockets. Homer was so into what he was doing that he did not notice him until he moved over to the cheese squares. As soon as he did, he almost dropped all of his treasure onto the floor; luckily he had good balance for that split second.
"Hi Ryan," Homer said nervously.
Ryan stared at him for a moment like an angry college professor waiting patiently for an essay to be returned. Homer of course felt like the student and stood there stock still, not sure what to do with all the food in his hands. He really had not been invited and now he had nearly ransacked the entire buffet table.
"You know you can have seconds, even thirds, hell you can even have tenths if you heart so desires, I have plenty more waiting in the kitchen," Ryan said.
Homer let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, I guess I just get excited over finger foods, they are so tasty."
"Yes I know your love of food well, and I know I did not invite you, so please behave or I will send Stuart to kick you out, have I made myself clear?" asked Ryan.
"Sure," Homer replied before turning around and grabbing a few pieces of ham. Ryan only rolled his eyes as he made his way to some friends who were discussing their ideas for the summer.
Homer reached the punch bowl where his friends were now snickering at what they had done. Barney was already halfway through one glass but showed no signs of drunkenness. Homer watched him slurp down the rest as another student came forward and took a ladleful of punch. He took a quick sip before spitting it out and turning to the four guys who were huddled around it.
"You guys are morons," he said before walking away.
"Hmm looks like he might tell Ryan on us, should we move somewhere else?" asked Lenny.
"Yeah let's go hang on the porch and watch them throw horseshoes," Carl replied while Barney and Homer filled their glasses up before following them to the back of the house.
Apparently this was where most of the action was, most of the girls were there cheering their boyfriends on in the game. While others were playing pool or watching a baseball game on TV. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves now that high school was out of the way and the only thing they needed to worry about now was college. Homer and the guys looked around for a spot to sit down or a conversation to join, when Marge entered through the back door.
Homer's heart skipped a beat as she made her way in his direction, the song "American Woman" by The Who blaring over the speakers, the perfect song for such a moment. She was wearing a skirt that went down just above the knees and a shirt that showed her lower abs including her bellybutton. Her hair was down today so it flowed in the wind as she closed the door behind her. He could not help but stare at her as she walked past him while he took a big gulp of his whisky laced punch. It was like seeing her at first sight again and he wanted to embrace her tightly in his arms.
"Wow Homer, you tried to go out with that girl?" asked Lenny.
Homer said nothing but took another big gulp of his drink, emptying it and already starting to feel a buzz. Whisky worked much quicker than beer, but Homer did not really know this and was willing to go back for more especially since that was where Marge was going. But there was no way he was going to let her drink that stuff, it was more for the guys and Marge didn't need all that alcohol down her throat. Setting his mountain of finger foods down, he ran toward the buffet table cutting in front of Marge while he poured some more punch for himself.
"I wouldn't drink this stuff if I were you," Homer said.
"Oh? How come?" Marge asked as she grabbed a Vienna sausage.
"My buddies put whisky in it, girls shouldn't drink whisky," Homer replied before letting out a large hiccup.
"Oh! Well that's not fair to everyone who just wants to enjoy a drink of punch, I better tell Ryan," Marge said as she walked off. Homer watched her go, apparently when she moved fast, her butt wiggled and it made him giggle as she walked off. The whisky was settling into his system rather quickly, he was still young and had not been taught properly how it was much stronger than beer. He quickly grabbed another cupful after taking one large gulp of his second cup. He drank a few more sips of his newly refreshed cup before Ryan returned with his girlfriend Abby, both looking a bit annoyed.
"So you spiked the punch?" he asked.
"No it wasn't me it was the guys," Homer said as he tried to point toward the guys, now feeling very tipsy and unsure where to point.
Ryan growled under his breath as he ran to the back of the house, leaving Abby with Homer. Homer turned to Abby with a drunken smile, his eyes quickly falling down to her chest where she was revealing enough cleavage to make any man fall for her.
"You got nice boobies," Homer exclaimed.
"Umm…thanks," Abby said as she turned around and went the other way where Marge was talking with some other girls.
Homer watched her go, and just like Marge, her butt was wiggling as she ran off. Homer of course, was not using much common sense now, so whatever came out of his mouth was not something to be proud of.
"Glad it's shaken, not stirred," he said with a giggle before taking another sip.
"Ugh, and you kiss your mother with that mouth," another voice said next to him.
Homer turned around to see another girl in his class, Sarah Connelly. Not the most attractive girl in the class, and definitely not one with the best attitude either. Yet for some reason tonight, Homer found her attractive and he quickly let out a sigh of happiness to her.
"Actually my…hic…mother is dead," Homer said with a laugh and now getting even more tipsy.
"Ugh and you find that funny?" asked Sarah with a sneer, an expression that always made the boy shudder at how horrible she looked when she did it. But Homer didn't seem to notice this time.
"Because you asked me…hic…if I kissed my…hic…mother….it would be kinda…hic…gross to kiss my own dead…hic…mother now wouldn't it?" asked Homer as he looked closer at Sarah's bosom.
"Stop staring you pig," Sarah said as she slapped him hard in the face.
"I am not a pig…hic…I am a...hic…human person," Homer said as he rubbed his cheek before Lenny grabbed his punch glass from his hand.
"Geeze Homer, we only wanted you to drink one glass," Lenny said.
"Well it was some…hic… very good punch…hic… I find Sarah here very attractive, now give me…hic… a smooch," Homer said as he ran back toward Sarah not caring if she liked getting kissed on the face or not.
"Get the hell away from me you drunk!" Sarah said as she pushed him away, hard enough to send him crashing down. Of course, Homer tried to stay level and grabbed the table linen cover, causing all the food on the table to crash to the ground with him.
Moments later, Homer found himself covered in all sorts of finger foods while scores of people who had heard all the commotion came over and stood around him to see what had gone on. Homer looked up at everyone with a sheepish grin knowing full well that he had just ruined part of the party for everyone. He could see Marge and Artie standing nearby with unhappy faces while Barney, Lenny, and Carl tried to help him up.
"This is your fault for spiking the punch," Ryan grumbled at the three.
"Hey we didn't know Homer would take so much," Barney replied with a belch that also smelled heavily of liquor.
"Either way, you ruined the entire party, now either get out or Stuart will show you out," Ryan said angrily.
Barney, Lenny, and Carl quickly took Ryan's advice and began to walk out the door. It was best to stay out of this and go do something else, perhaps sober up Homer. Too bad Moe Syzlak wasn't around; he knew how to fix someone who was drunk like Homer. But Moe hadn't been in town for almost five years now, and they knew it was many more years before he would ever return.
"You can't make us leave, this is a free country and I can stare at all the girls I want," Homer said rather tipsily as he helped himself up.
"Homer don't!" Carl exclaimed as he ran forward to grab him.
"Let go of me black man, I can take Stuart on any day of the week," Homer said as he put up his fists.
Homer started to do a drunken dance around Stuart, his fists clenched at the ready. Barney, Lenny, and Carl only backed away, knowing full well what Stuart would do in a situation like this. It was best to stay out of it and live to fight another day. Homer did not even notice but continued to circle Stuart as if waiting for an opportunity to strike. Stuart only rolled his eyes and waited for Homer to do something stupid. That moment came when Homer threw his fist out at him; Stuart quickly grabbed it with one hand while hitting him below the belt with the other. Homer let out a pained yelp while he clutched his crotch with his free hand.
"Geeze, warn me next time!" Homer cried.
Stuart let out a small chuckle before grabbing Homer by the collar and dragged him outside while Homer tried to release himself from the football players grip. Finally, Stuart reached the front door and stood face to face with Homer who stared back at Stuart with drunken, yet very scared eyes.
"Looks like I can make you leave," Stuart said.
Then before Homer knew it, Stuart slammed his fist hard into Homer's right eye before throwing him out the door. Homer felt himself fly through the air for just a moment before landing heavily into some bushes and everything around him went black.
A/N: Alright not the best chapter in the world, but still sort of fun to write all the same. Yeah I injured Homer, again. Don't worry it's not as bad as what I have given him before, this is all tame stuff. And if you are wondering about Moe, he will show up but not until about chapter ten, you will see what he is up to.
Okay now I want to get something off my chest that has been bugging me and a few other writers on here. I decided that I should probably break this to the person in question so to those who do not call themselves The Simpsons Fan you may just scroll down and click on the review button to review because this is really just meant for The Simpsons Fan.
Now The Simpsons fan, CalculatedChaos, UndeadSamurai and I have been discussing and reading most of your reviews lately, truthfully they have been really getting on our nerves with the way you have been saying things, so this is what we have to say about all this, and I am going to number stuff just like you do.
1. First of all we cannot write as fast as you want us to write something. Writing is actually not as easy as it looks, it takes dedication and time to think up what we are writing so that we may give everyone something good to enjoy and remember for years to come. Some of us have jobs, some of us have school, and some of us have something called writers block where we have to think long and hard about what we should do with the next chapter. I for one have a job and go to school. I am currently getting ready for my senior audit so I can graduate and I am also starting up a resume to look for a job that goes with my degree. It's a long process and takes up most of my time, so writing sometimes has to wait, no matter how hard I want to do it. CalculatedChaos is looking for a job and he is trying to make a good story for all of us, I help him out from time to time and it gets frustrating seeing another review where you bitch and moan because he hasn't updated. UndeadSamurai is in school as well and he works long hours to get things done. So please, give us some slack and learn the value of patience, it's the greatest thing in the world, even better than love I think.
2. Please stop acting like you are the only person reading these things and telling us what to put into our stories or even telling us what stories we should be writing. We have our own ideas and if we do like a small suggestion someone makes (example: Bart's prank to Burns in Love Thy Neighbor) we try it out. If it doesn't work, then it doesn't work. Don't get upset over it.
3. Stop comparing other people's works to Love Thy Neighbor and Death of a Simpson, its rude. Yes it's probably not as good and yes they could do better but like I said earlier, writing takes practice it takes many years of skills to get something right. In fact we would love to see you try it just to see if you can pull something off.
4. Stop reviewing every time you reread something, you don't have to tell us every single time. Sure it gives us more reviews but truthfully there really is no point to it, just the same person telling us we are great and asking us questions that we have to answer in our review page which we hate doing because that is giving us more review for ourselves, the review page is not a forum. It's stupid. Get your own damn membership, it's not that bad, we can send you PMs and answer you that way.
5. Finally we have a button on our profile where we can disable anonymous reviews. So if you get any more annoying, we can simply press that button. I know it has looked mighty friendly lately to me, but I would hate to do it because there are other anonymous people out there who would still like to review, don't ruin it for everyone.
Alright I just wrote a whole page about that and that's probably enough now. In summary, tone it down a notch. Be excited about our stories, we like hearing what you have to think about them, but don't go overboard. If I sounded mean, well you brought this on yourself, we have been very patient with you for the last few months but our patience started to wear thin. Yeah I just broke my own rule saying that patience is awesome oh well.
As for the rest of you, thanks for being patient and giving us great reviews, you are all awesome. I will see you all when I can update again in the near future.