"This is more retarded than when I got that gumball stuck up my nose." "Or the time I wanted to be the first white Harlem Globetrotter." "And it's more embarrassing than the time my mom walked in on me while I was trying to simulate vaginal friction by rubbing my boner between the mattress and box springs." "Why don't you go out and play." "It's such a beautiful day." "No, this tops it." "And it's all because of Erica." "Erica." "It sounds so much like "erotica. "" "And it's fitting:" "She's a walking wet dream." "The kind of girl whose mere glance at you could get your pecker to stand up and say, "Howdy. "" "And not your normal, run-of-the-mill erection." "We're talking the kind that could be picked up on radar." "The kind you could hang a flag from." "And her breasts." "They must have tractor beams in them." "They pull my hands toward them like the Death Star dragging in the Millennium Falcon." "Come on, guys." "If I had breasts like that, I could have ruled the world." "You are in love with her, no?" "No, I'm not." "Then why are you sitting so funny?" "Nonno." "Don't be ashamed." "A man is two people:" "Himself and his penis." "A man always takes his friend to the party but of the two, the friend is nicer because he is more able to show his feelings." "Does this Erica know what you think about her?" "She's got a boyfriend." "They are not lovers?" "l don't think so." "That is good." "one pubic hair between a man and a woman can be stronger than the Atlantic cable." "You're telling me." "What is your problem with the bella?" "She goes off to college on the East Coast in three months." "Then you must declare your love to her immediately." "Are you crazy?" "You must." "lt is the only way." "oh, no, no, no." "She'll think I'm a spaz." "Then you prefer to sit funny the rest of your life?" "Now, listen, ragazzo, I will tell you a story." "It is about your great-great-grandfather Giuseppe Luigi Bendini." "When he was a boy your age, he was in love with the most beautiful girl in the village of Cascata." "But the bella she did not see anything in Giuseppe." "So one day, Giuseppe, an enterprising young boy declared his love to her." "He said:" ""I, Giuseppe Luigi Bendini, love you and to prove that I will always be there for you I will stand under your balcony day and night without relent until you fall in love with me. "" "So Giuseppe stood outside that balcony day and night." "Night and day." "Until, finally, his love came out to the balcony and cried:" ""Giuseppe Luigi Bendini, I love you!"" "So Giuseppe climbed up to the balcony and into her bed." "They made love so passionately that the ground shook." "And villagers today still believe that's what caused the 1 874 earthquake." "I can't do that." "You can, my friend." "Women are like breaking into a bank." "It takes nerve." "It takes daring." "Sometimes you need a little bit of dynamite to blow the vault." "I don't know what it was." "Maybe all the benzoyl peroxide in my zit cream had affected my brain." "Or maybe I had a strange fetish for humiliation at the hands of a woman." "I figured this stemmed from watching too many episodes of Julie Newmar as the Catwoman in all those Batman reruns." "But it seemed like an audacious idea." "I decided to try it." "Peter, that is so sweet." "I was beginning to think this might work when she said the most dreaded two words in the English language." "But, Peter, we're just friends." ""Just friends. "" "The words hit me like screaming lead shot from a .38." "I wanna be just friends." "It's just a flesh wound, my friend." "It will not kill you." "Get back up and fight." "I'm not gonna give up so easily." "But, Peter" "I was rudely interrupted by Erica's boyfriend, Nick." "He's what I call a "gaping asshole. "" "You know, the type of guy that's going to college on a football scholarship." "But what bothers me most is he's one of those macho dicks who's always grabbing his crotch and adjusting his balls." "I mean, what's the deal?" "He acts like he's a guard at the Tower of London." "He's gotta check every 1 0 seconds to see if the crown jewels are still there." "And how come every asshole I know has to make that noise?" "You can hear a symphony of those in any boys' locker room." "Is it like a lion roaring?" "The asshole who can hawk a loogie the loudest is the leader of the herd?" "Needless to say, Nick has been my nemesis since I was 5." "l forbid you to go out dressed like that." "Dad." "No self-respecting Christian girl would be seen in public in a" "Just get in the house." "Get in the house." "Erica." "Erica." "Erica!" "Erica looked more doable than Barbara Feldon in Get Smart." "Erica!" "Get your" "She kissed Nick so hard, I'm sure they could've swallowed each others uvulas." "Erica, if you" "What the hell's his story?" "She then proceeded to tell Nick what I was up to." "And if things weren't hard enough, I encountered more unexpected problems." "Well, our prayers have been answered." "I have been asking God to send someone to take her away from that heathen boyfriend, Nick." "You're a miracle." "Yes." "Erica's dad can never have a conversation without quoting some guy named Zig Ziglar, a Christian motivational speaker." "Frankly, I'd never be caught dead quoting some guy named Zig." "The difference between you and that barbarian, Nick, is that you" "Remember what he said." "have a "swelled heart, not a swelled head."" "I wanted to tell him that his daughter gave me both." "But I didn't." "Peter, I thought you might be hungry so I brought cookies I made for the church bake sale." "I wasn't all that surprised by the cookies." "This is the same woman who encourages her youngest daughter, Mary to play with nun dolls." ""Now say 50 more." "Hail Mary, Hail Mary Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary...."" "Thanks." "Yes, yes, yes." "Now let's face it." "It's a proven fact that girls do not fall in love with any boy her parents actually like." "I vowed at that very moment that I would find a way to make her parents hate me." "I set Giuseppe to work on it." "Go ahead, Peter, try it." "My dad's reaction to my plan, when he heard about it from Mom registered on the Richter scale at Caltech." "Peter." "Peter!" "Stop acting like you don't hear me." "Peter." "Hell's bells." "You get inside right this instant." "l'm not leaving this spot." "Yes, you are." "No, I'm not." "Yes, you are." "You stop listening to your grandfather's nonsense." "He's not all there." "Now, come on." "Let go. I'm not hurting anyone." "You are acting like a fool." "Now, come on." "No." "Give it up, son." "Mom!" "Listen to your father." "This is ridiculous." "What will the neighbors think?" "Some of them are my patients." "They'll stop coming to me if they think my son's a pervert who stands under girls' windows." "You're just embarrassing our entire family." "Dad!" "l'm sorry." "Now, let go, Peter." "My New Guinea impatiens!" "l'm sorry." "What are you doing?" "Good old Nonno." "Whenever a situation calls for it my grandfather pulls his "infirm old man " routine." "I'm sorry." "He's saved my life hundreds of times." "I'm sorry." "The same couldn't be said for my best friend, Matt." "This is my last chance." "Look, you know, I just don't wanna see you setting yourself up like this." "I have been in love with Erica since we were kids." "We used to play Cowboys and Indians together." "When we were little, we used to do everything together." "When you get mad at someone, you go like this:" "lt was great." "lt'll never work." "Why not?" "Because we're losers." "Look, we've been picked by genetic selection to be the world's biggest living proof that this world is fucked." "How's that?" "We lost the DNA lottery." "We didn't get the asshole gene." "See, we're the nice guys." "We're never gonna succeed." "only the assholes get the girls and the dough, bro." "You've got it all figured out." "Damn straight, I do." "My parents think I'm going to college in the fall." "I'm not going to college so I can be a jerk with a degree who assistant-manages a Burger King." ""Would you like fries with that, please?" No way." "So you're just gonna give up?" "Yep." "And I suppose you want me to give up too?" "Exactly." "You gotta become comfortably numb." "You can't let anyone or anything disappoint you." "You gotta be self-sufficient." "I mean, look at me." "Do I need a girl like Erica?" "No." "Since you're gonna be here all summer, mind if I use your mailing address?" "What for?" "l sent away for something and I don't want my mom to accidentally open it." "So I figured you'll be out here, you can intercept it before anyone gets it." "okay, I guess." "Yes." "Hey." "But admit it sometimes you wish you had a girlfriend." "No way." "Blockbuster, Domino's Pizza Rosy Palm and her five friends are all I need for a great Saturday night." "Maybe if you're 1 4." "okay, you do have a point." "Sometimes I do need to spice up my love life a little bit." "I'd like you to meet my date for the evening, Peter." "You know, I read in Barely Legal magazine about this guy he got off humping fruit." "You're a sick puppy." "The sun is gonna make it nice and warm." "Just like the real thing." "Well, what about the seeds?" "Come on. I'm not gonna go down on it." "I amused myself by watching the neighborhood." "Life is my TV." "And it was a little more interesting than network television." "There was Mr. Mays." "My parents think he works for the CIA or the FBI." "It's because every time he comes home he drives around the block again and again to make sure he's not being followed." "There's a kid on the street that's a pyromaniac." "Matt made sure his parents had left him alone in the house." "Bye, guys." "He then went to the upstairs bathroom to make amore with his watermelon." "And the guy across the street." "I forget his name." "But he seems so sad." "His wife has cancer." "He dutifully takes her out for a breath of fresh air every day." "It's a good thing Erica isn't around." "I got a woody watching Ms. Lewis work out to Buns of Steel." "And pull." "And pull." "And pull." "Mr. Mays put in a second lap." "The crazy lady next door eats her dinner in the car." "I was dismayed to see history repeating itself." "Maybe Matt is right." "Some people are born with the asshole gene and some of us aren't." "There was nothing much happening to keep me amused at night." "At about 1 0, I saw Matt go out to the upstairs balcony." "If he had been in there all that time that watermelon now had more holes in it than a Wiffle ball." "Only the crazy lady was out." "She was cutting her grass." "It looked like there was something good on TV over at my house and I wanted to watch it." "But something got in the way." "So I watered the plants instead." "I figured I should take advantage of the time I had on my hands." "I vowed that if I were to become Erica's boyfriend I had to become the greatest lover she had ever known." "In pursuit of that goal, I decided I would become an expert in love." "I started by reading The Joy of Sexuality." "It wasn't the descriptions of the wildly uninhibited Chinese-style sex positions like the "wailing monkey clasping a tree" or "wild geese flying on their backs " that I found most enlightening." "It was the guy they picked to illustrate all the exotic conjugations." "The guy is butt-ugly." "And the girl was a babe." "This was inspiring." "I mean, if this Quest for Fire reject could get laid, why couldn't I?" "oh, good, my parents aren't home from church yet." "I'll meet you inside." "I'm gonna have a talk with your friend Peter." "okay." "So you're still here, huh?" "I would have thought you'd have gotten smart and given up by now." "Why do guys always make that noise?" "What noise?" "This noise:" "I mean, you guys spit so much." "Makes you wonder what you've been sucking on." "Shut up." "oh, what a" "What a demonstrative display of masculine aggression." "Did you know that such behavior is a sign of latent homosexuality?" "I think it's time you left." "l'm not leaving." "You wanna fight?" "I'll give you a free shot." "Go for it, my friend." "How could I refuse this invitation?" "I was going to lose this fight but at least I could get one killer shot in." "So I charged the Prince of Darkness." "Then I realized my mistake." "It was a trick." "It felt like my nuts had exploded." "And it sounded like a pair of water balloons dropped off a building." "That'll teach you, huh?" "I took it as a good sign that Erica was curious to see if I was still there." "It was important that Erica never see me flag in my devotion by leaving my post." "But on the other hand, I didn't wanna smell like my uncle Lou when Erica finally buckled under my romantic vigilance." "So I figured while she was getting ready for the day I'd pop inside for a quick shower and some Cheerios." "What are you doing?" "Changing the locks." "When you finally give up this nonsense I'll let you back inside." "Dad, give me a break." "Forget it." "Mom." "This was desperate." "No food." "No water." "Nice." "And I really needed to do some low-altitude bombing." "I had no choice but to impose on my best friend, Matt." "Hey, Matt, open up!" "I'm showering, man!" "The side door's open!" "What about a little privacy?" "oh, man." "Light a match." "Sorry." "Hey, where's your toothpaste?" "oh, get out of here." "People are gonna think we're queer or something." "What the hell are you doing?" "I started reading The Joy of Sexuality checked out the part about cunnilingus." "Wanted to make sure I was in shape." "Cunnilingus." "Yo, you've been checking out for my mail?" "Nothing came yet." "Brought you some food." "No, thanks." "Come on, it's good." "Sorry about the noise, Peter, but I'm putting locks on all the windows." "I don't want Erica pulling another stunt like she did yesterday." "Man." "I wish you'd give this up, man." "Listen, I'm not so sure I believe your theory about the asshole gene." "oh, come on." "Look." "I mean, it's everywhere you look." "Hey, you want a taste?" "Yeah." "That's an isolated case." "All right." "What if I told you that even our Founding Fathers were assholes?" "What are you talking about?" "Take the Boston Tea Party, for instance." "All right?" "Even with taxation the British tea cost less than the colonial tea produced by those guys like John Hancock and Sam Adams." "No, don't do it!" "No!" "See, the Boston Tea Party wasn't a political act." "It was an industrial espionage." "It was a scam by John Hancock and Sam Adams to put the British out of business." "See?" "Even our Founding Fathers were a bunch of assholes." "You've got a point." "But I've been thinking about this, and I got a couple theories of my own." "Shoot." "Well, I think you can tell a lot about a woman's personality from the shape of her breasts." "What are you getting into right now?" "Take Mrs. olsen, for instance." "What have you done?" "Her boobs look like the turret on a tank." "Her mammaries look like they could shoot a mortar charge, blow you to smithereens." "You can see she has the same iron-fisted personality that matches her hooters." "you have ever been in your life." "All right, you got a point." "Go on." "Now, take the crazy lady next door." "Now, don't give me the willies." "No, look." "She's got mashed-potato breasts." "Dude, they're so weird." "Yeah." "Right." "And she's weird too." "All right." "But, you know, you're just giving me easy examples." "All right." "Ms. Lewis." "Bosoms like melons that have been in the store a little too long." "You may be taking a chance, buying them after the expiration date but if you're lucky, they might still be good." "She's the same way." "She's a little older, but I bet she's a good woman." "okay, now, what can you deduce from Erica's breasts?" "I've done a lot of thinking about this." "As you can see, her breasts are extremely firm." "So taut, you expect the nipples to blow off like a cork out of a champagne bottle." "I see this as a reflection of Erica's effervescent, wild life-is-a-party personality." "It's also self-evident that her breasts are on the small side." "I suspect it's gonna take centuries for them to droop." "Meaning that she will always be young at heart." "But here's something that you may miss upon a cursory glance:" "Some women's nipples can become hard like pink pencil erasers so hard that you could dial a phone with them, you know?" "These women, I suspect, are often more concerned with the particulars in life like avoiding laying in the wet spot." "But with Erica notice how the nipple merges almost effortlessly with the areola bringing a softness to her nipular area." "I think this suggests a softness of heart." "I mean, this is a girl more concerned with passion than particulars." "Am I right?" "Matt?" "Pete, I gotta go." "Something I gotta do at home." "See you." ""l'm really hungry." "Hungry, hungry, hungry, hungry."" "The only thing I had eaten that day was Matt's watermelon." "I hadn't eaten all of it for obvious reasons." "So I was pretty hungry by the time Nonno snuck out of the house." "Get down." "Nonno, what are you doing out here?" "Goal!" "Goal!" "Goal!" "Goal!" "okay. okay." "Goal!" "okay. okay." "Marge!" "Your dad thinks he's in the World Cup again." "I'm not cool enough." "She's never gonna fall for me." "Standing out here doesn't make any sense, Nonno." "It makes all the sense in the world." "You are trying to make love to a woman." "You must know, deep in your heart of hearts that people are supposed to make love." "It is our main purpose in life." "All those other activities" "Playing the violin, washing dishes, reading novels, drinking wine." "are just ways of passing time until you can make love again." "Then my whole life is passing time." "This is never gonna work." "This bella, Erica she will fall for you." "lmpossible." "Crazier things have happened." "Let me tell you another story." "oh, great." "Look at all the trouble your last one got me into, Nonno." "It is about a young Navy pilot." "He could perform incredible maneuvers in his plane." "Then, one day, he nearly crashed." "The pilot went to the doctors and declared his problem." "Hemorrhoids." "A mass of dilated veins in the rectum." "The doctor had them removed." "What's so romantic about this story?" "The pilot met this nurse." "Twice a day she would change his dressings and apply ointment to his traumatized sphincter." "The two got to talking." "The nurse fell for the young pilot." "Now, if that isn't love, I don't know what is." "After two weeks, the couple got married." "And if it wasn't for a swelling anus the two would never have met." "Now I don't believe any of your stories." "It's all true." "Ask your mom and dad." "That was Mom and Dad?" "Yep." "My massive manhood must have been sapping all the blood from my brain." "That's the only way I could explain my acceptance of this retarded, quixotic quest." "Hours passed into days." "Nick and I got to know each other better." "I had time on my hands." "I read the entire Kinsey reports and found out that 1 0 percent of all males attempt self-fellatio and that 0.3 percent actually succeed." "I had plenty of opportunity to watch the TV of life." "All summer, I never saw Erica wear the same thing twice." "And for Erica's sister, Halloween came early." "Now say 20 Hail Marys." "Hail Mary." "Hail Mary." "My dad couldn't figure out why his New Guinea impatiens wouldn't grow." "Neither could I." "I had been watering it regularly." "Surprisingly enough, I earned some extra money on the side." "Since I know you'll be here all the time I thought you could babysit Robert tonight." "Hey, lady, did you ever think that tonight might be the night that Erica and I tried the "wailing monkey clasping a tree" act?" "Erica's father took a sculpting class that summer." "What is it?" "lt's the baby Jesus." "I figured I'd get a little head start on our Nativity scene for next Christmas." "Little Jesus look more like an aborted fetus, but I kept my mouth shut." "Give me my plane!" "I took a liking to young Robert." "Give me my plane!" "I was his guardian angel." "Sort of." "The next time this guy bothers you, all you have to do is stand up to him." "All bullies are cowards." "Trust me." "Days soon passed into weeks." "The guy across the street stopped taking his wife out." "Now he just walks around the block alone." "I hope she's all right." "On Saturdays, things got a little boring." ""What is the Sea of Galilee called in the old Testament?"" "That's an easy one." "The Sea of Chinnereth." "My turn." ""Was there any money on Noah's Ark?"" "No." "Wrong." "The duck had a bill, the skunk had a scent and the frog had a green back." "Listening to Erica's parents play Biblical Pursuit only strengthened my resolve to find a way to piss them off and impress my beloved." "I had Giuseppe working on it." "Now pull." "And pull." "Some nights were better than others." "All right, ladies, great workout." "okay, great." "But twice a month, I would hear the most distressing sound I could hear:" "The noise of my parents making love." "What's up, Pete?" "Hey." "Anything come in the mail for me yet?" "Nope." "The guy across the street has found a-- A lady friend." "I'm warning you." "Don't do it." "It wasn't until later that I began to have suspicions as to what the woman was imploring him not to do." ""Captain Nemo walked ahead of us and his Herculean companion strode a few steps behind us." "Conseil and I walked side by side as if a conversation might still be possible through our metallic helmets." "Already I no longer felt the weight of my suit of my lead-soled boots, of my air tank or of my helmet...."" "More than half the summer had passed, and everything still sucked the big one." "I was nowhere near my beloved objective." "Finally, in August Erica spoke to me." "Peter?" "Erica." "Hi." "I was wondering if maybe you could help me do something." "Anything." "Well, my parents have grounded me and I really wanna go see Nick tonight so I was hoping you might help me get down." "okay." "It was against my principles to help Erica with Nick but this was at least a way to talk to her." "And in that short skirt I caught my first glimpse of Xanadu." "My God, are you all right?" "I'm-- l'm fine." ""Never better" was more like it." "That's how Erica and I began talking." "l'm so sorry." "Every night she would sneak out to visit Nick, and I would help her." "And every night, I would find a new way for Erica to fall on me." "Pussy Galore." "And we talked." "She was like this tough chick." "And there is no doubt about it Roger Moore is by far the best James Bond." "Roger Moore?" "Come on." "Everybody knows Sean Connery is the best James Bond." "Yeah." "Yeah, you're right." "Roger Moore is the best James Bond." "My God, what was I saying?" "Erica's beauty had more power over me than I thought." "I mean, for me, Sean Connery is just way too hairy." "And it really bugs me the way he talks like this." ""Where's M, Miss Moneypenny?"" "Thank God they never replaced Desmond Llewelyn." "He is so great as Q." "Erica even knew that Desmond Llewelyn played Q." "Now I know I'm in love." "This may sound crazy but sometimes when I'm depressed that the world is a really terrible place I find myself sympathizing with the Bond villains." "What do you mean?" "Well remember how Curt Jurgens, in The Spy Who Loved Me wanted to create a perfect society under the sea?" "And in Moonraker, Hugo Drax wanted to do the same thing..." "...in space?" "Right." "Well, these guys really weren't so bad." "They were just tired of the war, the politics, pollution and" "And wanted to change things." "Then this handsome womanizer who's afraid of commitment pulls up in his fancy sports car and messes things up just to protect the status quo." "I mean sometimes I wish the world could just start over, you know?" "That's deep." "No, I think the blue MM's, they were a good choice." "No way." "I talked to her more in those weeks than I did the previous 1 4 years I lived across the street from her." "So if you were to be afflicted with either of the following, which would it be:" "Halitosis or incontinence?" "Halitosis." "I figure I could always stock up on breath mints." "okay, I have one for you." "Would you rather lose your eyesight or the use of both of your legs?" "That's too hard." "No." "Come on." "You have to answer." "Those are the rules." "Probably, I'd lose my eyesight." "Your face is etched into my memory." "I'd always be able to see you, and with my legs I could still make love to you." "Good night, Peter." "Night." "Hey." "What's up?" "You promise you're not gonna laugh?" "Sure." "Come on." "You said you wouldn't laugh." "l'm sorry." "Can I feel?" "Knock it off." "Look, I was trying to spice up my love life and my parents came home a little bit early." "They wanted to talk to me and ended up searching for me." "So I figured the best thing to do was just get out of the house." "Here, unhook me." "I don't know how girls do this because this thing was a bitch to get on." "Come on." "Yeah, it's a bitch." "Here." "Can you hang on to it till I can sneak it back in?" "And stop smirking." "I'm not the first guy that's tried this." "What does that Kinsey book say about it?" "I think maybe you should give it a rest for a while." "You know, save some for your true love." "Peter, remember that story we read in seventh grade the one in Scholastic Magazine about the heroin addict who was so whacked out that he pulled out his eyeballs?" "They said the dude's eyeballs was hanging down below his knees still attached to his veins or something." "Yeah, I remember." "Yeah." "Well, it wasn't true." "They just printed that to scare us." "Look, it's all propaganda, Pete." "Just like true love is." "You know what?" "You and me ain't never gonna find it." "Did you see that 0.3 percent of all males succeed in self-fellatio?" "Have you noticed the guy across the street never takes his wife out anymore?" "No." "Anything come in the mail for me yet?" "Remember that weird conversation we saw him having with that woman?" "And she was saying, "Don't do it." "Don't do it."" "Yeah." "Hey, maybe the other woman's his lover, right?" "And he says, "l'm gonna kill my wife."" "And she says, "No, don't do it." "Don't do it."" "You think?" "Well, I know if my wife were an invalid, I'd be that horny." "You're sick." "Come on, Pete, everybody is." "The question is what's he done with her body?" "How exactly would you go about cutting up a dead body?" "Well, that's a hacksaw." "Me?" "I'd use a chain saw." "The next day, little Robert decided to take my advice and stand up to the tyranny of assholes." "Little Robert was all right." "He only needed 40 stitches and two casts." "But I began to wonder whether I should've tampered with the cosmic order of things." "I was practicing my one-handed technique when disaster struck." "Nick and Erica had just come back from the lake." "Unfortunately, Erica's parents let her out once in a while." "No, come on." "You remember in that one movie." "I mean, that just proves that Roger Moore is by far the best James Bond." "Erica looked great, of course." "He's all right, I agree he's not bad." "But I nearly hurled at the sight of Nick in his Speedo." "He was huge!" "He immediately makes you think of the words "Apollo rocket. "" "How the hell was I gonna compete with that?" "I was India's space program compared to his Cape Kennedy." "Hey, you brought the protection, right?" "The protection?" "!" "Where were her parents?" "Where was Christ's vice squad when I needed them most?" "Come in, Apollo 1 2." "We have you cleared for takeoff." "Roger that, mission control." "We are ready for liftoff." "We have liftoff in 1 0, nine" "I had to do something." "I had to abort Nick's trip to Venus." "I did the only thing I could think of." "two, one." "I don't know why this came to me." "It must have been a word association with "come. "" "It seemed to do the trick." "Nick, stop." "Apollo 1 2, we've had a malfunction." "Abort liftoff." "I had visions that I could take Nick out with my expert knowledge of the martial arts." "Finish him!" "But that's not what happened." "Towering above me, Nick hawked the biggest loogie ever." "I trembled, knowing it was intended for me." "oh, my God." "You stuff." "You stuff." "If you tell anybody, you're dead." "Houston, we have liftoff." "Dad, what are you doing?" "Having a yard sale." "This is my stuff." "Since you don't live with us anymore, didn't figure you needed it." "How much for the Sandy Koufax baseball card?" "What, 25 cents?" "That's a collector's edition." "It's worth 50 bucks." "Really?" "Twenty-five cents and not a cent less." "Sold." "Thanks." "Mom." "oh, how much for the electric toothbrush?" "For you, a special price." "A buck." "Yeah." "Here you go." "Thank you." "Matt, what are you doing?" "I use one of these at my grandma's." "If you do it right, feels just like a vibrator." "Figlio, what the hell are you doing with your boy's things?" "Dad, they're not his things." "Give you $5 for this collection of Playpen." "l give you 6!" "You're not a customer." "You have no right to sell his things!" "Pages are sticky." "That's disgusting." "No right!" "okay, 4 bucks." "Four bucks?" "No, no, no." "No!" "You have no right!" "You" "All right." "Papa?" "Nonno?" "What's the matter?" "Are you all right?" "Papa!" "okay. okay." "Give the man some room." "Clear out." "Good old Nonno." "He saved the best trick in his arsenal for now." "He was so convincing, I almost believed he was having a heart attack." "Yard sale's over!" "Papa, speak to me!" "Good one, Nonno." "ls anyone a doctor?" "Please, we need some help here!" "l don't know what we can do." "What's happening?" "What is wrong?" "Daddy." "He's not breathing." "What do you mean?" "He doesn't have a pulse." "Somebody call 91 1 ." "Somebody call 91 1 !" "Please call 91 1 !" "Nonno." "Do it now!" "Hurry!" "Hurry!" "Nonno." "Tell them you're faking." "Come on." "Are you faking, Daddy?" "Come on." "He's not faking." "What--?" "Faking?" "Papa" " Papa, speak to me." "oh, no." "I didn't stand under Erica's window for the next couple of days." "I figured I was allowed." "My dad blamed me for what happened." "He said if I still decided to continue with my lunacy he would continue to lock me out." "With an asshole like my dad I'm surprised I didn't inherit the asshole gene." "is that what I think it is?" "Jesus." "I'm getting excited right after my grandfather's own funeral." "You must think I'm sick." "I just think it means Nonno's spirit runs strong in you." "Hey." "Brought back your electric toothbrush." "How thoughtful." "You know, it doesn't vibrate as good as I thought it would." "Here, feel." "No, I'm not touching that, let alone putting it in my mouth." "l washed it off. I swear." "Just keep it." "You're just in a crappy mood because you realize this Romeo act is a dumb-ass idea." "I haven't decided whether to give this up yet." "Erica was so sweet today, you could have poured her over pancakes." "But she hasn't given me any indication that I have a chance with her." "Well, I'll tell you." "The fact that Nick's giving her the old Roto-Rooter ain't a good sign." "Nonno was the only one who thought this was a good idea." "Maybe I should just bite the big one and call it quits." "Bite away, my friend." "Stop it!" "Stop it!" "Stop!" "You see?" "Nice guys don't always finish last." "You're not gonna give up now, are you?" "Nope." "oh, man." "Your grandfather croaking was your perfect out." "I started reading Casanova." "I didn't know he got syphilis five times." "I should be so lucky." "The excitement of the past days had completely lobotomized me to what was going on across the street until I saw my man carry out some suspicious bags and put them in the trunk of his car." "A couple of nights later, I had an unexpected visitor." "It was Ms. Lewis the pretty divorcée from down the street." "Her body was smoldering like a lit cigarette." "Hello, Peter." "Ms. Lewis." "I was hoping you could cut my grass." "I'm not mowing lawns this year." "I'll make it worth your while." "And you won't have to bag it." "I can't." "What am I to do?" "It needs to be cut at least twice a week." "It grows so fast." "She was coming on to me." "I was paralyzed." "I didn't know what to do." "Fortunately, I didn't have to do anything." "She did it all." "I thought, "This might be my chance." "If Erica comes to the balcony and sees me with another woman, she'll be jealous. "" "Stay away from him." "He's my man." "Then I had a fear that Erica was the type of girl who would enjoy watching." "I decided to put my all into it." "If Erica saw how good I was, she would want me even more." "But I also worried she might be as harsh on my performance as an East German judge." "What was I doing?" "If Erica sees me like this I would jeopardize all I had worked for all summer." "I had to stop, but Ms. Lewis was most persuasive." "How could I tell her no now?" "I tried to think of anything other than sex." "What happened?" "I don't know." "Maybe now's not a good time." "Perhaps it's...." "Perhaps it's because I've been trying to get this girl to notice me." "Yes, I know." "I know all about it." "It's what makes you so exciting." "I'm sorry." "Hey!" "What happened to you?" "I tried to become part of that 0.3 percent." "What do you mean?" "Your Kinsey reports." "I tried to suck myself off and I hurt my neck." "Now I gotta wear this stupid thing." "Hey, anything come in the mail for me yet?" "Nope." "What's the matter with you?" "Nothing." "Something's wrong." "Nothing's wrong." "Yes, there is." "See normally, you would have asked me if I succeeded in my venture of self-fellatio." "But you didn't ask that." "Well, did you?" "I will only tell you when you tell me what's wrong." "okay." "I succeeded." "No, you didn't." "Yeah." "only for a second, though before I snapped something in my neck." "Did you know it tastes like roast beef?" "Which I actually found reassuring." "See, I always thought that girls must hate giving head but if you think about it, it's kind of like a trip to the Sizzler." "Come on, tell me what's bothering you." "I'm running out of time." "Erica leaves for college in a couple of weeks." "I'm beginning to think this isn't gonna work." "She probably thinks I'm even more of a schmuck." "Yeah, well, I told you so." "I don't need to hear that from you." "You're supposed to be my friend." "I was just trying to give you some good advice." "Advice." "Why would I take advice from a guy who broke his neck trying to suck his own dick?" "Because I am enterprising." "There was one thing I hadn't tried yet to become Erica's love slave and that was impressing her by pissing her parents off." "Giuseppe had been working on a plan." "We were just waiting for the right opportunity." "Finally it presented itself." "Erica's father and his friends were competing for some Easter pageant contest." "One where 1 2 guys in bed sheets hold a pose of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper for over five minutes." "The team with the best tableau gets to perform it at the National Cathedral for the president or something." "Darn it, Phil." "You moved." "I couldn't help it. I had an itch." "We were only two minutes and 1 3 seconds into it." "We're gonna have to hold it twice that long if we stand any chance to win this thing." "It's easy for you." "You get to rest your elbows on the table." "Try holding your arms out like this for five minutes." "lt's not that hard." "Yeah?" "Then you try it." "Why do you get to be Jesus every year?" "Because I organize this thing." "I'm the leader." "I'm tired of playing Judas all the time." "Come on, Phil." "You make a great Judas." "What is that supposed to mean?" "And where do you think you're going, young lady?" "Nick got tickets to Lollapalooza, so we're going." "Well, don't you remember?" "I banned you from going out." "Can't you make an exception this one time?" "No!" "You're not leaving this house." "Dad, what are you talking about?" "This is not fair!" "It is time, my friend." "You're treating me like I'm 1 0!" "You're acting like you're 1 0!" "Now, I don't enjoy doing this, but it is my resp" "Let her go, or the baby Jesus gets it." "Peter." "Wha--?" "I mean it." "I cannot have you desecrate the baby Jesus." "All right, Erica." "You may go." "Now give him to me." "I'll give him back at the end of the summer, when Erica leaves for college." "It's not fair you keep her locked up in here." "Why, you" " Get him!" "So how do you think Jesus really feels about having his name on all those bumper stickers?" "So my father's pretty pissed." "Yeah." "You didn't have to do that, you know." "I wanted to." "Thanks." "Well, good night." "What?" "She only gave you a peck on the cheek after what you did for her?" "I know." "What does that mean?" "I'll tell you what it means." "It means you ain't never gonna make the beast with two backs with her, friend." "I don't know." "We've been talking a lot lately." "Yeah, sure." "You're in the friend zone." "ls that bad?" "Bad?" "It's the worst." "Come on." "Girls don't want a friend." "They want a human piston." "Well, maybe I still got a chance at becoming her "human piston," as you put it." "We're not that good of friends." "Are you kidding me?" "You're doing life in the friend zone." "You think so?" "l know so." "So, what's up with our psycho killer over there across the street?" "Well, I snuck over there the other night to take a peek at what he was up to." "He nearly caught me." "See, I told you. I knew it." "The guy's nuts." "l'm not so sure." "Past couple of nights I've seen him take garbage bags out filled with something." "Bet you he's taking his wife out piece by piece." "It's a lot of bags for just one person." "Maybe he's taking out his whole family." "I know I've thought about it myself." "I don't think he has any family." "It's here, man." "There you go." "Yes, it's here!" "Look, dude, it's finally here!" "What's finally here?" "It's an orgasmatron." "I ordered it in Shaved magazine." "Check it out." "See?" "It runs on battery or AC." "It's a new era, Pete." "You know they have a name now for electronic sex?" "What's that?" ""Dildonics."" "Pretty cool." "Dildonics." "It kind of makes you sound like a homo." "I never thought of it like that." "Anyway, it's a bold new frontier, man." "I'll let you borrow it any time you want." "That's okay." "Listen, with the way things are going with you you may wanna consider my plan of self-sufficiency." "The friend zone had an incredible hold on me." "I couldn't escape its hellish grasp." "So who would you rather be:" "Paul McCartney or John Lennon?" "That's obvious." "John Lennon." "Yeah, but you'd be dead now." "So what?" "At least I'd be the coolest of all the Beatles." "I don't know." "He did marry Yoko ono." "People underestimate Paul McCartney." "He's written some pretty good music." "Like "Ebony and ivory"?" "okay." "You're right." "You know, I don't think it'd be so hard being a songwriter." "oh, yeah?" "l mean, if you're a novelist you have to come up with every sentence, every word." "If you're a businessman, your reports have to be well-thought-out..." "...with sound financial conclusions, right?" "Right." "But if you're a songwriter, and you can't figure out how to end a song you just fade out." "It's easy." "Yeah." "You're right." "What other job lets you finish it up by just fading out?" "A film director." "So it went on like this." "Maybe Erica was right." "We were just friends." "You never told me." "What's the worst thing your parents ever did to you?" "I guess the worst thing my dad ever did was speak at career day to my third-grade class." "He talked for over half an hour about the joys of being a radiologist and then proceeded to treat the entire class to a chocolate barium." "That's bad." "So, what about you?" "It must have been the time I was 5." "My dad and I were at the Lighthouse Christian Store." "It was January and he was buying Christmas cards." "He always does that." "Buys Christmas cards in January when the previous year's selection go on sale." "Anyway, I had just learned to count." "So I was always counting things like the number of stop lights on the way to the store, stuff like that." "When the cashier gave my dad his change back I had noticed that she'd given him the wrong amount." "She'd given him too much." "And I looked up at my dad, and he had noticed too." "But he didn't do anything." "He just took the money and put it in his wallet, and we left." "It was right then, I guess that I stopped believing my parents were perfect people." "Well good night, Peter." "Night." "If Erica had lost all trust in her parents, how could she trust anything?" "How could she trust that I loved her?" "I was beginning to think Matt was right." "I had tried everything to win over my beloved Erica but nothing had worked." "Nothing was going to work." "It had only stranded me in the friend zone like Charlton Heston being marooned in the Planet of the Apes." "I was so unhappy, whereas my best bud, Matt had fallen in love with a robot which gives blowjobs." "Maybe I was the strange one, not him." "At least he was happy." "My dick!" "My dick!" "Here, you try." "It's silly." "So?" "It's fun." "It'll make you feel like a kid again." "Now, go on." "That's it." "Go, have fun." "You know, everybody thinks you're crazy." "So what?" "Well...." "l mean, you gotta admit, you do some pretty weird things." "I don't think so." "Well explain why you sometimes go out to your car and eat dinner." "My car radio gets better reception than the one on my stereo." "I go out there to listen to my opera." "What about doing your gardening in a scuba mask?" "I love to garden, but I'm allergic to pollen." "It's the only way I can work in the yard without having my eyes all tear up." "okay." "But admit it." "Cutting your grass in the middle of the night?" "It's a little strange." "With this humidity?" "Nighttime's the only sane time to cut the grass." "What about sitting on your roof with the telephone?" "oh, that." "My best friend, Mabel, lives just a couple of blocks away from here." "She's going senile, but she won't admit it and she insists on driving her car." "So when she's coming over to visit I go up on my roof." "I can see her back out of her driveway." "And if she makes a wrong turn I call her on her car phone, give her directions." "voilà." "lt all makes sense." "Everything does." "Just depends on your perspective." "This is the worst day of my life." "The orgasmatron shorted out on me." "Gave my penis an electric shock." "You didn't like that?" "No, you don't understand, okay?" "I can't get it up anymore." "It doesn't work." "Just leave it alone for a little while." "I'm sure it just needs a little R and R." "Yeah, I know. I tried that." "I waited all morning and then tried it again." "It still doesn't work." "I couldn't even get it to go to half-mast." "Hey, what if you're right?" "What if a guy only has a finite number of erections and I've used all mine up?" "Well, what are you gonna do?" "I do have an emergency plan for such an event but I'm gonna need your help." "No way, man. lt's too weird for me." "Come on, man." "Look, it's nothing like that, okay?" "I got some money saved up, and there's this lady on the boulevard." "Let's just say she's an experienced lady." "For 1 00 bucks, she'll do it any way you want." "What do you need me for?" "I can't do this alone." "I need you to go with me." "Now, I got 1 50 saved up." "Hey, we could work a two-for-one deal." "No way." "Come on, man." "I'll even take sloppy seconds." "Just forget it." "I've only got a few days left to win Erica's love." "Even if she doesn't fall in love with me I've decided to stick it out until the end of the summer." "That way, I know I've tried everything." "Please, man." "Come on, man. lt's an emergency." "I need your help." "I can't." "What kind of friend are you?" "I mean, you've spent our last great summer together standing under some stupid girl's window." "And do I say a word about it to you?" "No, not once." "But then, when I need you in the middle of the biggest crisis in my life you don't even consider it?" "You're a dickwad, you know that?" "Yeah." "No wonder Erica doesn't like you." "Take it back." "No." "No." "You know what?" "You're a asswipe, and she's never gonna love you." "Take it back!" "No!" "Come on!" "Yeah." "Take it back." "No!" "Yeah." "Yeah." "Come here." "My neck, man!" "Come on, my neck." "Get off!" "Pretty stupid too, pal." "Maybe I was stupid." "That afternoon, my dad gave me proof that I had inherited this trait from him." "I had just finished Casanova and had begun reading the love poems of Robert Browning, and his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning." "She's the one who wrote:" ""How do I love thee?" "Let me count the ways."" "Anyway, it was my parents' anniversary and my father made the mistake of getting the wrong gift." "I'm sorry, honey." "My dad tried to salvage the situation by rushing out to the jewelry store." "But that wasn't enough." "When he came home, he was in for a big surprise." "Honey, come on." "Let me in." "Please?" "Sweetheart?" "I got you another present." "See?" "May I join you?" "Guess so." "I always thought my dad was pretty lame." "What did it say about me that my dad was using my strategy to win Erica to score points with Mom?" "I hoped my dad would have more luck with my mom than I was having with Erica." ".He was beginning to get on my nerves." "You ever tried that one on Mom?" "No." "How about that?" "No." "You've been married 1 8 years, you haven't tried that?" "Well, that area's a big mystery to me." "I've never been able to figure it out." "Well, no wonder she's so mad at you." "Do you really think she wants that?" "of course she does." "You read what the book says." "Thanks, Peter." "Jesus Christ." "Now even my dad was getting more action than I was." "Hey-ho, Peter." "What's this?" "This is breakfast." "But I thought that" "Look, I was all wrong about all this." "I'm very sorry." "And here's a copy of the house key." "You can come back inside anytime you want." "Thanks." "And, son I love you." "You know the sad man across the street?" "The one who pushes his wife around in the wheelchair all the time?" "Well, I don't see her around there anymore." "Like she's" " She's gone." "I've been watching him all summer, and secretly he's been taking things in and out of the house." "Wait." "So you think he killed his wife?" "Yeah." "That's bull." "I don't believe that." "Yeah?" "Well, why don't you go over there and check it out." "Because I got better things to do than prowl around some guy's back yard." "I dare you to go." "oh, I'm not going over there." "l almost got caught last time." "l dare you both." "Look, we'll all go." "So we crossed the street to find out what happened to the man's wife making sure we didn't get run over by Mister Mays." "lt's locked." "Come on." "Erica, wait." "No, don't open the door." "Don't." "It's unlocked." "I knew you'd come back." "You wanna see what's inside?" "Wanna see what I've done?" "I'll show you what I've done." "No, no!" "No, man!" "You've been waiting all summer long." "Just relax." "No, we haven't." "Let's go, Peter." "Come on!" "We didn't do anything!" "This." "This is what I've done." "You built a swimming pool in your living room?" "No." "Not just a swimming pool." "I built paradise." "A tropical paradise." "Honey?" "What's going on?" "Nothing, my dear." "Just some guests." "My wife and I wanted to go back to Tahiti for our second honeymoon." "But then she got so sick." "She really loved the water, you see." "I wanted to build a pool in our back yard but the city wouldn't give me the permit in time." "So I built it here." "In secret." "For her." "So that my love and I can go back to paradise." "You won't tell anyone, will you?" "Where the apple reddens Never pry" "Lest we lose our Edens Eve and I" "Hi." "Hi." "So listen I'm leaving tomorrow." "Where you going?" "You're not gonna believe this but I decided I'm gonna go to college." "Right." "Good." "Erica's leaving for college too." "Where is she?" "She's with Nick." "He broke his leg." "Too bad." "Yeah." "Lost his football scholarship." "Like I said, too bad." "So I guess I won't be seeing you around." "No, no." "I guess not." "Peter, listen." "I was kind of hoping that we could spend my last day here together." "Elliot's having this party and I thought, you know, maybe we could go." "Sounds good." "But what if Erica, you know...?" "Erica." "Well, I'll-- l'll see you." "Screw Erica." "What?" "I said, screw Erica." "I mean, if she's not willing to give me a chance by now, then she's nuts." "No other man would go through what I did for her." "If that love isn't good enough for her, well, so be it." "I mean, there are plenty of other beautiful, mature women that want me." "I even passed up a night with Ms. Lewis for Erica." "You passed up Melon-Breast Lewis?" "If she doesn't love me by now, then I don't love her." "Besides, she even thinks Roger Moore is the best James Bond." "Come on." "Let's go." "All right." "So listen." "Did I tell you I revised my theory on self-sufficiency?" "I'm against it now. lt's a little lonely." "Peter?" "Peter, I need to talk to you." "Peter?" "Peter?" "Hi, Peter." "Hi, Ms. Lewis." "What have you boys been up to?" "Well, we just got back from a party." "Everybody's going off for college, so it was the last hurrah." "Sounds like fun." "Would you boys like to come in for a cup of hot cocoa?" "No, thanks." "This is my friend Matt." "Hi." "Hi." "I would love a cup of cocoa." "It works!" "It actually works!" "It works!" "Erica?" "Peter." "I missed you." "So that's my story." "It's all true." "Give or take a few minor details." "My grandfather was right." "I now know, in my heart of hearts, that people are supposed to make love." "It is our main purpose in life." "All those other activities" "Playing the violin, washing dishes, reading novels, drinking wine." "are just ways of passing time until you can make love again." "[english]"