"Ah, morning." "Every 24 hours, the illusion of a brand-new start." "And this one started off normal enough." "Good morning, Mom." "Good morning." "You sleep okay?" " Actually, I did." " Glad to hear it." "I'm having cereal." "Can I get you anything?" "Hang on, a five-line volley from Brick  without reading, random change of subject or whispering?" "Just what I thought." "You're burning up." "Fever kind of mellows out Brick's quirks." "The more normal he acts, the sicker he is." "And that's what kicked off the Heck plague of 2011." "Axl, keep your tongue down." "Ugh." "Uh-oh." " I'm gonna throw up." " No, no, no, I just vacuumed." "Mm!" "Here, in my hands." "But this year was different than the plague of 2010." "Because no matter how much snot I had to wipe or barf I had to catch  there was a bright shining light at the end of this mucousy tunnel." "The royal wedding." "Oh." "I can't believe it's this Friday already." "I still have so much to do." "Watch the two-hour special on Kate Middleton's hairdresser the Say Yes to the Dress royal retrospective." " Really?" "Still on that thing?" " Thing?" "Uh..." "Is the Super Bowl just a thing?" " A thing people care about." " This is the Super Bowl times a million plus crowns." "So nobody relapse." "Not this week." "Frankie, I got some bad news for you." "We're not British." "Yeah, we won the Civil War, so we don't have to care." "I barely cared about our wedding." "Tell me why this is such a big deal." " What did this girl even do?" " Ugh!" "Hello?" "She landed a prince." "That means she's the fairest in the land." "She's arriving in a car as a commoner but she leaves in a carriage as a princess." "Princess of what?" "Seriously, is she even allowed to behead people?" "With Sue's friend Carly also a casualty of the Heck plague  Sue found herself a new lunchtime companion." "And remember, Mrs. Wojo is still looking for volunteers for the Orson cleanup." "Already on the list." "Still waiting for a call." "Hey, fellow Shuckers, enjoying today's announcements?" "Yep, I am." " Wanna be part of Shucker News team?" " I do." "Well, come to anchor tryouts this Thursday in the AV room." "I will." "We interrupt your snack for a breaking bulletin." "Sue Heck is gonna try out for the Shucker News team." "What do you think?" " Don't get your hopes up." " Mike." "I think Sue Heck will make a great addition to the Shucker News team." "And there you have it." "Back to me." "Can you believe it?" "I could be an anchor for the school news." "Here, let me do a real headline." ""Man found frozen in parking lot."" "Oh, wait, I should read that sad." ""Man found frozen..." I can't." "I'm too excited." "I'm gonna think of sad things and practice in the mirror." "Jimbo." "What?" "Oh, pretzel barrel's empty." "Toss me a new one, will you?" "Oh, we're not getting them anymore." "What?" "But I came up from the hole for a nice crunchy pretzel." "Sorry, we're making cutbacks." "Pretzels had to go." "Uh, hey, Winnie the Pooh, there's nothing left in there." "Did you see the Pacers game last night?" "Whatever, Mike." "Brick, I need your help." " But I gotta go to the bathroom." " Please?" "Okay, fine." "I'm trying out for school news." "I need your opinion." " I don't think you should try out." " I mean, on my delivery." "Just watch." "Ahem. "In sports, the girls volleyball team is hosting a cakewalk to raise money for uniforms." "In other news, the cafeteria reports Pizza Thursdays will be replaced by Taco Thursdays."" " Well?" " I think you shouldn't try out." "I'm trying out, so stop saying that." "Well, in that case, there's some things you could work on." "Wait." "What things?" "Well, you're really stiff, so try to act more natural." " Got it." " Every time you said the letter N or M they sound the same." "So really enunciate." "Na, ma." "Okay, next." "I mean, next." " Couldn't hurt to smile more either." " Smile more, act natural." " What was the other thing?" " Enunciate." " What was the first thing?" " Sue." "Okay." "Here's a mnemonic device to remember." "N for "natural," E for "enunciate," WS for "winning smile."" "That spells NEWS." "Nice." "This just in, you may now go to the bathroom." "So the royal wedding was barreling down." "While they were polishing silver at Buckingham Palace  I was doing a few preparations of my own." "God." "Axl, did you get this crap on the TV?" "It looks like mashed potatoes." "When did you make mashed potatoes?" "Knowing you, it's probably frosting." "Ha, ha." "Ugh." "What did you get from Windsorware. com?" "Hey, hey, that's for me." "Come on, I don't go ripping open your stuff." "Oh, my God." "A princess chick teacup?" "Ha-ha-ha." "None of your beeswax." "Mom ordered some douchey teacup for the royal wedding." "What?" "Are you kidding me?" "What are we gonna do with that?" "I suppose it could hold guacamole." "This is not for eating." "It's about historical significance that's too complicated to explain." "So just give me back my plate." "Oh, God." "Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, are you really gonna put that there?" "I obviously don't care too much about how this house looks but I gotta draw the line somewhere." "For your information, this is a commemorative collectible item of historical significance that could one day pay for Axl's college." "Oh, well, pardon me, Mom." "I'll put another shrimp on the barbie." "Unh!" "Ha, ha." " Yes." " All right, Sue's college." "Now here's something with historical significance in case we wanna go back and pinpoint the moment that you lost your mind." "Okay, it's a little bigger than I expected, but, come on, it's not ostentatious." "Hmm?" "Uh-huh." "Yo, yo, Flavor Flav in the hizzouse!" " Mm." " Ha-ha-ha." "Unh!" "Mike, we need to talk." "Yeah, we do." "Somebody tell Irv to quit flicking his butts into the blasting caps." "No, this is serious, Mike." "Jim told us about the pretzels." "What?" "You're here about pretzels?" "Let me tell you a little story, boss man, about a dude named Chuck." "He dropped out of high school to live free." "When his mom said he couldn't live free in her garage anymore Chuck went to find a job." "Chuck chose a quarry, a quarry with pretzels." "But now there's no pretzels, just Chuck." " He's Chuck." " Yeah, I got that." "Look, they're coming down on me to make cuts." "I could have fired somebody, but, no, I axed pretzels." "Why?" "Because I'm a nice guy." "Who exactly would you fire?" "Not me, right?" "I just adopted a labradoodle." "Ooh, let's fire Irv." "He's gonna get us killed." "That's great." "I'll go to the hospital right now and fire him." "Rocking idea, boss man." "Now we can get our pretzel on." "How about you get your hardhat on and you get your back-to-work on and I'll see you guys at lunch?" "Ooh, the whistle blows and suddenly we're pals." "Uh-uh, suit, we're going someplace else for lunch." "Someplace with pretzels." "And freedom." "I thought you were just taking us sneaker shopping." "You lied." "You're a big liar." "I thought you'd be so grateful for your new sneakers that you'd understand if I needed to make one little stop for myself." "Wha...?" "You don't know me at all." "Excuse me." "Hi." "I'm looking for something to clean this sticky gunk off my TV." "Uh, sure." "Screen cleaners are right over here." "And, um, also, there's this yellow glowing blob in the inside of the screen." "But not on channels two and five." "Sometimes there's lines that go across." "But sometimes they go up and down." "Those go away when I'm running the microwave." "Microwave doesn't work unless I'm shooting a hair dryer at it." " You have something for that?" " Yes, we do." "It's called a new TV." "Ha-ha-ha." "Hey, I'm on air." "How do I look?" "Wow, it's true." "The camera does add 10 pounds of dork." "Look, I'm in sales too so if you think you're gonna sucker me into buying something I don't need guess again." "I just need something for the blob and the sideways lines, sometimes up and down..." " ...and I'll be on my way." " Excuse me." "Yeah, I got this a week ago and, I don't know, I just don't like it." "Um, returns are right over there, sir." "And you know our motto:" ""If you ain't happy, we ain't happy, no questions asked."" "So he can just return it like that?" "Yeah." "We have a 14-day, any-reason return policy." "Wow, that is so nice of you." "Okay, wait." "So let's say I buy a TV and I ain't happy for, you know, whatever reason after Friday, just picking a random day I can return it?" "Yup, just a 25-dollar restocking fee." "Hold the phone, HDMI 1.4?" "You guys should put that bigger on your tag." " I'll take it." " Great." "I'll see if we have any in stock." "Okay." "Oh, wow." "Mom, what are you doing?" " That TV costs $3000." " Shh." "It's just for the royal wedding." "But that's stealing." "No, it's borrowing." "I'm paying $25 to borrow it." "So just be cool." "You know what?" "Be over there." " Good news." "One left." " Great." "What credit card are we putting this on?" "Um, actually we were thinking about opening one of your store cards for our son." "He's employed and extremely responsible." "He's premed." "We're very proud." "It's just so big." "Kind of overpowers the room, huh?" "I love it." "Give me the remote." "Let's find Cinemax and get this skank train going." "No, I need to watch the news." "Hey, hey, hey, no one watches anything." "This is only for the royal wedding." "So till then, no one watches it, touches it, or even gets within a 3-foot radius." "Dad, look what Axl got with his credit card." "It's just for the royal wedding, then I'm returning it right after." "They have a policy:" ""If I ain't happy, they ain't happy."" "What if I ain't happy?" "Frankie, something that nice can't survive here." "This is where things come to break." "Look around." "We can't make toast without a screwdriver." " Oh, please, nothing's gonna hap..." " Whoa." "Three-foot radius." ""I'm Sue Heck and that's what the heck's going on."" "Mm." "Good luck." "Wait." "That wasn't a "good luck" good luck." "That was a there's-something-wrong good luck." " Tell me." " Okay, you want honest or polite?" "Well, I wanted polite, but now that you've said that I guess I'll take honest." "You blink too much and about halfway in, you slurred an S." "And you didn't gesture enough." "You were kind of mumbly on your nouns but on verbs, you were even shakier." "And that's how a little mnemonic device  like NEWS ballooned into..." "NEWSBENJIVERTS." "My brother came up with NEWS, but I came up with BENJIVERTS." "Now our third and final candidate, Sue Hicky." "That's when Sue introduced the world  to NEWSBENJIVERTS." "B for "blink less."" "Happy Thursday, fellow Shuckers." "E for "enunciate."" "The flooded auditorium  will be drained in time for the spring musical." " N for nodding." " And kudos to the girls soccer team  for defeating the other team from..." "And who could forget V  for "very big gestures"?" "I'm Sue Heck and that's what the heck's going..." "Cut to black." "Cut to black." "Mr. Heck, Phil Bickel, Quarry Workers 703." " I'm here about the pretzel situation." " I don't think so." "Whoa, whoa, whoa." "Either we talk or they walk." "A strike?" "Because I got rid of pretzels and fancy toilet paper?" "Oh, that's what's different." "Okay, I can give back the pretzels and, uh, get rid of their health insurance." "No dice." "They want health insurance and pretzels." " And the TP." " Yeah, give it back." "Pretzels, pretzels, pretzels!" "Sure, let's bring back pretzels." "And, uh, we can lose stuff like, say, paychecks." "Says Mr. Giant-New-TV." "That's right." " I drove by your place last night." " What?" "Have you been misappropriating snack funds for personal gain?" "Ha, personal gain?" "I had to push my car to work this morning." "That's it." "No pretzels." "End of story." "Everyone back to work." "Okay." "All right, gu..." "Okay, guys." "We lost on the pretzels, but we stuck it to him on the insurance and paychecks." "Don't forget me come election time." "How about a group photo for the newsletter?" "Shame, man." "Okay, I'll just get a, uh, shot of your backs." "It's only six hours away." "I wonder what she's doing right now." "Is her heart pounding?" "I'll bet it's pounding, because mine's about to pound right out of my chest." "Mom, I'm sorry, but there is no way I can watch news coverage of the wedding after all that I've been through." "I can't barely look at a microphone without crying." " Brick." " Hey, how is it my fault?" "You over-directed me." "I did NEWSBENJIVERTS and people thought I was insane." "I even got called down to the guidance counselor." " Well, I warned you not to try out." " Oh, but..." "Hey, there is no fighting on royal wedding eve." "Hey, where are my scones?" "Mike." "What?" "I didn't know." "I did you a favor anyway." "They're stale and dry." "They're supposed to be stale and dry." "They're British." "Never mind." "Now I'm going to bed." "So if you have to yell at the kids, take them outside." "I don't wanna yell at them alone." "That's something we enjoy doing together." "Sorry." "Coverage starts at 3 a.m. By the time you're eating waffles the world will have a new princess." "Seriously, how can you not be moved by that?" "Don't bother looking for the remote." "I'm taking it to bed with me." "The wait was finally over." "Time to see what this bad boy could do." "Oh, no, no, no." "Turn on." "Turn on." "You've gotta be kidding me." "Where's the...?" "Mike, Axl, Brick, Sue!" "Everybody, up!" "I need your help!" "Mm, why am I awake?" "You know I need a solid 16." "Axl, that is not for you." " Aah." " Brick, read faster." " There it goes." " Oh, thank God." "Ha, ha." "Okay, you can all go back to bed." "Beautiful pitch by Davis." "Wait." "It's not turning channels." "Come back." "Come on, come back." "Oh!" "What's all the screaming?" "Is Justin Bieber dead?" "I'm missing the wedding." "There's something wrong with this stupid TV." "Here, keep hitting two." " Anything?" " No." "Brick, that's not for you." "Change, damn it." "Change." "Oh." "Sports in high-def are sweet." "Ooh, remember?" "This is when they start their comeback." "Yeah, this is a good one." "Here comes the QB sneak." " Boom, bust it through." " No, no, you are not watching this game." "This TV is for me." "It's 3:49." "I'm missing it all." "The arrival at Westminster Abbey, the pronouncement by the Lord Rector." " What?" " Rector." "Oh, you think this is funny?" "Is this all some sort of joke?" " Come on, Frankie, lighten up." " No." "You lighten up!" "All you've done this past week is smirk and laugh and make fun of me." "And what have I done for you?" "Wipe your snot, carry your vomit, take you sneaker shopping because your old ones weren't awesome enough." "How dare Mom ever want anything for herself?" "To celebrate that a girl could start the day as commoner and end it as a princess." "Oh, ha, ha." "It's stupid." "It doesn't matter." "Well, it matters to me!" "Yeah." "And I don't have to explain it or justify it to any of you." "That's right." "There's no historical significance." "I just think it's pretty!" "Jeez, Frankie, calm down." " You're getting all bloodshot." " Oh, no." "You just don't get the needs of the common people, do you, Mike?" "Pretzels aren't important." "Royal weddings aren't important." "Oh, not like football." "Do I talk smack about all this Colts stuff that you get?" "No." "But I buy one little plate and suddenly I'm crazy, I'm obsessed..." "God, who knew she cared so much about the wedding?" "She should have said something." " Frankie." " What?" "We fixed the TV." "Just in time for the parade of beefeaters." "Beefeaters." " Really?" " Oh, nasty." "Ugh!" "Wait, I can't see." " Why can't I see?" " Frankie, you're a little crusty there." "Looks like you might have got pinkeye or something." "What?" "How could I get pinkeye?" "Oh, 3-D." "Oh, I'm blind." "Why is this happening to me?" "All I wanted was to have tea and scones and watch the royal wedding." "And now I can't open my eyes and..." "Aah, my tears can't even get out." "Now she's going into the church and a woman..." "Scratch that." "A man in a wig is holding her cape." "Oh, her bridal train." "What color is the dress, white or ivory?" "The entire royal family has gathered..." " Ivory." " Ah." "What about her sleeves?" "Are they poofy?" "I guess maybe you could call them poofy." "And there's some kind of glittery deal going on." "Ooh." "Hey, Mom, you really can't see anything?" " Not a thing." " Tsk." "Here." "I felt bad, so I glued your plate back together." "Oh." "Can't even feel the cracks." "Oh." "Yeah, you can be cynical all you want  but truth is, fairy tales happen every day." "Princes really do exist." "So now she's waving to the crowd." "They both look pretty happy." "When something wonderful happens  cheers ring out across the land." "Wishes do come true." "Is this your handwriting?" "It's really good." "And there really is such a thing  as happily ever after." "So now they're coming out on the balcony." " And..." "Oh, they're kissing." " Oh!" "Is it a soft kiss or a deep kiss?" "Describe it to me." "Oh, Frankie."