"Out here in the middle, our kids learn early that a penny saved is a penny earned." "And the more pennies you save and earn, the more stupid crap you can buy." "I need $34.95 to buy a pair of night vision goggles." "Sorry." "Wrong family." "Let me see if this changes your mind." "You could borrow them." "I've seen this place in the daytime." "I don't need to see it at night." "What do you need night vision goggles for, anyway?" "I want to read in the dark." "Look, if it's too expensive, I'm willing to go for the ones." "Without the no-chafe head strap, but they're clearly not as good." "Brick, the answer's "no."" "If you want to buy something dumb you don't need, you gotta be able to pay for it." "Well, til you get a credit card." "What happened to your money from grandma?" "I spent it on books." "Christmas?" "Books." "Birthday?" "Books." "Well, that'll teach you to waste all your money on books." "Mm." "Listen, Brick, if you really want the goggles that bad, you're gonna have to go out and earn the money yourself." "Okay." "Might I either of you be interested in buying some used books?" "Meanwhile, Sue was cheering like there was no tomorrow." "It was the last match of the last meet." "Of the wrestling season, and everything was on the line." "Aah!" "We won?" " We won!" "Aah!" " We're number one!" "That's right..." "Despite all the odds, the Orson high wrestling team had finally won one meet." "Matt!" "This is the best day ever!" "You won the meet, and I was waiting to tell you," "I'm finally getting my braces off." "Aah!" "Isn't this exciting?" "Why aren't you excited?" "I have something to tell you." "Oh, no." "What's wrong?" "Do you like me better with braces?" "I can keep 'em if you want." "I really don't mind the swollen gums and the headaches." "I'm moving." "What?" "Where?" "To Zionsville." "M-m-my dad got a new job." "No." "You... you can't move away." "Everything's perfect now." "You're winning wrestling, I'm getting my braces off..." "We're practically a power couple." "Look, we'll... we'll e-mail and call each other, and it'll be like nothing changed." "I know it sucks, but we still have till tomorrow." "Tomorrow?" "My dad's already there." "I didn't say anything 'cause I guess I was hoping." "My dad would get fired or something." "He's not the most reliable worker." "Oh, Matt." "Oh, this must be love, 'cause you smell so bad right now, and I don't care." "I made dinner." "Hey, Axl." "You want some fries?" "Tater puffs?" " Axl!" "Are you nuts?" " What's the matter with you?" "Coach says I gotta improve my pickoff move." "If I want to pitch this season." "Ooh!" "Stop it." "What?" "Doesn't work if people see it coming." "Ooh, Sue!" "Got you corn on the cob." "I know you missed it." "This is the worst day ever." "Oh, no." "What happened?" "Well, you know how I had an overbite-crossbite?" "Seems they overcorrected, and now I have an underbite-overbite." "Is that even a thing?" "The doctor said it's unprecedented." "I'm devastated!" "This is a catastrophe!" "Ow, ow, ow." "I can't even hurl myself!" "Oh, honey." "It's not that bad." "I'm sure it's..." "How many hours of the day do you have to wear this?" "All of 'em." ""All of 'em," huh?" "Well, you know, you don't even notice it after a while, and... and if you wear your hair the right way..." "Whoa." "What'd they do to you?" "And this isn't even the worst thing." "Matt's moving away." "Oh, no." "Really?" "That means he won't be able to come around." "And hang out here all the time any more?" "What?" "I'm upset." "I'm going to my room." "I think I'd just like to be alone with my thoughts, and plus, my lip is bleeding." "Okay." "We'll be in the kitchen if you need anything." "Ay-yi-yi." "Well, I took your advice, and I got a job." "You're giving Chinese massages?" "No, underneath that." "You're looking at the new paperboy at the "Orson herald."" "Oh, no." "I don't think so, Brick." "You're too young and too..." "You know, everything." "But you told me I should earn my own money." "Yeah, figuring you'd give up." "Look, Brick, a real job is a lot of responsibility." "I'll approach it with the same sense of responsibility I always do." "That's what we're afraid of." "Look..." "Hold on, hold on." "You know what?" "I think this might be good for him." "You do?" "Mm-hmm." "I'd like to remind you that we never did find that gerbil." "Brick." "I think what your mom's trying to say is if we let you do this, you gotta take it seriously." "There's no quitting, no "I forgets."" "People are depending on you..." "Actual people, not just us." "You got it?" "You can count on me..." "To do whatever it is we were just talking about." "So Brick was now a working stiff, and he attacked his new job." "With all the gusto that he attacked life." "Well, Matt and I just talked, and we decided our love cannot be killed." "Axl!" "Anyway, even though he's moved away, we're both committed to maintaining a long-distance relationship." "It's all very adult and romantic, like an Anne Hathaway movie." " Oh, my God." " Are you hearing this?" "Get real, Sue." "It's over." "Matt's just the first of many guys who are gonna "move away."" "Axl." "Seriously, mom, tell her she's..." "Delusional." "Aah!" "That's Matt." "Let it ring." "Nancy's looking for volunteers to pack lunches for the poor." "I do that every morning." "Hello." "Your son or daughter was absent from school today." "Please have them..." "Not me." "I mostly went to school today." "I don't skip." "Whew." "I'm beat." "This whole job thing is a real grind." "Brick, did you not go to school today?" "Yes, I did not." "Come on." "It took you this long to finish your paper route?" "Oh, I wish." "I'd say I'm roughly two-thirds done." "I just came home to grab a flashlight." "I really could use those night vision goggles now, huh?" "Ironic." "That's out of batteries, like everything else in this house, and besides, you're not going out again." "It's too late." "Look, I don't know what you were doing out there, but I'll take you out tomorrow." "And see if we can shave a little time off this route." "You call that a pickoff move?" "So the next morning," "Mike took Brick out to show him how it's done." "Now you can't walk all the way up to each house." "It takes too long." "Just throw it onto the porch from here." "Go ahead." "Give it a toss." "Hmm." "Really launch it this time, all the way to the porch." "So once Brick got the hang of it, day three of paper delivery went even better." "Hey, what are you doing?" "Shouldn't Brick be doing that?" "He's sick." "Really?" "Two days on the job, and he's suddenly sick?" "No, he is." "He threw up." "Ugh." "Was it hard to clean up?" "You'll let me know." "See?" "I knew it'd go faster if we both did it." "Mm." "Johnsons... 322." "Yeah." "Beats cleaning up barf." "We really should get a dog." "Mm." "Hey, this is weird." "The other day, when I was putting t-shirts in your drawer," "I found a whole bunch of batteries." "Yeah." ""Yeah"?" "Oh, you knew they were in there?" "Yep." "Hey, the Duncans didn't pick up their paper from yesterday." "So you knew we had batteries?" "Mm-hmm." "Okay." "What?" "Might have been nice to say something." "When you knew we needed 'em." "So why didn't you?" ""Why didn't I" what?" "Say something when we needed batteries." "'Cause I didn't need batteries." "You needed batteries, and those batteries are mine." "Yours?" "Yeah." "My batteries." "But we don't just hoard our own separate batteries." "We have a place for batteries..." "The junk drawer." "Yeah, the house batteries go in the junk drawer." "But there are never any house batteries in the junk drawer." "Exactly." "I know how this place works." "Open a pack of batteries, it's like throwing a loaf of bread to pigeons." " Great, you missed your throw." " Now I gotta back up." "Axl, I need your phone." "Sha!" "Some hot chick must have got my number." "She's texting me some pretty serious pg 13 stuff." "No, I need to tell you something." "Tell me how to spell "fondle" and then beat it." "Axl, those texts are from Matt." "Right." "Matt's some hot chick who wants to do stuff to my stuff." "No, I used up all my monthly texts yesterday, so I told Matt to text me on your phone." "Oh, God." "This is Matt?" "Uhh!" "That is so not cool." "Brrr!" "Ugh!" "And tell him the picnic by the lake is off." "Sorry about that, Matt." "I have the phone now." "Now we can talk and text at the same time." "You guys have gotta do something about your daughter." "You two are out driving around having fun." "While Sue's out there making a fool of herself." "She's going around telling people that she and Matt." "Are gonna be together forever." "You gotta tell her the truth!" "Axl, look." "You guys are getting older, and it's not our place." "To step in the middle of all your romantic dramas." "Oh, my God." "That's the laziest parenting ever." "Mm!" "Look, mom and dad should be the ones talking to you, but they won't 'cause they're lame." "And they know nothing about relationships." "I mean, if they did, why would they be with each other?" "Axl, I'm sort of busy." "Here's the deal." "You're being a huge dork, and this isn't even about your brace face, even though I have, like, 50 things I could say on the subject, but that's for another day." "How can I explain?" "Sue, when you started high school, you could have stepped it up." "And hung out with some cooler people." "And maybe had a shot at a somewhat normal guy, but what do you do?" "You join wrestlerettes." "I founded wrestlerettes." "Making my point for me." "Next, you date a hobbit." "And never once stop to think how it would affect me." "Before you do anything..." "Anything..." "You need to ask yourself," ""how does this affect my super cool brother?"" "I'm sorry, Axl, but Matt and I are gonna be together forever, so get used to it." "You're nuts." "Long-distance relationships don't work for guys." "We need our girlfriends right in front of us, and even that doesn't always work." "If they're standing next to their better-looking friend." "Well, Matt isn't like other guys." "No argument there, but he's still a guy." "Oh, and, uh, just so you appreciate how nice I'm being," "I haven't said a thing about your stupid headgear." "And the things I have are good..." "And really funny, but I'm not saying 'em, not even..." ""Cage match," which is my favorite one I came up with, so, yeah, you're welcome." "Brick's feeling better." "Should we wake him up?" " Do we have to?" " It's faster without him." "Sue." " Sue." " Did you sleep here all night?" "Oh." "I guess I feel asleep talking to Matt." "It's tough being the new kid." "Lucky, there's this kind soul in his homeroom named sheri." "Who's showing him around." "You got a little..." "Oh, I gotta decrust." "Oh, I need a butter knife." "It's really in there." "Ow." "By the way..." "I know you moved the batteries." "I knew you'd look for 'em, which is why I moved 'em." " Fine." "Move 'em." "I don't care." " I'll find 'em." "I don't know." "It took you ten years to find the first ones." "Seriously?" "You've had your own batteries for ten years?" "So that time I couldn't turn my neck and I needed batteries for my massager, you had them?" "Yeah, but I gave you a massage." "Oh, you squeezed the back of my neck." "And said, "that should do it."" "Why are you so upset about this?" "'Cause we're married, Mike." "You don't get to have your own secret stash of bachelor batteries." "Why not?" "Why can't I have one thing that's mine?" "Because that's not marriage." "When you're married, you share everything." "Everything?" "Yeah." "What about your frosting?" "What are you talking about?" "That frosting's for anybody." "It's right there in the cabinet." "Oh, no, I'm not talking about that frosting." "I'm talking about the garage frosting." "You know about that?" "Few years ago, I came across a couple cans of frosting." "Hidden behind the paintbrushes, but did I make a big deal out of it?" "No, 'cause if you want to have something for yourself," "I'm okay with that." "Yeah, well, you can't possibly compare frosting to batteries." "They're completely different." "Really?" "In what way?" "Seriously?" "You don't know?" "And why were you snooping around in the paintbrushes, anyway?" "Hmm?" "You don't even paint." "Sue, what do you think?" "Should I upgrade to the camouflage goggles." "For only $5?" "Brick, I'm on the phone." "What the heck?" "I should treat myself." "I'm working hard." "Oh, you have to go?" "Okay." "Bye." "Sheri's walking Matt to school." "Mm." "I'm so happy he found her." "She is so helpful." "She even showed him where the movie theater is." "They say love is blind..." "Oh, you're studying with Sheri?" "Well, thank her for me for taking such good care of you." "But in Sue's case, love is also deaf..." "It's so great, 'cause Sheri just broke up with her boyfriend, so she's kind of lonely, too." "But Matt says she's super funny and smart and pretty, so hopefully, she'll find someone soon." "That way, Matt and I can double-date." "And kind of dumb." "Here's why frosting's different from batteries." "No one ever needed frosting in an emergency." "You, last tornado watch." "Why won't you let this go?" "So I've got a draw full of batteries." "It's not like I have a mistress." "A mistress?" "Wow." "You went there awfully fast." "How did we get from batteries to mistress?" "I'm just saying, some guys cheat on their wives." "I have batteries." "You should be happy." "Oh, you're right." "Sorry if I don't say it enough, but thank you for not cheating." " All right." " This is perfect." "Stop the car." "What are you doing?" "We have to put the newspapers on the porches, or they'll get wet." "You should have put the papers in the plastic things." "Oh, yeah, thanks for that." "How was I supposed to know it was gonna rain?" "It says "rain today" on top of the paper." "You know what the really sad part is, Mike?" "That when we were dating, you would have shared your batteries." "Now I gotta stumble across 'em." "While I'm putting away your giant boxer shorts, which, by the way, you've also had since we were dating." "Get back in the car, Frankie." "No!" "People need to get their papers." "Yeah, it's, uh, really urgent they read about..." ""95-year-old Jasper Harris, who died yesterday, planting tomatoes."" "So you just want to quit?" "Look, we're trying to teach our son a lesson here." "It's about showing Brick how to do a job well." "I'd love to show him!" "I'd love to show him right now!" "Where the hell is he?" "!" "Morning." "I hope you wrapped the papers in plastic." "Last thing I need is a bunch of angry phone calls." "That's it, Brick." "You quit." "Really?" "I thought it was going so well." "I even thought about adding a second route." "Mom!" "Matt just called and broke up with me." "He says he wants to see someone else, and you'll never guess who." "Sheri." "Knock, knock." "Hi." "We're just here to drop off the newspaper bag." "Ohh." "You're the folks whose kid is quitting the route." "Yeah." "I'm so sorry." "You got our e-mail?" "Oh, sure, sure." "'Course, in my day, when you quit a job, you looked a man in the eye and told him you were quitting." "Uh... okay." "We're quitting." "So you're raising a quitter?" "Actually, we're raising three quitters." "That supposed to be a joke?" "'Cause in my day, when you took a job, it meant something..." "A little thing called "responsibility."" "Oh, y... you don't know us, but we're all about responsibility." "We take responsibility very seriously." "And being responsible's why you let him quit after four days?" "Oh, no." "He actually quit way before that." "See, you gotta know Brick." "He starts things he can't..." "Well, tell him, Mike." "Tell him what he does." "Mike's the one who thought he could do it." "I never really thought he could do it." "And let me guess." "You encouraged him anyway?" "Yeah." "You parents today, always encouraging your kids, telling 'em what a good job they're doing." "It's no wonder they all grow up to be singers." "Look, uh, why don't we just give you the money back." "And call it a day?" "What was it, uh, 8 bucks for the week?" "Here's 10." "Keep the change." "Oh, sure, just... just throw your money at the problem." "You rich people make me sick." "No!" "Trust me, we're not rich." "Between the two of us, we have four jobs." "Are you gonna quit those, too?" "Hey, now hold on a minute." "No, you hold on." "Okay, let's all hold on." "This is crazy." "We're all getting worked up." "About a silly, little local newspaper." ""A silly paper."" "This "silly, little paper" put a roof over my head." "Newspapers used to start wars, take down presidents." "Now nobody seems to have time to read the paper any more, too busy running around with their ithings and their sketch phones." "No, no, I don't have any of those things." "Jasper Harris died planting tomatoes." "He was a world war II Vet who stormed the beaches of normandy, won the medal of honor, so you two could have." "The freedom to mollycoddle your irresponsible kid." "No one's gonna honor Jasper, 'cause CNN isn't coming to Orson." "No, no, no, no." "And you two don't seem to think it's important." "That this "silly, little local newspaper" gets delivered." "Eh." "Keep your batteries." "Yep, in a family, sometimes you end up doing somebody else's job, but if you're lucky, someone'll step up and help you do yours." "Oh, my God." "Seriously?" "I was upset about Matt, so I threw myself on the bed, and then the blanket got stuck in my headgear, and now I can't get it out!" "I can't believe you're still moping around over that loser." "Would you hold still?" "Ugh." "There." "Got it." "But what if nobody ever loves me like that again?" "Ugh." "Why do you not listen to me?" "I told you before, guys could..." "Like you." "Really?" "Trust me, I see a lot of girls where I go, "how does she have a boyfriend?"" "But you know what?" "They do, so..." "Why not you?" "Aw, Axl!" "If you don't blow it." "Like, sticking your head to the furniture is not gonna help." "What are you doing right now?" "Well, I was gonna write out the entire lyrics to "Irreplaceable" by Beyonce and send it to Matt." "Okay, you're not doing that." "You can come with me to my baseball game." "I'll revise my previous rule." "About not being seen with you ever." "To you occasionally hanging with me." "As long as it's been cleared in advance." "Thanks, Axl." "Bring $5 for gas and... change your shoes." "I might need a push start." "Come on, Axl." "You can do it." "Go, Axl!" "Two outs!" "Watch that runner, heck!" "Aw!" "Sue!" "That was a really good pickoff move, Axl." "I didn't see it coming at all." "Feeling better, honey?" "Yeah." "The ball deflected off my headgear, so it only got my forehead." "How lucky am I to have headgear, huh?" "I don't think these things work without double "a" batteries." "Do we have double "a" batteries?" "Double "a."" "I don't know, Mike." "Do we?" "Nope." "Okay then." "Well, I guess I will go out to buy some at the store." "Since we don't have any in the house." "Guess so." "All right." "Going out into the cold now." "Bundle up." "Okay then." "I'm doing it." "Here I go." "I'm off..." "To get batteries." "Mm-hmm." "Walking down the steps." "That night, I went out and bought a 40-pack of batteries and hid 'em with my frosting, and we never fought again..." "About that."