The Middle

Ah, morning--

Every 24 hours, the illusion of a brand-new start.

And this one started off normal enough.

Good morning, mom.

Morning.

You sleep okay?

Actually, I did.

Glad to hear it. I'm having cereal.

Can I get you anything?

Hang on.

A 5-line volley from Brick

without reading, random change of subject, or whispering?

Just what I thought.

You're burning up.

See, 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 dow--

Uh-oh.I'm gonna throw up.

No, no, no! I just vacuumed.

Here, in my hands.

But this year was different than the plague of 2010.

'Cause 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.

I can't believe it's this Friday already.

I still have so much to do--

Watch the 2-hour special on Kate Middleton's hairdresser,

the ** royal retrospective,

really? You're 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.

Look, I barely cared about our wedding.

Tell me why this is such a big deal.

What did this girl even do?

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 announcement?

Yep. I am.

Want to be part of the 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 about that? 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 headle.

"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 go think of sad things

and then practice in the mirror. Aah!

Jimbo.

What?

Oh. Pretzel barrel's empty. Toss me a new one, will ya?

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.

So you see the pacers game last night?

Whatever, Mike.

Brick. I need your help.

But I got to go to the bathroom.

Please?

Okay, fine.

I'm trying out for the school news, and 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 already 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.

And every time you said the letter "n" or "m,"

they sounded the same, so really enunciate.

Nuh. Muh.

Okay, next. I mean, next.

Couldn't hurt to smile more, either.

Smile more, act natural... And 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 the bathroom.

So the royal wedding was barreling down,

and while they were polishing silver at Buckingham Palace,

I was doing a few little preparations of my own.

God. Axl, did you get this crap on the tv?

It looks like mashed potatoes.

Like when'd you ever make mashed potatoes?

Knowing you, it's probably frosting. Heh.

Hey!

Hey. That's for me.

Come on. I don't go ripping open your stuff.

Oh, my God! A princess chick teacup?

Okay. 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?

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.

Hey--wh--whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you really gonna put that there?

I mean, I obviously don't care too much about how

this house looks, but I got to 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, mum.

I'll put another shrimp on the Barbie. Yes...

All right, Sue's college.

Now here's something with historical significance,

in case we want to go back and pinpoint the exact moment

that you lost your mind.

Okay, it's--it's a little bigger than I expected, but come on.

It's not ostentatious. Hmm?

Yo, yo! Flavor flav in the hizzouse!

Mike.

We need to talk.

Yeah, we do. Will 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,

but 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.

Could have fired somebody, but no, I axed pretzels.

Why? 'Cause 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 hard hat 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.

Unh-unh, 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!

Yeah, well, I thought you would be so grateful

for your new sneakers, that you'd understand

if I need to make one little stop for myself.

You don't know me at all!

Excuse me? Hi.

I'm looking for something to clean the sticky gunk off my tv.

Uh, sure. Screen cleaners are right over here.

Oh. And, um, also,

there's this yellow glowing blob in the inside of the screen,

but not on channels 2 and 5

and sometimes there's these lines that go across,

but sometimes they go up and down,

but those go away when I'm running the microwave,

but the microwave doesn't work unless I'm shooting

the hair dryer at it. You have something for that?

Yes, we do. It's called a new tv.

Hey. I'm "on-air." How do I look?

Wow.

It's true. The camera does add 10 pounds of dork. Heh-heh.

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 yellow blob and the sideways

lines sometimes up and down, and I'll be on my way.