"Coda and Yoda" (NewsRadio/Freaks and Geeks Crossover) Title has something from both shows: NR: Led Zeppelin Album Titles F&G: Two rhyming words with an "and" in between. By: Rachelpi rah1@iastate.edu http://www.public.iastate.edu/~rah1/ "So if no one else has any comments on the Taxicab safety story," Dave said, trying to ignore Matthew's hand waving wildly in his face, "We can adjourn the meeting and get back to work." "Uh, Dave…David!" Matthew whined insistently. "What, Matthew?" Dave sighed. "I just think who ever goes for the undercover ride-along should take some of those pine tree air freshener things, because, F.Y.I., cabs in New York can be a little stinky," said the skinny, bespectacled reporter. He nodded at the rest of the staff, who were already well on their way back to their desks. "Oh, but don't put them in your shoes!" he shouted. Dave and Beth just stared at him. "Because, I've, uh, heard that it can give you a, kind of, well, a bad rash. I've gotta go to the bathroom…" he trailed off, gathering his belongings off the conference table and scurrying away. "Um, eew," Beth said to Dave. "Why would you put one of those pine tree things in your *shoes*?" she asked incredulously. "Honestly, Beth, I don't want to know," Dave began. "I mean, you know those car fresheners that are shaped like little feet, I could see putting *those* into your shoes, but the pine trees? It just doesn't jive, Dave," Beth remarked, looking at him over the tops of the clear glass glasses she wore occasionally. "Doesn't jive at all, Soul Sister," Dave replied. "Anything else you needed to tell me?" "Nope, guess I'll let you get back to work, Boss," she said. "Ooh, no wait," she continued, just as Dave was retreating into his office. "What is it?" Dave asked, watching Beth peel a neon pink Post-It note off the side of a ceramic frog paperweight. "You got a call from a guy named Sam Weir. He said to tell you that…if you strike him down, he will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine…Dave, you haven't gotten involved in the Mafia have you? Dave? And Sam Weir, that doesn't even sound like a good Mafia name!" Beth said. "Oh my gosh, Sam Weir. I haven't heard from him in so long! He was one of my good friends in high school. Well, we didn't go to the same high school, we met at a Sci-Fi convention in Michigan," Dave explained. "High school buddy, riiiiiight," Beth echoed. "Ok, I'll just get out my dork detector so I'll know when he gets here." "What do you mean, when he gets here?" Dave asked. "Well, Dave, if you'd let me finish," Beth said, once again peering at what she had written on the Post-It. "Sam, Bill, and Neal are coming to New York to see you…today." "Today?" Dave yelped. He was excited at the thought of getting to see his old friends again, but a little notice would have been nice. "Yeah…calm down there, chief, it'll be ok. I won't let the little nerds hurt you," Beth said, her eyes squeezing shut as she descended into a mad fit of giggles. "Very funny, Beth," Dave said, heading back into his office and shutting the door behind him. Meanwhile, there were some problems out in the hallway. "Are you guys sure it was the fourteenth floor?" said a low, nasal voice. "Yes, Bill, fourteenth floor, Criterion Building. Now let's just go in and see Dave already," someone else replied, loudly. "I don't know, maybe we should wait out here until he comes to get us," the first person said. "He does know we're coming, right Sam?" "Uh, sure, of course Dave knows we're coming," said a third voice, a little uneasily. "Well, did you talk to him? What did he say?" the loud voice demanded. "I didn't exactly talk to *Dave*, I talked to his secretary." "Dave has a secretary? That's so cool." "So c'mon, let's just go in then!" Suddenly Joe came upon the three men arguing in his hallway. "Hey, who are you guys?" he demanded roughly. *He* knew he was only joking, but hoped he could scare these dweeby looking dudes anyway. "We're friends of Mr. Dave Nelson's," said a short, confident man with curly black hair. "Would you be so kind as to show us to his office?" "Uh, yeah, it's right in there, dudes. Does Dave know you're comin'?" Joe asked, looking up at the tallest man suspiciously. "Yeah, he's um, expecting us," the tall one replied, pushing his glasses up. "Thanks," said the third one, over his shoulder, as they walked into the WNYX office. "Now would you guys *try* to be cool in here?" he asked of his friends. "This is an office, and Dave is working hard here, so we don't want to be a nuisance." "Ok, Sam, we've been in an office before." "Yeah, Sam. I happen to work in an office myself." "Whatever, Bill. It's an Office Max. Not an office." "Shut up, Neal, I'm the manager. I have an office." "Would everybody stop saying 'office'? We need to find Dave." Fortunately, the aforementioned Mr. Nelson was walking over to get some coffee at that exact moment. "Hey! Sam, Bill, Neal, how are you doing? I can't believe you came all the way to New York! Come meet my co-workers," Dave said. The co-workers, by this time, had overheard the arguing strangers and had wandered over to see what was going on. "Beth, Lisa, Max, Matthew, these are my friends from Michigan, Neal Schweiber, Bill Haverchuck, and Sam Weir," Dave said, introducing everyone. "Where's Mr. James, I want you guys to meet him too." "Mr. James had to go buy some new shoes," Joe said, re-entering the room. "New shoes? Ok…" Dave said. "Joe, these are my friends, Neal, Bill, and Sam." "Yeah, we kinda met earlier in the hallway," the electrician replied, chuckling to himself, still looking skeptically at Bill. "Did you say your name is Sam Weir?" Lisa asked. "Uh, yes," Sam replied uneasily. "Did you go to McKinley High School?" "Yes," he continued, now a little paranoid. "Lisa, how do you know Sam?" Dave wondered. "Oh, I don't but I think I know his sister! Is your sister Lindsey?" Lisa asked excitedly. "Yes, Lindsey is Sam's sister," Neal stated. "So how do you know her?" "I met Lindsey way back in high school at a national Mathlete competition," Lisa announced. Immediately she could feel the staff waiting to mock her. "A what-lete?" asked Matthew. "A Mathlete," Lisa corrected. "It was like this academic contest my school competed in and…never mind." She didn't feel like explaining it, and knew they would just tune her out anyway. "Anyway, I met this amazingly talented girl at nationals one year named Lindsey Weir, from McKinley school in Michigan. And when I thought about how much she looked like you, I knew you had to be family. So how is Lindsey these days?" "Oh, she's doing pretty well," Sam replied. "She's a social worker for adolescent psych at a hospital in Dallas." "Texas? Wow, that's quite a change from Michigan," Lisa said. "Yeah, well she fell in love with the place when she followed the Grateful Dead around down there one summer," Sam told her. "Lindsey? A Dead-Head? No way!" Lisa said, opening her eyes wide. "Huh. I guess I'm glad my parents kept me away from rock music or I might have been down there with her," she said, forcing a laugh. Everyone knew how strict Lisa's parents had been with her, but she always tried to portray it as helping her become driven and successful. Soon the conversation turned back to old times between the four guys, and the rest of the staff drifted away. Finally Dave got to ask why they were in town. "C'mon man, you'd better believe we wouldn't want to see the new Star Wars movie without you!" Neal exclaimed. "Yeah, Dave, you're the biggest Star Wars fan we know. It wouldn't be the same to see it without you," Sam added. "So you came all this way to see a movie with me?" Dave asked. "Not just *a* movie, Dave," Neil countered. "Star Wars: Episode One! The saga begins, all that good crap." "We've been waiting since 1983 for this movie," Bill said, "And now it's 1999 and it's finally here." "Don't tell me we have to go camp out for tickets," Dave said worriedly. "Nope, we've got that all taken care of," Sam replied. "Yeah, my son is waiting in line for tickets for us," Bill said. "Bill, you have a son??" Dave nearly shouted. "And you're letting him sit out on a New York City street all by himself?" "Hey, my son is tough, he can take it," Bill said defensively. "Shut up, Neal, Bill Jr. is totally tough! His mom *was* a biker chick after all." This guy was just getting weirder and weirder. "Bill, were you married to a biker chick?" Dave asked, with a mix of disbelief and sadness in his voice. "Well, they weren't so much married as they were living in the basement of his mom's house for a year and a half," Sam explained, laughing at the memory of Bill and his girlfriend sleeping on the hide-a-bed downstairs and playing poker with Bill's mom. "All….right…." Dave said slowly. "Any other shocking updates you guys want to give me? Any stints in the circus, or alien abductions I should know about?" "All in good time, Dave, all in good time," Neal said reassuringly. "But first we want to hear from you." The four friends swapped stories on life since high school for a while, until Dave had to get back to work. Of course, since Bill, Neal, and Sam still saw each other fairly often, they were sick of hearing each other's tales, but they all told them again, each trying to top the other for Dave's amusement. "Hey, did you guys know we had a Stargate Defender in the office for a while?" Dave asked when he could finally get a word in edgewise. "Oh, cool," they all gushed. "So what happened to it?" Sam asked. "Well, um, I," Dave stammered, a little embarrassed to admit this even to his fellow video game junkies. "You got re-addicted and they had to take the machine away?" Neal asked knowingly. "Same thing happened at the place where I work. Guy named, Jim, Ms. Pac-Man. That old lady's got powers, believe you me, Dave. He stayed at work for four days straight, finally beat his old high score. Next day, power goes out, all the high scores get cleared. The guy is *crushed*, just crushed. They had to cart him off to a mental institution." "You're making that up, Neal," Bill protested. "I swear to God, it's true," Neal replied. "Well, I hate to say this but I need to get some work done today," Dave said. "Why don't you call me when you're ready to leave and go to the movie?" "Sound good, Dave, see you later," said the other three. They left and Dave went back into his office only to find Lisa sitting on the green couch waiting for him. "Dave, did you hear what Sam said about Lindsey following the Grateful Dead around in Texas?" she asked, a bit melancholy. He nodded; hoping this wasn't going to turn into a fight of some type. He shut the office door and sat down on the couch with her. Lisa looked around the room nervously before speaking again. "Sometimes," she said, looking right into Dave's blue eyes, "I wish I would have done something like that when I was in high school." Her words tumbled out quickly and Dave wasn't sure of what he had just heard. "What, you? Be a hippie?" Dave asked. "Wouldn’t that have interfered with your summer Latin camping adventure?" "Don't make fun, Dave. And besides it was not a Latin camping adventure, it was a total immersion language community," Lisa said. "Oh, like that's so much better." "Dave! I'm thinking I may have missed a crucial point of my youth, here! What am I going to do??" Lisa demanded. "Well, I s'pose we could see when Phish are touring again," Dave began. "I'm serious! This has got me worried! I mean, Lindsey was the smartest person I knew back then. Maybe she was smart enough to know that sometimes you have to blow off all your responsibilities, and everyone's expectations of you and just…" "Drive around in a stinky van listening to twenty-minute long versions of 'Sugar Magnolia' all summer?" Dave suggested. "No!" Lisa said. "Well, I don't know, something like that. It makes me think, is all. And Sam even said, she's a social worker. Her life wasn't ruined because she did something fun instead of what she was 'supposed' to do. Why couldn't I have done something like that when I was younger?" Dave knew it was time to get serious. "Because you are Lisa Miller, and you would have hated doing something like that. I know you, Lisa. You would have undoubtedly been happier at your Latin camp than dancing with a bunch of hippies. You can't change your past, so there's no reason for regret." He paused, actually feeling a little inspired himself at what he had managed to say. "I don't know if that's really what you want to hear right now, but I don't think you need to second-guess yourself." Dave looked at Lisa for a reaction. "I guess you're right, Dave. I mean, I did get to have my adventure in Juvey, didn't I?" Lisa said, brightening a bit. "I learned a lot more useful stuff in there than I would have in some old VW Microbus." "Sure ya did, Lisa. Nothing like learning how to get out of a pair of cuffs to further a girls career." The two stood up and hugged briefly before Lisa left to go back to her desk. Dave got back to typing on his laptop and thought about how glad he was that he got to see Neal, Sam, and Bill again. They were good guys, and the only ones in the world he would admit to being deathly excited for Star Wars: Episode One. He made a mental note to show them the Boba Fett camera-figurine when they came back later. |
