Welcome back to Logtown. Time doesn’t pass as quickly here as in the real world, but nonetheless, things have changed. I’m a new narrator. The old narrator, with the sultry, sexy, female voice, has been replaced. I’m an old man, with a gravelly voice. Don’t confuse us.

Simon is now dating a watermelon. He’s happy about that, but the cantaloupe he dumped is not. The cantaloupe is peering angrily in the window at Simon and his watermelon. Maybe someone will file a restraining order if they ever notice.

Richie has started scanning the local want ads for a new job. In Logtown, the want ads are typed on a sheet of paper and stapled to the back of the outhouse near the school. So far, Richie hasn’t found much interesting.

Fletcher is still pretty much a loser. His diet of less-than-healthy food has led to extreme bouts of flatulence, which is becoming dangerous with Richie still chain-smoking cigarettes. I wonder who will write the story when the mobile home explodes during a game of Madden when those two things mix fatally.

I’m glad I’m just narrating, and not sitting in that trailer with them.

Young MC? Glad you asked. Actually, I’m glad you remembered him. Because he’s just walked through the door, and he doesn’t look happy.

Richie: Hey, Young, what’s going on? You want to play Fletcher? He’s kicking my ass, as usual.

Young MC: No, I don’t want to play. That game sucks. Why can’t we get an X-Box?

Fletcher: Because nobody wants to pay for one.

Simon (to his watermelon): Where do you want to eat tonight, darling?

Young MC: I need a new name. I’m sick of everyone calling me ‘Young MC.’

Richie: Why?

Young MC: Because everyone keeps asking me if I want to Bust a Move. And it’s old. And starting to get annoying.

Fletcher: (starts making noises that sound something like the song that Young MC hates)

Young MC: (glares at Fletcher)

Fletcher: (ignores Young MC, keeps making noises, begins to shimmy his shoulders)

Richie: When’s the pizza gonna get here?

Simon: I don’t know. But I’m not staying for dinner. We’re going to Burger King.

Well, I’m not going to sit here and wait for the boys’ pizza to arrive. You can, but I’m not going to tell you what’s going on. While you’re waiting, if you’ve got an idea for Young MC’s new moniker, why don’t you share it with us?

As we rejoin our favorite superheroes in the thralls of Madden, Fletcher has scored his seventh consecutive touchdown on the same pass pattern, and Richie isn't happy. Simon is whispering sweet nothings to a grapefruit.

 "Can we quit now? I give up," Richie said.

"Whatever," Fletcher conceded, knowing full well Richie could endure only so much beating before he quit in the second quarter on a regular basis. His attempt to give Richie a shot by calling the same play over and over again had only confused Richie even more. "You seen the new guy in town?"

Simon looked up. "Yeah, I seen him this morning at the gas station. He waved and said hello, like he was a friendly guy."

"Did you happen to notice anything different about him?"

"Besides that he was black?" Simon replied.

 Now would be a good time to inform our fans and haters that black people were uncommon residents in Logtown not because Logtown was full of rednecks, but rather most blacks thought it so foolish to focus so much attention and affection for outhouses when plumbing seemed the more desirable choice. Before this individual arrived, no blacks had moved to Logtown since the foundation district was formed. But back to our story....

 "I saw him at the grocery store," Richie chimed in. "I thought he was a traveling salesman or something, him being black and all. He even introduced himself to me, said his name was Joseph Shakur.  But he looked sort of familiar, like I'd seen him before."

Much has transpired since our last visit to Logtown. Richie was suspended from teaching until this week, and relieved of his cafeteria duties. Fletcher also recently completed a suspension for discrepancies concerning expense reports, though not fired. Finding a replacement for the Logtown beat is not an easy task - there's a longer line of applicants to be Pigpen's personal groomer. Simon, happily, did not get suspended. But he's been receiving very guarded reactions from everyone since he came out as a vegisexual, and students have taken to leaving various vegetable products on his desk as jokes. You shouldn't need a narrator to figure out he's not reacting well to this...

Richie was alone in the trailer, enjoying his 'Chaotic' DVDs, when Simon burst in with a corncob in his hand. He looked only slightly crazed, but highly annoyed.

"I laughed when I got the cantelope," Simon said, brandishing the shucked ear of corn, "but this isn't right. I'm not gay! What do they think I'm going to do with this?"

Richie had taken advantage of Simon's focused rant to flip the TV back to the cable. Simon hadn't noticed, but now it was on Oprah. You win some, you don't lose others as badly as you could have...

"I don't want to think about it," Richie commented, flipping open his silver Zippo to light the cigarette that had been hanging from his lip since Simon entered, and now it has stuck there. "Maybe they meant for you to do whatever it is you do to make creamed corn out of that."

Simon's face relaxed to ponder that thought, but only for a moment. "That's crap." He pitched the ear of corn towards the kitchen and deposited himself next to Richie on the sofa. "Oprah?"

Richie had gotten too involved unsticking the cigarette from his lip to change the channel. This one wasn't too painful. "Hey, I drove past your apartment today, and that Halloween pumpkin is still on your porch. You plan on getting rid of that?"

Simon's look told Richie that nobody had been thinking about that pumpkin in months. But what Simon had been thinking about that pumpkin made Simon's eyes glaze in a way that gave Richie delayed goose bumps.

"That pumpkin only had one hole in it, didn't it?"