- Event: Refueled XXI
The scene fades in to the opening montage of the Solex residence and family that we’ve become accustomed to seeing as the corny television theme song plays in the background. Each member of the Solex family is given a close up, during each of which they all show their big, fake smiles. The montage ends at the “George Washington High School” and across the lower third of the screen “Filmed in front of a live studio audience is shown,” and quickly fades away as the music softly lowers to silence and the scene fades into the inside of what appears to be the high school gymnasium. Steven Solex is shown standing in the center of the gym in all of his Dad glory. His hands placed firmly on his hips, his feet shoulder width apart, and his mustache…absolutely glorious. Steven’s wearing an outfit that you might see on a 1970’s gym teacher. His gray polyester shorts barely covering his unmentionables and his number one Dad shirt firmly tucked in, with a whistle rested over the top and draped around his neck. Steven stares up into the rafters, his chin held high.
“Daddy, daddy!” Little Jebidiah comes running into view as the crowd in attendance gives a mild round of applause.
Steven doesn’t look down at the boy however, and maintains his hero like pose.
“Yes, son?” He asks, still staring up.
“I’m bored.”
The crowd oo’s, they know what’s coming and Steven doesn’t even flinch. His stare remains in the rafters, and without even looking down at the kid he replies.
“Hi, bored. I’m Dad.”
The crowd cheers at the overused joke.
“Come on Dad, be serious!”
“I don’t want to be serious, I want to be Dad.”
Another joke sends the crowd into an absolute laughing frenzy, as Jebidiah stomps a foot into the hardwood gym floor.
“DAD!”
The little boy crosses his arms and scowls at his Dad. The crowd “oo’s”. You know the “oo” you’re in trouble sound.
“What are we even doing here, Dad?”
Steven’s pose never changes. He continues to stare into the rafters.
“I’m training, son.”
The boy scoffs at the answer. What a disrespectful turd this kid is turning out to be and the crowd is giving him the business for it.
“But, Dad. You’ve been standing in that exact same spot and staring at (Jebidiah points into the rafters) that exact same spot for the last forty-five minutes!”
The boy stomps his foot into the ground again, “Can I at least go to the bathroom?”
“I don’t know, can you?”
Again the crowd blows up with laughter. The little boy marches off, both of his fists balled and look of hate in his eyes as the crowd “oo’s” trouble once more.
SLAM!
A collective gasp is heard from the crowd.
“It’s pull!” Steven shouts to his son, who just walked right into the door thinking he could push his way out of the gym, but instead smashed his juvenile little face right into the pine wood door. The crowd explodes in laughter.
Jebidiah frustratingly looks at his Dad before turning and pulling the door open, muttering a bunch of stuff under his breath as he exits the gym. The crowd laughs like crazy.
The scene fades out and transitions to the kitchen in the Solex household. Steven is shown standing over the stove, moving a frying pan over a hot burner with his left hand, and an ice cold Pabst Blue Ribbon clinched in his right. The sounds of little grease bubbles popping are heard as Steven hums the tune of theme song.
“Whatcha’ cookin, honey?” Steven’s wife Karen enters the kitchen, and hugs her husband from behind, resting her chin on the back of his shoulder.
“Just makin’ a couple of fried eGGS. Have to get some protein in!”
Karen laughs, she knows the angle here.
“Have you ever noticed, that two fried eggs joined together kind of looks like a bandit mask?” She knows her husband all too well and her little joke causes the world’s greatest Dad to smirk. “I guess you could say, you’re frying up some eGG Bandits right now,” she’s too good, and Steven’s loving it.
“See you got your favorite kind of beer there,” Karen says, grabbing the beer and placing it on the counter next to the stove.
“Nah, that’s not my favorite kind of beer,” Steven responds.
“Is that right?” She asks, “What’s your favorite kind of beer then?”
She’s walked right into it, and I’m pretty sure she knows it.
“A free beer.” The crowd erupts in laughter at another brilliantly (not really) timed Dad joke from Steven. Steven turns off the stove, and looks down at the eggs in the pan. He grimaces, and quickly just tosses the pan, eggs and all, in the sink. Karen scoffs and he grabs her by the wrist and takes her to the den, adjacent the kitchen. The two sit on the couch next to one another, and share a smile.
“Word on the street is that the Dooze and the Cancer are having themselves a little bit of a tiff, and haven’t been getting along so well these past few days. My sources tell me, that they’ve had the beautiful Bobby Dean mediating the their relationship over the last few days…or weeks…or whatever. I guess when you put Bobby Dean between a couple of unhappy friends, you can really create some distance between yourselves.” Solex leans over and elbows his wife softly, “Get it? …some….distance…cause he’s fat. He’s overweight. He’s a wide body. He’s oversized. His favorite necklace is the food-chain. He has 50 pounds of crack, and I’m not talking about the drug, Karen!”
The crowd laughs a bit as Steven maliciously laughs over his jokes. Karen tries to hide her smile, but is obviously finding these jokes to be in poor-taste.
“That’s ugly talk, Steven.”
“But, Karen. It’s true. It’s not my fault that when he steps on the scale it says to be continued.”
“Even so!” Karen has completely lost the smile she was hiding as attempts to get Steven back into the values that the two of them have tried to maintain these last few years.
The crowd groans in disappointment.
“You’re right, Karen. Per usual.”
The crowd applauds as Steven leans over and kisses her on the cheek. The crowd let’s out a collective “awe.”
“Either way, Karen. It looks like good ol’ Joe and I will be getting Cancer Jiles and Bobby Dean this week, as opposed to Cancer and Doozer. It’s a shame really. I like the shirt that Doozer wears. Superman was the coolest!” Steven is a big superman fan, so it’s no wonder he would geek-out over Doozer’s shirt.
“But, don’t you fret my little Kare-Bear, Ordinary Joe and I, we got this one in the bag. It’s almost as if Cancer Jiles has no idea who PBR is. That gives us an immediate advantage. You can’t prepare for what you don’t know. That boy better start watching some tape! And what is he thinking anyway? That oddly pronounced chin of his probably won’t even fit in the ring to begin with, and if it does it’s going to create a huge target under that slick blonde hair of his. The bigger the chin, the easier the knockout! So he better be ready, because I can tell you right now, PBR isn’t playing around. PBR is not going to be stopped by these so called bandits of the egg variety! Definitely not in our first match as a team. PBR is here to win us some championship gold, even if we have to crack some eggs along the way! This is PBR’s time!”
The crowd completely buys into the fake emotion Steven is showing and erupts in applause.
“You keep saying PBR. What does PBR even mean?” She asked the question, of course she did.
Steven doesn’t know what PBR stands for, and neither does Joe Bergman. This is just what they’re calling themselves right now.
“Well, you see Karen. It means…”
A few snickers are heard from the crowd.
“You don’t know, do you?”
More giggles are heard.
“No, but what I’m trying to say is…”
Again, giggles. This is a giggly crowd, what do you want from me?
“Steven…”
“What’s that?!” Steven places a hand up to his ear, looks around aimlessly and leans forward in the couch. “Jebidiah?!” Karen rolls her eyes. “What do you need son?” Obviously faking it, Steven looks back at his wife with a fake look of concern on his face. “The boy’s calling me sweetheart, I’ll be right back.”
The crowd laughs as Steven bolts from the couch into the living room while Karen sits back and rolls her eyes.
Jebidiah darts down the stairs and into the living room. “Yeah, Dad?”
The crowd laughs as the little boy stumbles a bit on the landing.
“I thought I heard you calling me?” Steven suggests to his son, selling it with a wink and an elbow nudge.
The crowd laughs.
“Uhh, sure, Dad.”
Jebidiah looks confused.
“Well, what is it, son?”
Jebidiah stares up at the ceiling, trying to capture an idea.
“What are we doing for Easter this year, Dad?”
The boy is suddenly a bit excited.
“Well, son. We’ll be going to Church, as usual. And then…”
The boy can hardly contain himself.
“What is it, Dad?” Jebidiah has gone and gotten himself all excited as he smiles big.
“Looks like my Easter wish has come true.”
Jebidiah jumps up and down.
“What was your wish, Dad? Huh, what was it? What was it, Dad?”
“Well, I was worried that since I’d be out of town for Easter Sunday. I wouldn’t be able to do any eGG hunting but I guess, well I guess I was wrong.”
Jebidiah is obvisouly disappointed and sour about what Steven just said, but the number-one dad can’t control himself and bursts out with a cackle, and reddens his leg with a couple of knee slaps.
“Enough, enough,” Steven tries to reason with…himself, but he can’t stop it. It’s involuntary. “I have to stop making these egg jo…yolks.”
…nope…
Steven continues to laugh as his son just stands there, staring up at the mustached, father of one.
“Dad, I think you need to take this a little more seriously. The eGG Bandits are a storied tag team. They’ve beaten some of the top names in wrestling. And even with Doozer out, Bobby Dean is a formidable opponent in his own right.”
Wait just a minute. How old is this kid? One minute he’s crying about a scraped knee, the next minute he’s a freaking wrestling historian with mature thoughts? What’s really going on here?
“Look, there’s nothing to worry about Jebidiah. These eGG Bandits…well, they’re really just a couple of little chickens!”
The crowd erupts with laughter as Steven looks into the camera and winks with a grin that stretches ear-to-ear.
“You’ve got to be careful, Dad. Bobby Dean is stepping in, and he’s a large kind of person!”
“I know I’m cracking (winks at camera) you up, but I’m not too worried at all. See guys like Bobby Dean need to latch onto some kind of powerful information to win a match. Well, latch onto something other than a chicken wing, of course. Didn’t you see him on the television set?”
Cause in the Solex house, they still say television set.
“He’s trying to find some dirt on me. On us, really. He thinks that I’m some kind of nefarious, ne’erdowell. But, unfortunately for Bobby Dean, he’ll find nothing. I’m squeaky clean and loved by everyone!”
The crowd applauds but Jebidiah seemingly disagrees with his old man as he cocks an eyebrow and looks sideways at his old-man.
“And don’t you worry, Jebidiah. If I can’t beat Bobby Dean with strength, son…I sure can hustle around that ring and wear his big butt down. Guys like that lose all their steam inside the first three minutes of a match, son. That’s why guys like me always win against big belly behemoths like him. It’s science, Jebidiah! Science! No matter how hard Lee Best tries to get Bobby’s patooty in shape, Steven Solex will always be in better shape. And when you’re in better shape, son…you win.”
Jebidiah rolls his eyes. Steven is hardly making any sense at this point, and has really gotten me to side with the boy, which is actually pissing me right off.
“You’re not in good shape, you’re old!” Jebidiah’s disrespectful tone has turned Steven’s smile into a scowl.
“What did you say?” Steven asks between gritted teeth.
“You’re old! You’re old! You’re old!” Jebidiah shouts, pointing up at his father. What’s with this freakin’ kid?
Steven’s eyebrows meet in the middle of his eyes, and he rears back with an open hand. The crowd gasps louder than any other reaction they’ve made tonight. But just before Steven swings on his child, both he and Jebidiah look into the camera, and share a laugh as the “wah wah” sound is played over tape. The crowd laughs it off, uncomfortably…but laughing nonetheless as the scene pauses and the credits begin to roll. The music plays in the background and quickly fades with the scene.