Sittin' On It

Perhaps it was Sir Francois Bacon who said it best: work sucks, dude. Also, life's a beach.

Then he stole my wallet. I should have never let him in my house to begin with. I'm not even sure he was a really knighted. I mean, he was like 19, and selling magazine subscriptions.

So I work with three 20 year-olds. We'll call them Huey, Dewey, and Frank. Well, all three were in my office when one brought up Richie Cunningham. Y'know, from Happy Days. His professor had mentioned Richie Cunningham during a lecture, and he said Huey said "I thought it was weird that he made a Donnie Darko reference." At which point I looked at him like this:


He was thinking of Jim Cunningham, played by Patrick Swayze. Not that I knew this at the time, though I'd seen this Donnie Darko of which he spoke. So I said "that's weird. I don't remember that name, but it's also the name of the kid from Happy Days."

To which he replied, "what's the Happy Days."


To which I replied "what?"


Two out of three hadn't heard of this "Happy Days". This got me all twisted up. "You know, Happy Days, with The Fonz?"




"C'mon, The Fonz?"


How do you explain all that is Arthur Fonzerelli to someone? "Okay, so the show is like, all about how good the 50's were, right? Like That 70's show came out in the 90's, this was like that but in the 70's about the 50's. And Fonzi? He's a total badass, right? But he's not a badass like, I mean, he's a total badass in that he's cool but he's totally got a heart of gold, right? And, I mean, he lives over Richie Cunningham's garage."

"So who's Richie Cunningham?"

"He's, y'know, uh, Opie? Directed Apollo 13. Narrates Arrested Development?"

"Opie, from that Mayberry show?"

"Yeah! That's the one. The Andy Griffith Show. Anyway, the Fonz was like, the coolest guy in town. He had greased up hair and a leather jacket and he could bang anything with his fist and it'd just work like magic and he'd go 'Eyyyyyy' and put his thumbs up like this and then snap his fingers and put his arms out and a couple of girls would just show up and I'm pretty sure they'd go have relations but y'know he'd be tender and respectful and all because he's a good guy."



"Eyyyyyyy!"