fandomhigh | How to Be Awesome: Period 1, Week 3

Students would find the danger shop set up like a regular college lecture hall: horrid seats with attached desktops, podium, and video screen. They would also find Barney typically suited up.

"To begin, Jim Halpert has earned top marks for his radio broadcast. That was some amazing ass-kissing and well-worth the effort. People, you should follow in Jim's footsteps for he is well on his way up the awesome ladder." Barney grinned at Jim ~~assuming he came to class~~, "Legendary broadcast, Jim! The rest of you: I look forward to watching you get denied on tape," Barney then informed the class that he would watch their videos as soon as he received the ~~links~~ tapes and provide feedback accordingly. He then began the lesson.

"This week we will focus on selecting and using an appropriate persona so as to more effectively pick up quality cutlets. Remember that you must always perform CSI before attempting to dot the i with your cutlet. If you fail to do so, you might end up with a Michelle Gutierrez and none of us wants that."

Barney clicked on the projector and a lovely table appeared on screen:

Just Say NO	Green Means Go
Student	International Businessman
Wizard	Spy (FBI/CIA/MI-5)
Computer...anything	Doctor/Veterinarian
Secretary	Pro Sports Agent
Clerk	Ornamental Glass Distributor

"Here are some workable and some heinous personas for you to practice on each other. Those who want to argue the Wizard line, remind me, how much ass did Barry Plodder get during his time in school?" Barney pretended to answer his cell phone, "What's that, Barry? None? K, thanks, bye!" He put away the phone, looked at his students, and continued. "Those of you who don't possess accents should attempt to adopt one for your role, as accents equal action," Barney then instructed students to partner up and begin the role playing activity.

"For homework, I encourage you all to talk to real live women by attending the 3 minute dating session at Caritas this weekend. Which reminds me, check it. New thing. The Lemon Law. On a blind date and realize whoever set you up with this uggo is truly not your friend? You're free to go. Walk into a coffee shop and spot a muffin top spilling all over the hottie you've been chatting with online? Walk away, my friend. Eject. Abort. Do not pass Go. The Lemon Law allows you to bail on any date in the first five minutes, no questions asked. Consider it a hall pass for dating.

"Hand out these cards to your friends."

Vocabulary Terms Defined:

Bon Mots - From the French, literally "the awesome words coined by Barney"

Dot the I - To close the deal with a cutlet you've been working.

Cutlet - A juicy, flavorful morsel one can enjoy with a glass of Merlot.

CSI - Crazy Scary Investigation. It's important to weed out the crazies and scaries before you investigate them further. Yeah.

Michelle Guiterrez - An unfortunate trait or habit that will bother you beyond endurance, rendering further contact with said cutlet impossible and turning up in your nightmares for weeks to follow. If said trait manifests itself within the first five minutes of an encounter one can, of course, invoke the Lemon Law.

Pullin' Chute - To abort a romantic initiation. The opposite of dotting the i.

[ooc: yes, I thieve from canon. Also, please to be linking Barney to all your most excellent pick up line adventures so he can comment accordingly. ~~Wait for~~ OCD is up! I am bored!]

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"Riiiight," A.J. nodded. "But if'n ye did....hurve the raight plummin' in all, ye wuld, so, theoretically....if'n yer gonna pertend ta be sum'one...."

A.J. really, really liked the accent thing. Maybe a little too much.

"Well, if, um, 'n I did, I would prolly be scared to give you access to the plumbing, being that you might find some'tin wrong with the way it looks. It might be oddly asymmetrical, or have extra danglies, or some'tin." Spoken like an Englisher with an odd impediment who knows nothing about the nether regions of a female.

Andrew was turning a little red.

A.J. laughed a little. "All the muur better'n if I do, 'cause then I can be fixin' it."

The accents was shifting a little, more toward pirate. He could really only do Jersey consistently, but he didn't think that would be a good accent at all for the assignment.

Andrew had to laugh. "Good point."

He seemed to ponder something, "I was thinking about being a spy -- MI-5 and all that. But really, thinking about it, if you're compromised to the point where you have to leak your secret identity to someone, you're not a very good spy, right? I mean, if some guy, or, um, I mean, hot chick walked up to me and was all like, I'm a spy and I need your help, I would be worried. I would probably run for it, cause if they're that desperate, bullets are probably about to fly or the whole joint is about to explode and I don't need to be there when that goes down."

Again with the pondering, "Maybe I should go with the pro sports agent."

"I'd go sports agent, yeah," A.J. nodded; listening to Andrew made him forget about the accent. "I mean, I really doubt being a spy is anything at all like the Bund films....If it was you wouldn't even have to really do anything; the women just show up for that mission and rarely come back...."

Andrew's eyes glazed over at the mention of Bund. "Timothy Dalton was pretty amazing though. I mean, if you looked like that, you really wouldn't even need some fake persona cause, like you said, the women would just kind of fling themselves at you."

Blinking furiously, "Oh, sorry! We are supposed to be role playing this. Um..." resuming the not so great accent, "I'm a sports agent for ye' Royal Basketball League."

Dropping the accent again, "They do play basketball in England, don't they?" And then, "Have we met? I'm Andrew. I know I've seen you around -- well, obviously, being that we're in the same class." He stuck out a hand.

Chuckling a little, A.J. grinned as he took the hand; there was more of a high-five sort of motion in there than a shake. "Man, you are just all over the place. I don't think we have. I'm A.J. Good to meet you, man. And, yeah, I think they have basketball over there....I mean...I think..."

His head tilted. "You never do hear about British basketball players, do you? That's weird."

Andrew frowned a bit, "I don't even really hear that much about American basketball players. I guess that might be important, huh -- knowing something about what it is you're pretending to be. What if the, um, hot chick turns out to be a sports whiz?"

He scratched his head, "Do you know anything about ornamental glass?" There might have been a tinge of desperation seeping into his voice at this point.

And, lo and behold, a miracle, as the question just so happened to be fielded to an artist who, apparantly, judging by the spiel A.J. gave Andrew in response, was a bitch to work with at first, but once you got warmed up, it was almost ridiculously easy. You just had to be careful, though, and blowing it yourself was even better, but not exactly the easiest thing in the world.

"After all," he concluded, "not everyone can manage to get a big brick firestove in their studio, you know?"

Andrew tried to follow A.J.'s spiel on the glass but just found his anxiety level growing. "On second thought, maybe I'll just stick with the spy bit. I mean, the kind of chicks that Professor Stinson wants us to gun for are probably pretty big on the gullible side of things. But why don't you just work the artist angle? Seems like the kind of thing someone would totally fall for." Andrew was, after all, finding himself intrigued.

He bit his lower lip and considered things he had heard about artist's hands...

"Cause he said we had to make up a persona," A.J. said with a thoughtful pout and a shrug. "Would kind of be cheating if I just went with who I already am..."

"Right! And cheating would be bad!" Andrew was totally not thinking about how he had prearranged his pickup line homework with Annette before filming.

"Well maybe I could work the artist angle. I could be a French painter!" He smiled at this new idea, "Oui! This idea is tres tres perfect! Just call me Guy, French painter exceptionnel." It helped that he new a touch of French.

"Dude, that's perfect," A.J. laughed. "I'll even let you borrow some of my brushes to complete the effect. Don't think I have a beret, though..."

Why didn' the have a beret? He should have a beret.

"Come to think of it, I might have a beret. If not, maybe I can pick one up in town. Is there a hat store? Can I really borrow some brushes?" Andrew paused for a second -- yet another random guy being nice to him? He just had to keep reminding himself that this was not Sunnydale and not every guy he met had the same demeanor as Tucker. "Because that would be awesome."

"You can totally borrow my brushes, dude," A.J. nodded with conviction. "I've got so many of them anyway. Don't know about a hat store, though. If there isn't, there should be. Even if I'm not a hat-guy myself."

"Thank you!" Andrew was genuinely touched. "And if you ever need anything -- comic books, ancient Sumerian texts, demonic banishings -- you just let me know." He nodded, definitively.

"That's quite a lot of legroom," A.J. commented with a smirk. "I appreciate it. Thanks, man."

How to Be Awesome: Period 1, Week 3

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