Mightier than the Sword
Sinefeld: The Lost Episode
Scene One:(Elaine enters Jerry's residence hall room and begins to rummage through his tiny fridge; dirty clothes, books, and papers are scattered throughout the room)
Elaine: So how are things with what's-her-face?
Jerry: Karen. Not bad. Not good, but not terrible. She's fun, pretty smart---
Elaine: (interrupting) You got any shrimp? I feel like eating shrimp.
Jerry: No, I don't have any shrimp. So anyway, Karen and I get along really well... (his voice trails off)
Elaine: But...?
Jerry: But... she's got this thing she says. She's a TG major, so she's got a lot of classes in the building next to EE.
Elaine: KNOY?
Jerry: Exactly!! 'Noy,' like silent 'K'. But she calls it 'Ka-noy'. 'Ka-noy'. Can you believe it? You don't pronounce the 'K'. It's sheer madness. I can't stand it.
Elaine: (poking through Jerry's box of canned goods) That's tough. So last night Stan and I were studying at Hicks, right? And he was using one of those cheap disposable Bic mechanical pencils, and it just kept making this horrible screeeching whenever he'd write! Screech scritch scritch screeeech! I almost lost it! I finally grabbed the stupid thing and broke it in half. My God, he drives me crazy. And he's got this awful laugh--I'd rather shave my legs with a cheese grater than tell him a joke. It's horrible. Hey, where's your cereal?
(Jerry opens his closet door and hands Elaine a box of cereal)
Jerry: So he's like wet sand in your underwear, eh? THAT'S always an attractive trait in a significant other. Why not dump him?
(Elaine shovels a handful of Cap'N Crunch into her mouth and shrugs)
Elaine: He does my thermo.
(Jerry's door explodes open and the lanky, wild-haired Kramer is suddenly in the middle of the room, trembling)
Kramer: (gasping) JACKPOT! This is it! I've found my million!
Jerry: What happened to your "Rubik's Cube Help Desk" idea?
Elaine: Yeah, I thought you were going to "solve the world's cubes" and all that...
Kramer: Flapdoodle! While looking for investors, it was brought to my attention that everyone else also figured out that you could just peel off the colored stickers and rearrange them. THIS! (raising a fist draped with T-shirts, Koosh balls, and a two liter bottle of pop) THIS is my future! (the room is silent)
Jerry: (cautiously) Free stuff from Discover Card?
Kramer: It's like a candy store out there!!! T-shirts, slinkies, food, toys--all for the taking!! (Jerry's door opens and George walks in, surveys the room, and lowers himself onto Jerry's futon)
George: Gather 'round, friends, and hear a tale of evil here on this very campus.
(Kramer, muttering to himself about his brilliant plan, bolts from the room and nearly crashes into a rotund figure that had moved into the doorway; Jerry looks up)
Jerry: Hellloooo, Nnnewman.
Newman: Hellloooo Jerry. I couldn't help but hear the musical voice of a lady emanating from your room. It's past visiting hours, and, being your R.A., I have no choice but to ask her to leave. (turning to Elaine and drawing his pinky finger across his eyebrow with a smile) Do you need an escort?
Elaine: (forcing a laugh) No, no, one of these guys can walk me down. Right guys? (she turns to Jerry and George; they smile back silently) Right guys? (silence; she grabs her flannel and scowls at them)
Newman: (offering his arm) My dear?
Elaine: (stomping past him) Not a chance, Tubby!
(Elaine and Newman disappear into the hallway; George turns to Jerry)
George: Today I was the hapless victim of a heinous crime. One that may soon affect you, too. Today, I was struck by a Random Stacker! (dramatic pause)
Jerry: (sighing) Please. Tell me more.
George: Let me ask you something. When you're in a computer lab, and you go to the printer to collect your work, what do you do with the other print-outs sitting on top of the printer?
Jerry: (shrugs) Leave 'em there.
George: AH-HA! A non-stacker! (he jumps off the futon and points at Jerry) You leave them there!
Jerry: Oh no. You've found me out. Am I doomed to an eternity in Hell?
George: (ignoring Jerry) You do no good, but neither do you do harm! As long as you commit to a life of non-stacking, you will be doomed to walking in PUCC Purgatory! But there are others, Jerry, other good souls who will take the print-outs and stack them by login, thus ensuring that when one approaches the printer, one can quickly and easily collect the entirety of one's output!
Jerry: So angels do walk the Earth. . .
George: It's the American way! Meanwhile, the Random Stacker induces chaos. He does not follow the ordered piles by login, he simply takes all the print-outs and leaves them in a single pile, which then appears to be a pile belonging only to whatever login happens to be on top. Do you see the underhanded treachery?!?
Jerry: (yawning) That's terrible. He may as well bag his groceries in fur pelts. But how can we fight such an evil?
George: Glad you asked, Jerry, glad you asked. (he begins to pace) After waiting for 45 minutes from the printout of an assignment that, unbeknownst to me, had been randomly stacked, I was late to class and could not turn in said assignment. Defeated, I returned to the lab and waited for the culprit to reveal himself and his random stacking ways. (George reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a piece of gold paper with the login "sriver" printed across the top in big black letters) This is him!
Jerry: You stole his coversheet?
George: I WATCHED him randomly stack!!! He dropped this in the recycling bin, so I retrieved it. It's for the good of the whole campus, Jerry, that justice be sought.
Jerry: So you went into the computer lab to print out an assignment on the way to the class in which the assignment was due. You couldn't find your printout, so now you've become some sort of PUCC vigilante?
George: (shrieking) This "sriver" character is wrecking havoc on the student body! He's probably bringing down Purdue's average G.P.A. singlehandedly!!! We're talking about nation-wide ramifications here!!!
(Jerry stares at George for a moment, then shakes his head)
Jerry: Go to bed, George. Get some rest.
Scene Two
(the next evening; Jerry and Elaine are sitting in his room eating Doritos)
Elaine: Scritch scritch screeeeech! How am I supposed to listen to that? It's torture.
Jerry: The 'K' is silent! Silent! It's 'noy', as in 'ah-NOY-ing'!! Can I date a woman who has ka-nuckles on her hands and ka-nees on her legs??
Elaine: (looks at Jerry) Well, Jerr, I don't ka-now! (throws her head back and laughs; Jerry glares at her; suddenly his door bursts open and Kramer skids into the middle of the room)
Kramer: I've figured it out! I'm running the candy store from now on, kiddies! Clubs do this as a fund-raiser; they get money for each credit card application filled out PLUS the free stuff to give away. All I have to do is start a club and have a fund-raiser for it. I'll fill out all the forms myself with bogus names, pocket the money, and sell the free stuff! Genius!
Jerry: You're going to make your personal fortune by trafficking free stuff?
Elaine: Kramer, who's going to buy Kooshes and Discover Card T-shirts from you when they can get them free for filling out an application somewhere else?
Kramer: (thinks in silence for a moment) Bah! Details! I'll figure that out later. . . now I need to concentrate on coming up with a club that will grow to be my cash cow. Something that will look good on a resume, but that requires minimal funding to get started.
(Kramer begins muttering to himself and leaves the room)
Jerry: What if Karen went homocidal on me? Do you think she'd use a 'ka-nife'?
Elaine: Hey, have you seen George recently?
Scene Three
(it's the following day; Kramer and Jerry are in Jerry's room when George staggers in, dark circles under his eyes, clothes rumpled and dirty, clutching several pages of spreadsheets with the same gold coversheet)
George: I've done it! I have given the Random Stacker a taste of his own medicine, a feel of the confusion that comes when your print-outs mysteriously disappear! All his work--GONE!, like a thief in the night!
(Jerry and Kramer look at each other, then back at George)
Jerry: How long did you wait in the lab?
George: All day. All last night, too.
Jerry: So you missed all your classes today, for which you didn't have the homework done anyway because you were stalking people in the lab all night?
(George settles back into the futon and closes his eyes)
George: Glorious, isn't it? It was so perfect--he logged off right after he sent the job to the printer, and there were people waiting like vultures for his computer. I snuck up there and stood nonchalantly by the printers, playing it cool, watching and waiting . . . he never saw a thing. It was MASTERFUL! Smooth as silk, I tell ya . . . (smiles blissfully to himself)
Kramer: I've been thinking about my club--I'd like it to be active, but still intellectual . . . and I also want it to be something the ladies will be interested in. You know, equal opportunity and all that.
George: (perking up) Ladies?
Kramer: And it needs a catchy acronym . . .
(Elaine walks in a tosses her backpack onto the floor)
Elaine: That's it, it's over. The Bic man is out of here! I'll just have to start going to thermo or something, 'cause he is just WAY to irritating.
Jerry: What happened?
(Elaine digs a can of pop from the fridge and cracks it open)
Elaine: Ok, we had this big thermo assignment due today--all these equations and examples and stuff, and we were supposed to put it all in Excel. Well get this: I go to meet him before class just now and . . . (Kramer leaps to his feet and shouts)
Kramer: THAT'S IT! I've got it! The perfect club! "Kramer's Nymphets Interested in Twister". It's marvelous, and the only start-up costs would be ten bucks to Milton Bradley for the game!!
Elaine: (in disbelief) Nymphets??
Kramer: And for short we could call it "Ka-nit"!
Jerry: (clutching his head and howling) NO! THE 'K' IS SILENT!! You don't say the 'K'!! It's 'nit' as in 'NITwit'! Come on, people, you're killing me here!
Elaine: (waving Kramer away) Yeah, whatever, so anyway, I go to meet him before class so I can write my name on my assignment, and he tells me he doesn't have it . . . Doesn't have this huge assignment that we've known about for weeks!!!
George: (quietly) He just decided to stop doing your homework, just like that. Huh.
Elaine: No! That's the crazy part. He tried to tell me that someone stole his printouts. Can you believe it???
George: (staring at the floor; barely audible) Is that so . . .
(Jerry looks at George and raises his eyebrows; George sinks back into the futon)
Elaine: Isn't that bizarre? He said some fat guy was running around the lab like a maniac, waving the printouts and shouting about revenge.
Jerry: (smiling at George) Playing it cool, eh?
George: (running hand over the sheet covering the futon) This is nice, Jerry . . . is it 100% cotton? (pause; he turns to Elaine) Say, Elaine . . . did he really use the word 'fat'?