Greendale's Oddest Human Beings

The Look Left Speech

    After Ruth's fun little trick at lunch, most would think that it was impossible for her day to get any better... but it did. Ruth stumbled across an add on Craigslist advertising a study group for her Spanish class. Maybe the cool guy would be there. That would be awesome. Ruth didn't like people very much, but even she craved some amount of friendship.
    When Ruth arrived in "group study room F", the table was practically full. She winced a bit. 'That's a lot of people,' she thought. While there were only five others in the room, the young woman was overwhelmed; perhaps it was her anxiety or maybe that she was trying her hardest to make eye contact with anyone. Eyes were on her for a moment when she entered the room and slumped down into an open seat at the top of the table near a young woman about her age with brown hair and big blue eyes (not too close, of course).
    "And what would your name be?", someone inquired. Ruth looked up and saw that the person asking was an old man on the far side of the table. "Ruth," she responded quietly. "What?", he asked, leaning forward and squinting his eyes as though it would help him hear. "Ruth," she repeated, raising her voice a bit more this time. The man addressed the table to look for help. "Did anybody catch that?" Everyone shook their heads except for one person who spoke up. "She said 'Ruth'," a voice informed him. Ruth looked up again and couldn't help but smile for a millisecond when she saw that it was the cool guy she was hoping to see. At least one good thing would come out of this.
    "Well, why the hell didn't you just say that?", the old man asked both genuinely and judgmentally. "She did," the young man next to him snapped, "you're just old." The old man opened his mouth to speak, but he was interrupted by a man entering the room. "Hey guys, you're not going to believe this, but the rest of the group..." he seemed surprised to see that people were there, "...is here," he finished. The group bombarded the man with questions (except for Ruth, who kept her silence of course).
    "Where's Britta?", the man asked, ignoring all of the questions. "Not sure," responded the cool guy, "but I invited more people from the Spanish class, is that cool?" "It's the... coolest," the other man lied, giving the guy a forced thumbs up. The cool guy smiled and also put a thumb up. Ruth took her journal out of her satchel. 'Nice smile,' she wrote on the page dedicated to the cool guy.
    "I'm... gonna go to the bathroom, and... take my jacket, wallet, and, uh, keys with me... in case there's a fire," the man who had just entered informed the group before making a quick exit. The group started talking chaotically again while Ruth silently took notes on all of them.
    Eventually, the man came back, but with a blonde woman this time. "Alright," he began, "Look at this group! All ready to study all night!" A woman sitting near the old man cut in, saying, "Well, I can stay at least til ten—," she was cut off by the man who was speaking. "But who studies with strangers, right? My name is Jeff," he said, inadvertently giving Ruth a name to put in her notebook.
    "Jeff, it's a pleasure," the old man said with a confident smile. He stood up and reached across the table to shake Jeff's hand, but he retracted it before Jeff could even reach his hand and shake it. "My name is Pierce Hawthorne, and yes, that is Hawthorne as in Hawthorne Wipes, the award-winning moist towelette." Ruth quickly wrote down all of this new information. "I was just gonna ask," Jeff responded to the man.
    "I'm also a toast master," Pierce said confidently, "so perhaps I should do the introductions?" "Definitely," Jeff responded.
    "Well, you already know Brittles," he began, motioning towards the blonde woman who sat next to Jeff. "Britta," she corrected coldly. "Uh, Aybed," he continued, motioning towards the cool guy and finally revealing his name. "Aybed the A-rab!", Pierce said with a chuckle. "Is that inappropriate?", he asked Abed. "Sure," Abed responded, un-phased by the blatant racism. "Roy!", the old man continued with a smile. "Roy the wonder boy!," he said, patting the young man next to him on the back. "Troy," the young man corrected as coldly as Britta did. "Booth," he said, motioning to Ruth. "Ruth," Abed corrected matter-of-factly, causing Ruth to give him a quick smile. Pierce ignored the correction and continued, "Little Princess Elizabeth." He motioned towards the young woman next to Ruth. "Annie," she corrected.
    "And finally," the man said, facing towards the woman next to him, "this beautiful creature is named Shirley." "Is that even close?", Jeff asked after having quickly caught onto Pierce's pattern of giving incorrect names.  Shirley nodded regretfully.
    "I'd like to know why I had to find out about this group on accident?", the girl who had just been identified as Annie spoke up accusingly. "Oh, this is getting way more like the Breakfast Club now," Abed commented, causing Ruth to smile a bit (something that Abed seemed to cause her to do a lot). "There's breakfast?", Pierce asked in clear confusion. "Okay! Um, maybe we should get to—", Britta said, trying to change the subject, but Jeff patted her hand and cut her off. "You know, I've been a part of a lot of study groups that fell apart because of unresolved tension," he said. Britta narrowed her eyes at the man. "Shouldn't we address Annie's concern? Did we not invite her?", he added.
    Shirley turned towards Annie and addressed her sweetly. "Well, Annie, sweetie, it's not behind your back," she assured the girl, "we just really didn't think about you—," "Can we stop it with the 'pumpkins' and the 'sweeties'?", Annie cut in sharply, "Being younger does not make me inferior; if anything, your age indicates that you made bad life decisions." Shirley shook her head, trying not to respond, but Jeff and the group pressured her to say something.
    "Okay," Shirley gave in, trying her hardest to remain calm, "okay, um... I'm sure I've made some- some bad life decisions, and maybe Annie's decisions will be better. Um, but I think she needs to decide whether she wants to be considered a- a child, or an adult, because children get pity, but not respect, and adults, they get respect, but they also get the back of their head grabbed and their face pushed through jukeboxes!" Shirley finally snapped, which, for some reason, seemed to please Jeff. 'Damn,' Ruth thought, trying her hardest to suppress a laugh.  "Okay! Why don't we try learning 'jukebox' in Spanish?", Britta attempted again to change the subject back to Spanish.
    Pierce creepily touched Shirley's hair, causing her to recoil in disgust. "What are you doing?!", she asks the old man. "Pierce! Let's discuss this creepiness," Jeff said, calling out the man. "Pardon you?", Pierce responds defensively. "What are you doing?", Britta whispered to Jeff, who responds by saying "I'm certified." He then turned back to Pierce. "Are you unaware that Shirley finds your advances inappropriate?", the "certified" man asked.
    Pierce chuckles. "What advances?", he asked, clearly unaware of how creepy he was being. "You have been sexually harassing me since the very first day of class," Shirley informed him. Ruth had noticed that and it was already in her journal. Pierce chuckled again. "Sexually harassing? What? That makes no sense to me; why would I harass somebody who turns me on?" Ruth's eyes widened in shock of how inappropriate the man was being.
    "Saying she turns you on is the harassment, dude!", the young man Ruth now knew as Troy snapped. "Hey! I am a prominent business leader, and a highly sought after dinner guest, and I will not take courting advice from some teenage boy!", Pierce responded in defense. Troy laughed at the man's response. "Well this 'teenage boy' is a quarterback and a prom king," Troy said confidently. "You're not prom king anymore, Troy. This isn't Riverside High," Annie chimed in. 'That's why they look familiar!,' Ruth thought. They had gone to school together; Ruth probably forgotten because she pretty much avoided everyone during high school (especially after her mom had died).
    "How'd you know I went there?", Troy asked. 'Seriously? Wasn't Annie like in love with him? How did he never notice?,' Ruth thought. "Because you're still wearing your stupid letter jacket," Annie pointed out, clearly upset, "and more importantly, I sat behind you in algebra!" Troy's eyes grew wide when the realization hit him. "Were you that girl who got hooked and pills and then dropped out?", he asked excitedly, then laughed. "You're Little Annie Aderol!" "Okay, then you're a stupid jock who lost his scholarship by dislocating both shoulders in a keg stand!", Annie shot back. "Keg flip! They are very hard to pull off!", Troy corrected her in defense. Everyone then started arguing over each other, causing Jeff to smile with satisfaction (which Ruth, of course, wrote down).
    Suddenly, Abed slammed his hand on the table, causing everyone to fall silent. "You know what I got for Christmas?", he said, Ruth quickly noticing that he was quoting The Breakfast Club. "It was a banner year at the Bender family," he continued, Ruth beginning to mouth along, "I got a carton of cigarettes. The old man grabbed me and said, 'Hey, smoke up, Johnny!' No, dad, what about you?!" Abed smiled proudly. Ruth put her arm up in a fist and mimicked Bender's impression of hitting his dad/his dad hitting him, causing everyone to look at her like she was crazy, except for Abed who pointed at her with a smile. Jeff looked between Ruth and Abed before saying "Well, uh... that— that actually was from The Breakfast Club." "Nobody puts Baby in a corner," Abed said, making another reference. "Dirty Dancing," Jeff and Ruth replied at the same time. "Yeah," Abed said with a nod and a grin.
    That's when Jeff's phone rang. "Hello?", he answered, then the person on the other end said something, causing Jeff to respond with, "What's wrong with your voice?" The person answered and then they hang up. "Uhh," Jeff said with a bit of confusion on his face, "I'll be right back, but while I'm gone, you guys need to hash this stuff out. No stone unturned. Go!" The man then left, taking his jacket with him. Everyone then started arguing again.
    By the time Jeff got back, the room was full of complete chaos, giving Ruth a ton of good information, but causing everyone else to be upset. Britta and Jeff appeared to talk right outside of the study room for a moment before re-entering. "Alright, everybody!", Jeff said loudly, somehow causing everyone to comply. "You don't have to yell," Shirley mumbled, then added, "I don't appreciate your tone."
    Jeff went on to make a speech about Shark Week, pencils, and Ben Affleck, ultimately making the point that people don't see the good inside themselves. He then went around to each person at the table and said something nice about them. Ruth, for example, was referred to as "observant", "quiet", and "kind" (she wasn't quite sure where the "kind" came from, but she didn't question it, at least not out loud). Jeff then instructed the group to turn towards one another and forgive the person next to them. Ruth had no one to turn to, but Jeff didn't seem to notice or care. Everyone said "I forgive you" except for Pierce, who only did so after Jeff called him out.
    "You've just stopped being a study group. You have become something unstoppable. I hereby pronounce you a community," Jeff said, finishing his speech on a good note. "Oh, that's nice!", Shirley said and everyone clapped and smiled (except for Pierce). "This isn't like Breakfast Club anymore. Uh, now it's like Stripes or Meatballs; anything with Bill Murray, really," Abed said. "Caddy Shack," Ruth suggested, causing Abed yet again to point and smile at her. "I agree with Abed and Ruth that tonight has been very special," Jeff said. "And now if you'll excuse me, I have a dinner engagement with Britta." He turned to the blonde woman with a smile. "Britta?"
    "I lied," she said to the man, causing his smile to fade. "Thanks for calming everyone down, but since you're not a Spanish tutor and just a lying creep who purposely upset everyone in an attempt to get with me, I'd appreciate it if you left and stopped wasting all of our time." The group went completely silent. She then turned to the group. "Everybody ready?", she asked.
    "Fine," Jeff said, clearly upset, "and I'm happy to report that one of the benefits of being a 'lying creep' is having all the answers to tomorrow's test." He held up an envelope, then continued. "And I'm happy to share them with anyone whose time I've wasted more than they've wasted mine." Pierce decided that then was a great time to chime in with a clueless comment. "Uh, Jeff," he said, "if you have all the answers, why the hell did you start this study group?" "I don't have a study group, Pierce. I made it up," Jeff informed the old man. "But what about the 'look left' speech?", Annie asked with a frown.
    "Made it up! That's what I do, I make things up, and I got paid a lot of money to do it before I came to this school-shaped toilet. I was a lawyer!", Jeff told the group angrily. Everyone groaned in disgust. Jeff picked up the envelope and turned to leave, but stopped when Abed spoke up. "You know, I thought you were like Bill Murray in any of his films, but you're more like Michael Douglas in any of his films," Abed said. "The Game," Ruth said, agreeing with Abed. "Yeah?", Jeff asked Abed. "Yeah," Abed responds. "Well you have Asperger's," Jeff said to Abed, then turned to Ruth, "and you're just crazy," he added and then left. "What does that mean?", Abed asked.
    Pierce and Troy laughed. "Ass burgers," Troy says. "It's a serious disorder," Annie informed him. "If it's so serious, why don't they call it 'meningitis'?" Pierce joked. "Yeah," Troy agreed. The two continued to chuckle. "Ass burgers," Pierce repeated. "Burger for your ass," Troy adds.
    By the end of the night, everyone ended up forgiving Jeff and welcoming him back into the study group. It was mostly out of pity, Ruth had decided.