We drove in silence for the longest time, until Cooper decided to listen to music on her phone, but it connected to the radio on its own like my mom's phone automatically connecting to my dad's -- really cool -- car radio every time she gets in. Cooper's phone started playing the beginning of the outro to Naruto season 5, so it had a goofy ahh beat for a second and a half, and then we heard something that let out a big "GET OUTTT"; at least that's what it sounded like. Or it might've just been get out in Japanese.
"What the hell was that?!" I let out.
"Naruto, my sweet child." Cooper said as she patted me on the head. She continued with a random "Elementary, my dear Watson."
"Isn't that what Sherlock Holmes said to Watson when he asked about where the food disappeared to?" Kylie asked.
"Yes, my dear Watson." Cooper said with that iconic little grin on her face like she was going to do something stupid. She always does something stupid.
"And that's when elementary turns into middle school, then it goes into high school, and before you know it, there's college!" Ashton said. "Now finish that goofy ahh Naruto outro!"
This is where it gets to the good part
We saw this sleep deprived dude walking down the sidewalk and we thought he was a hitchhiker. So, Cooper being Cooper once again like always just turned right around and yelled, "Let's go pick up that sleep deprived hippie!" while me, Ashton, and Kylie were screaming and holding on for dear life on to those little bar things on the bus roof while Cooper was getting lucky that she didn't get a speeding ticket and Cooper kept yakking at that hippie dude to get in the car and she kept calling him a hitchhiker until the Frank in him from oh so long ago came back to life and he yelled in a peculiar way and spit during every word, "I'm not a hitchhiker! Don't you know who I am?"
Cooper looked at him closely and scanned him like those things at the airport do to you and she finally said something, and that something was "You look familiar. But I can't really think of it. I swear, it's right there on the tip of my tongue. I got it! I got it! I.... don't got it." Cooper kept trying to figure out who the hell that goddamn hippie was -- even I couldn't tell, it was already dark outside -- while Ashton, Kylie, and I were waiting on her to just give up wondering who the fuck he could be out of everyone on this planet earth and leave him out there -- no, we can't leave that poor dude out there in the cold, all alone, that's not right -- but she needed to hurry up.
"Let me at it." Ashton wanted this to hurry up. "Oh. My. God. I know you! Cooper, get this man in this bus. What are you doing out here this late, all alone." That last part sounded like he was talking to a lost puppy or something.
"Ashton, who is it?" Cooper asked.
"You don't know who this is?" Ashton looked at the -- turns out he's not a -- hitchhiker and back at Cooper. "Correct me if I'm wrong, sir, and Cooper, but this is our freaking king Joji."
"How was I supposed to know who this was? I'm an uncultured child!" Cooper crossed her arms like a two-year-old being asked to share with their cousin.
The hitchhiker -- I mean, this so-called Joji dude -- waved at Cooper as she squinted her eyes and looked at him closely like a half-blind grandma reading a Christmas card and said, "Boy, I ain't never heard of you in my, what? 27 years of living. What, you came from Mars or something like that? I swear, I saw you land in Area 51 about ten years ago. Weren't you on the news or something? Or the History Channel at 3am? And your name. Y'all mean Yoshi from Super Mario, 'cause--"
"Cooper!" Ashton elbowed her in the arm. "Get a grip on yourself."
"Ok!" Cooper continued to be a crackhead and gripped her arm and Ashton put her back in the bus.
"Sorry, she's a handful. At only 27. She doesn't have any disease or anything, she's basically just like all of my friend Raegan's aunts and uncles, always drunk and being strange, right, Rae? Raegan?" Ashton went all mom mode for a moment. He woke me up and as soon as I saw Joji, I had butterflies in my stomach. I knew that I was in love.
