Word: foofaraw

 

foofaraw

\ FOO-fuh-raw \  , noun;

1. a great fuss or disturbance about something very insignificant.

2. an excessive amount of decoration or ornamentation, as on a piece of clothing, a building, etc.

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A sudden shout jerked Peter out of blissful slumber.  His half opened eyes probed the near darkness of the small room.  His blurred vision found the red digital numbers that showed him it was in the very early a.m.  And yet, even though the lights were off, there was still enough of it to see by.  In this case though, the light came from a computer monitor.

                His roommate, Henry, was still up and playing a video game.  It was from him that the offending shout had come from.  Peter reminded himself that murder was still frowned upon by well, everyone, and that a good night’s sleep was not grounds for justifiable homicide.  Peter groaned and rolled over to look at Henry, who was busy doing something that appeared to be a dance of joy.

                “Dude, do you know what time it is?”  Peter muttered, just loud enough to be heard.

                “Time?  Who cares about time?”  Henry asked, whirling around in the cheap, yard sale office chair.

                “Everyone sane.”

                “Sanity is for the weak.”  Henry scoffed.  Peter rolled his eyes and slowly sat up, leaning against the wall for support.

                “In that case, you’d be the strongest guy alive.”  Henry didn’t respond.  Peter was sure that he probably took it as a compliment.  Probably the only person alive that would.  “So what’s got you so excited that you had to wake me up from a dream involving bikini models and lots of pudding?”

                “I just got, like, the best thing ever!”  Henry said, a little too enthusiastically. 

                “Huh?”

                “Here, come and check out the sweetness of what I just got.”

                Peter slid out of bed and shuffled over to the computer screen.  Henry proudly showed off his game character.  None of what Peter saw made sense.  All he saw was Henry’s character wearing some kind of overly fancy robes or dress or some such.  To Peter, it just made Henry’s character look way too effeminate for a male avatar.  He figured it was normal for that particular game though.

                “Ok, and what am I looking at?”

                “The clothes, man, the clothes!” 

                “You mean the ones that make your guy look like a girl?”

                “They do not make him look like a girl!  That is the rarest armor set in the game.  You can only get it by a lottery system.  One with a really, really slim chance of winning.  I think there’s maybe a hundred or so people with this set in the entire server.  And now I am proud to say I’m one of them.”

                “You woke me up because you found a fancy new outfit for your game character?”

                “First of all, I didn’t wake you up. Second, this isn’t just an outfit.  This set consists of four of the most coveted items in the game!  It’s a huge deal.  This is the kind of thing that gets noticed.  With this, I become one of the most envied players in the game.  Do you not know what this means?”

                “It means you can find a fake girlfriend that’s probably a guy, settle down and have fake kids and live out a perfect fake life.”  Peter said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

                “I don’t think you really get how big this is.”  Henry said with all seriousness.

                “Clearly not.”

                “With this, my online popularity will soar.  I’ll probably get invited into one of the big guilds, just for this.  This armor set is my ticket to the big time!”

                “You know what you remind me of right now?  You remind me of Calvin wanting to call the newspapers because he saw a robin.”

                “Hey now, I’m not that bad.”  Henry said.

                “Who was it that was dancing in his seat just a few minutes ago?”

                “Er, well.  To be fair, this is different from a boy seeing a bird you know.”

                “Yup, this is a college student getting a shiny thing made of pixels.”

                Henry spun back around to face his computer with a huff.  Peter figured since he couldn’t come up with a good response, he would just say nothing.  Henry crossed his arms in front of him and pouted, an action which was lost on Peter, who couldn’t see his roommate’s face. 

                “What’s the matter?  Doesn’t your new armor help you think of things to say?”  Peter asked, poking fun at Henry’s excitement.  Henry just huffed again.  “Mm hm.  Yeah, I thought so.  Now, if you excuse me, us weak folks tend to like sleeping.”  

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Not really sure how well the ending works, but I couldn't think of anything else.  Maybe later I will.  As for the story, I must admit I have gotten a bit too excited over getting an in game item before as well.  I didn't wake anyone up with my tiny little celebration, but still.  Oh, and as a side, if you were wondering, here's the Calvin and Hobbes comic being brought up.