He slowly opens his eyes to see a figure clad in cardinal and gold.
“Hello, Norman.”
He squints. “Ames?”
“Amy. Only my friends can call me Ames.”
“Where am I? What am I doing here?”
“It’s that unfamiliar, I see. Welcome to the basement of the Big 12, the place you tried to set fire to and got four years of house arrest instead. Tex pushed you down here.”
“This place has a basement?”
“Sure it does. You were here once, 25 years ago. For the past decade it’s pretty much been Jay’s place.”
“That explains the basketball memorabilia. Where is he, anyway?”
From somewhere upstairs, as if on cue, a loud voice screeches, “FREEDOM! AND MAYBE BOWL ELIGIBILITY!”
Amy sighs. “Only two years ago I was in the penthouse suite for the first time ever, wearing that slinky black number. But then YOU had to spoil my fun and take the crown jewel away.”
Norman smiles. “And then I threw it in the drawer with the rest of them.”
Amy sighs again. “Now I’m back here, after Tex pushed me down too. I did not expect this so soon. It’s time for one of us to start crawling back up those stairs. Shall we play a game?”
“Global thermonuclear war?” Norman says, a little too eagerly.
“Too realistic right now. How about NCAA Football?”
“You’re on.”
“Did you know Tex is terrified of turtles?”