Weekly Whack: The Mystery of the Muff People
The Mystery of the Muff People
May 5, 1996

Being an American teenager living in the suburbs, I face the same dilemma that many of my fellow brethren face at the end of each week: what the hell to do on a Friday night. After a long week of being indoctrinated in school with the values of Dewey and Marx, the last thing you want to do on a Friday night is to sit home and jerk it (and that is the non-literal meaning of jerk it). Network executives realize this, and that is why there is absolutely crap on TV on Friday nights. If you live in the city, you have no problem since there is enough things to do in a city. If you live in the country, you also have no problem because you can harvest wheat or do whatever you freaks do back on the farm. However if you live in the suburbs, you have a big problem. After a single month of living in the suburbs, a person already has experienced every activity offered, and must make the critical choice between creativity and monotony. Naturally I'm with the select group that has chosen the former, and I have great pity for those who picked the latter. However, despite my pity, I still like to make fun of them.

The single most sad, and pathetic group of people around where I live, is a gang of young American losers that my friends and I aptly refer to as the Muff People. I think a little background on the Muff People is in need now. You see, around where I live there's a little outdoor mini-mall. This said mini-mall has all you usual stores, a couple music stores, a book store, a pharmacy, a department store, a few places to eat, etc. One of the food oriented shops there, is a place called My Favorite Muffin, that obviously sells all different kinds of muffins. Now on a normal day My Favorite Muffin is a nice quiet store that you can go into if you get the unexpected urge for a muffin. However, every Friday night My Favorite Muffin is transformed into a temple for those group of adolescent winners who have no hope, no future, and nothing better to do. Yes, this is a the story of a troubled tribe, the story of the Muff People.

The Muff People can be divided into to two distinct groups. The first group consist of fourteen year-old girls who has done more drugs, and had more sex than Dallas Cowboy all-pro receiver Michael Irvin. The second group consists of twenty year-old guys named Harry, who wear hats straight out of a Dr. Suess book (since that is their reading level), and realize that the only members of the opposite sex that will look twice at them without getting violently sick are fourteen year-old sluts on drugs. The first group always arrives first, of course being dropped off by their parents. Since none of them have any actual money, no one can by an actual muffin, so they must all wait outside the My Favorite Muffin store, staring blindly into space, waiting for the second group to arrive. The second group comes to the scene a little later, and, although they are at the age where they can drive, most of them are also dropped off by their parents since they had their licenses revoked when they swerved off the road into the woods, trying to avoiding hitting that invisible turkey. When the second group arrives, that is when all the action begins.

Usually one member of the second group of Muff People has some sort of job, and as a result has enough pocket change to buy a muffin. To show group solidarity, the rest of the Muff People follow him into My Favorite Muffin, and the result is fifteen people sitting at one table, watching a single individual eat one lousy muffin. After the person is done eating his muffin, they all continue sitting at the table, and just stare at each other with dumb looks on their faces. However this does not last long, because exactly five minutes after the person finishes the last crumb of his muffin, the owner of My Favorite Muffin calls the police to kick them all the hell out. After being kicked out of their home away from home, the Muff People tend to separate. Usually one of the older males, who by some freak accident has both a driver's license and a car, takes one of the females home with him where he then casts her in a plastic mold to add to his large collection in his garage. Of the remaining Muff People, one group just wanders aimlessly around the mini-mall, and another goes across the street to a movie theater, where they just hang around outside, staring at all the people who are actually there to see a movie. At this part of the evening, my friends and I come into the picture.

Every Friday night, no matter what we have planned, we make a habit of driving by the Muff People stragglers by the mini-mall and the movie theater, with all our windows down, and loud Spanish music playing. We mean no offense to anyone of Spanish decent, but we refer to this activity as going in 'Spic Mode.' The reason we do this, is that it provides them a source of excitement in their dull lives, and us a source a laughter. The usual reaction of the Muff People to 'Spic Mode' is to stare and point at us with dumb looks on their faces, saying to each other, "Hey, look at those people, they have loud Spanish music coming out of their car." Once, for a change a pace, we drove around with some preacher on the radio giving a sermon. We called this 'Bible Mode.' The reaction of the Muff People to 'Bible Mode' was to stare at us with dumb looks on their faces, saying to each other, "Hey, look at those people, they usually have loud Spanish music coming out of their car, but now they have some guy giving a speech about Jesus." Anyway, after we leave the scene, the Muff People continue on their normal activity, until finally their parent's come to pick them up. And of course they all come back next Friday night to do the exact same thing.

Well I'm think I'm done for this week, so to conclude, every town has their own Muff People; beware of invisible turkeys; and my favorite muffin is chocolate chip.

Now for this week's special feature, the top ten favorite activities of Feff and his friends for a Friday night:

10. Give motivational speeches to Fortune 500 companies
9. Hand out peanut-butter sandwiches to the homeless
8. Search for gold
7. Paint over graffiti with murals about Native American life
6. Sing Broadway show tunes at a Karaoke bar
5. Try on dresses
4. Have a picnic in the back of a pick-up truck
3. Apply for jobs at lingerie stores
2. Bury our gold
1. Search for chicks