[Hyde POV]
The girl entered the mechanic shop after I invited her in. I wanted to let her stay out there, but it looked like it was going to snow.
"The battery's dead." I told her simply after checking her car.
She wiped her runny nose and said, "Can you fix it?"
"I can charge it with mine. You can leave after a few minutes." I said flatly.
"Thanks." She replied with embarrassment. "Are you going to tell anyone what you just saw?"
"Nope. I don't think any of my friends will be interested."
Linda dropped her head, becoming more embarrassed now.
It was a simple fix to get her car to become alive again. She asked as she got into the car, "Please don't tell anyone."
"I won't." I said with an annoyed grimace. "Just go home. It's going to snow–"
The snow fell before she could go. It was a heavy one too.
"I think I can make it to my house." She said as she checked the sky. I checked her tires and said, "No you might not make it."
"What– What am I supposed to do?" She asked agitatedly.
"I'm going to change into snow tires and I'm going to drive you home. You can pick your car later."
I sniffed slightly, shivering from the cold air. Linda got out of the car and asked with a touched expression, "You'd do that for me?"
Couldn't be bothered to reply, I took out the snow tires I kept as backup here in this shop and swapped them out on my Celica. I bought it for my Nova before, but it was never used.
My appraisal told me I did it perfectly, and I started the Celica. As I drove her in the heavy snow, she tried to start up a conversation, "I know you slept with Bonnie and Nicole. Are you dating them?"
"Nope." I replied curtly.
"Dating one of them?" She asked again.
"Still nope."
"So… you guys just did it casually?" She asked.
"Yeah." I shrugged.
She went silent for a bit and asked, "Are you having fun with that?"
"Where is this going?" I stopped her. "I'm only dropping you off. I don't have any intentions of seeing you after this."
She got agitated again and said, "Whatever the girls told you! It's mostly lies!"
"I don't care." I shrugged again.
She stammered, then she bit her lower lips in frustration. "Nicole let an old guy suck on her titties for money. She's basically a hooker."
"I know. She told me that." I said with a chuckle.
Linda raised an eyebrow and had a shocked expression. "And that didn't turn you off?"
"Well, she did it to survive. I don't judge people for what they did in desperate times. And the old man is the mayor."
"Still!" Linda got annoyed. "Well, what about Bonnie? She– She…"
"You got nothing on her huh?"
"Shut up! I'm thinking! Um… Okay, she used to be fat!"
I just shrugged at her. As I got her to her house, I left as soon as she shut the door, not even waiting for her goodbyes.
"...SO RUDE!" She shouted from behind.
When I got home, I saw Kitty, Red and Eric were in the kitchen in their robes again.
"Steven." Red was taken aback when he saw me. "I thought I would have to come and pick you up."
"Why?" I asked with confusion.
"It's because you don't have a car." Eric said sarcastically, with a scolding tone. "It's snowing heavily outside. You don't have a jacket to walk home and the shop is 5 miles away."
"Don't prattle." I scowled at him. He threw his hands up in defeat. "Why do I even bother?" He said defeatedly.
I laughed and said, "I have fixed up the Celica, so I used that to drive home."
"Oh! That's fast." Red looked at me with some awe. "But now, we're going to put a tarp on that, since it's snowing heavily now."
"Yeah, I think school's going to be closed tomorrow. For snow day." Eric grinned with excitement.
"Alright!" I celebrated with him with a high five. Red looked at us scarily, which made us shrink back.
"Steven, you must've been so cold. Here, drink this hot chocolate." Mrs Forman quickly brought me a cup of drink. "Look, it has a marshmallow smiley face on it."
"Mom. What about my hot chocolate?" Eric asked with a sad tone.
"Here, you can drink this one. I've already warmed up with a glass of scotch–"
I accidentally blurted out. Midway through the sentence, I realized I had fucked up and tried to stop, but it was too late.
"Glass of scotch huh?" Red shot an intimidating look at me. I chuckled nervously and said, "it's not what you think. There's a girl whose car died on the street. I got it from her."
"A girl? You were with a girl?" Eric asked curiously.
"You brought a girl to the shop?" Red was even more furious.
"I didn't. She brought herself to the shop, by pushing her car for like two miles. Her battery died, and no one was around to help. She saw the light in the shop, so she knocked on the door." I explained.
"Oh, so you helped a stranger?" Kitty was quite proud. "Red. He was not bringing girls to the shop for…"
She trailed off, sensing Eric and mine's eyes on her.
"Unclean reasons." She finished off weirdly.
We went outside for a bit to put a tarp on. Red and Eric's car were in the garage, so only my car needed the help.
I didn't go straight to bed. Instead, I opened up my laptop, put a blanket over me, turned up the space heater, and began working on the flyers.
"I need to find the models tomorrow."
I asked ChatGPT for fun about things to do in Wisconsin in February 1977. The AI gave me several exciting events.
On the 13th of February, there's an ALL STAR game next week in Milwaukee. An hour and fifteen minutes away from Point Place.
"Alright. I should get tickets for this… but how?"
If this was in 2025, I could just get the tickets online and check availability. But in 1977, I'd have to buy it at the ticket counter in front of the stadium, or check the newspaper for people who're selling these.
"I wish I could just buy the tickets online." I hummed casually.
Suddenly, the system notification sounded.
[Would you like to use 1 rating point to open TicketMaster?]
"I have one point?" I was slightly surprised.
I checked my rating points. I have 1.8 points for the Red Last Day Episode, 7.7 from the New Girl episode.
I spent 1 rating point on the appraisal, so I used up 1 out of 1.8 points.
Then, I added an additional 1 hour of Build Mode, which took 5 points. I paid 2 points for the appraisal, bringing my total appraisal available to 585 points.
"Ah, I have 1.5 points. How do I use the TicketMaster?" I asked the system.
[1 point for 1 hour of use. The TicketMaster will shut down after an hour.]
"Oh damn," I cursed quietly. "What about the pricing?"
[Extra 20% on all tickets bought using TicketMaster.]
I shrugged. "Alright. Let's see if the tickets are even available."
Using one rating point, I opened up the TicketMaster website and searched for the 1977 NBA All-Star Game in Milwaukee, February 13th.
"Oh," I muttered. "There it is."
[TicketMaster integrates licensed resellers, brokers, and third-party holders.
Scalper inventory is considered available seating.]
"Nice."
The venue capacity was about 11,000 seats, and a glance at the seating chart showed that 93% of them were already sold out, even in the dead of winter. Most of what remained wasn't direct sales anymore .
They were scalper listings, resold seats snapped up the moment tickets originally went live.
Naturally, the prices were higher. And that was before the extra 20% TicketMaster surcharge.
"One hundred bucks for two floor tickets?" I blinked in disbelief. "Scalpers are making a killing… they're selling these for almost twice the original price."
Still, it was the only pair of floor seats left, so I bought them anyway. After the TicketMaster markup, that came out to $120.
The rest of the tickets had to come from scalpers too.
They were the kind of people who waited in line overnight and refreshed ticket windows the second sales opened, so most of the good seats were already in their hands.
"The rest will be in the lower bowl," I muttered. "Nine of them should be enough."
In total, I bought eleven tickets, most of them priced at thirty dollars each. The lower-bowl seats cost me $396, and the floor tickets added another $120 on top of that.
If I bought it normally a month ago, I would only have to pay around 10 bucks for the lower bowl, and 25 bucks for the floor tickets.
"Thankfully," I said to myself, "I have a lot of cash."
[Payment method: Cash. Reason: Third-party reseller] The system told me.
As I bought it, it said, [The tickets will be delivered through mail in 3 days.]
"Alright. Nice." I smiled in satisfaction.
Then I checked the Bruce Springsteen tickets.
It was worse. Much worse.
The show was completely sold out, and the scalpers had gone insane. Prices were jacked up to nearly four times the original face value.
I ended up buying ten regular tickets at nine dollars a seat, and two good seats that cost me thirty dollars each from a scalper. I got ten regular tickets from the box office booth almost instantly.
That put the total at eighty bucks for all twelve tickets.
I stared at the confirmation screen for a moment.
"…Wait," I muttered slowly. "Why did I buy so many?"
It finally hit me, and I frowned.
"I only needed two tickets for the Springsteen concert. Why do I even want to invite everyone else? Maybe I can give the tickets away or something."
I even bought tickets for two more events in Chicago, but those events will be held in March.
…
The next morning, the outside of the house was pure white snow.
I wore two robe jackets and went to the kitchen as it was really cold.
"Good morning Steven." Mrs Forman greeted me cheerfully. "School's cancelled today." She added and laughed.
Eric was excited and said, "I told you."
I sat on the dining table and asked, "Where's Red?"
"He still went to work," Kitty said with a sigh. "I told him no one will go to the shop today."
Eric laughed and said, "Chances are, he's going to be back by noon."
It was still good since if Red was there, I wouldn't have to be there to give Linda her car back.
The snow outside was quite thick. Almost 8 inches thick. Eric and I went to shovel snow out of the driveway after breakfast.
Donna, Kelso, and Fez came to the basement after we were done to hang out.
"Hyde, what are you doing?" Donna asked as I was setting up a screen behind the couch. I set up a tripod, lighting, and was checking the angle for the picture.
"I got flyers for designing jobs," I told her casually.
"You're photographing models?" Fez gasped, breathing rapidly.
"B-B-Bikini models?" Kelso was also turned on for some reason.
I looked at both of them with disbelief and said, "If you want the roller skates and milk bottles to put on the bikinis, then sure."
"Eh." Both of them exclaimed in disappointment.
Suddenly, Midge came down into the basement. Donna's eyes widened the moment she saw her mother's outfit.
"MOM! What are you wearing?!"
Midge twirled her twin-tail hair and showed off her milk maid outfit proudly. "Doesn't this look great? I'm going to be a milk model!"
All of the guys in the basement had their eyes glued to Midge. After a brief pause, Kelso began slow clapping, and everyone else joined him—everyone except me.
"SHUT UP YOU PERVERTS!" Donna snapped at all of them before turning to me. "HYDE! I'm going to kill you!" She lunged in my direction.
I swerved slightly to avoid her and went straight to Midge instead. "Why are you wearing this outfit? I told you just to wear a white shirt and jeans."
"Doesn't this suit the Milk flyers more?" Midge asked, genuinely confused as to why I was rejecting her idea.
"Maybe 20 more years in the future," I said flatly. "The world's not ready yet for this. I can't show cleavage, or risque photos in the modelling."
"Is this risque?" Midge was taken aback. "I wore this almost every time Bob and I are roleplaying—"
"MOM!" Donna cut her off with a horrified expression.
"Just go change and come back," I said with defeat.
Donna immediately grabbed Midge and pushed her out through the basement door.
"BOOOO!" Kelso gave me a thumbs-down as he booed. Even Eric and Fez joined in.
"Shut up. Get lost. I need the space to work," I said with annoyance.
Kelso suddenly perked up. "Hyde, what about me? Can I be a model?" he asked excitedly.
"You actually can," I replied. "You're very pretty for a man."
"That's true," Fez agreed immediately.
"Aww, you guys," Kelso blushed a little. Eric was the only normal one there, and he looked completely dumbfounded by the entire interaction.
"So I can be a milk maid too?" Kelso asked.
"Yes. Wear the outfit," Fez said with excitement.
I laughed and shook my head. "I don't have much time with the camera, so I have to say no—even though I really… really want to burn Kelso by tricking him into wearing the milk maid outfit."
"Oh come on!" Fez shouted in exasperation. "You never do anything fun anymore."
"Yeah, Hyde," Kelso said, putting his hand on my shoulder. "Are you sick? Do you need some help? Or have you already lost your touch?"
I grimaced and slapped his hand away. "You really want me to burn you?" I asked instigatively.
"Duhhh!" Kelso replied, dragging out the word.
I walked over to the phone and dialed a number. "Hey Jackie. I have a roller skate modelling job if you want—"
"I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!" Jackie squealed, shouting as she slammed the phone down.
Eric frowned. "Why did you call Jackie? How is this a burn?"
"Just wait," I said with a smirk.
Jackie showed up twenty minutes later, wearing a beret tilted to the side, a silk scarf wrapped tightly around her neck, thick makeup, and a flashy roller-disco jumpsuit that looked like it came straight out of a magazine spread.
By then, Donna had returned to the basement, and I was in the middle of taking pictures of Midge holding the milk bottle when Jackie stormed in.
"Huh!? Why is Midge modelling instead of me? Did I lose my chance again?"
Donna laughed. "No. This is for another flyer."
"What?! There's two?!" Jackie exclaimed in disbelief. She marched straight toward me and interrupted the shoot. "HYDE! Why did you give one job to Midge?!"
I ignored her and spoke calmly to Midge. "Can you pretend to throw the milk toward me right now? Like—right at the camera."
"Like this?" Midge asked, swinging her arms wildly.
I grimaced and immediately grabbed the camera and ducked to the side.
The milk flew out of the glass bottle and splashed directly into Kelso's face.
Midge gasped. Eric and Donna burst out laughing.
"MIDGE! He said to pretend!" Kelso snapped, wiping his face as he ran off to change. He tried to get into my room, but I had already locked it.
"HYDE! OPEN UP!" Kelso yelled, pounding on the door.
"No. Go put on Forman's clothes!" I snapped back.
"All of Eric's clothes are lame!" Kelso shouted.
"Hey!" Eric protested weakly.
"Hyde!" Jackie shouted.
"HYDE!" Kelso shouted.
I rubbed my sore forehead. "Why did I even pick these guys?"
As the shoot went on, Jackie and Kelso eventually approached me together, both wearing eager, expectant smiles.
"Hyde, we talked about it," Kelso said, grabbing Jackie's hand dramatically, like he hadn't cheated on her yesterday with Laurie. "And we decided to go on the flyer together."
"Yeah, Steven," Jackie added, her eyes sparkling. "That way, our love will be immortalized in the modelling world forever."
Finally, my chance.
"Unfortunately," I said casually, "I only have the money to hire one of you."
"That's fine! We can split the fee," Jackie said quickly.
I pretended to consider it. "Splitting the fee is fine—but I can't pair you two together on the flyers."
"What? Why?" Kelso asked.
"The height difference," I said calmly, like a professional. Jackie was five-five. Kelso was six-three.
"The most I can allow is a three-inch difference," I continued. "I can't do it with you two. So decide who gets on the flyer—or find partners that suit you."
Kelso immediately shoved Jackie aside and grabbed Donna. "What about this? Me and Donna!"
"Get off me, you goof—" Donna pinched his arm hard, making him squeal.
"That would actually work," I said flatly.
"WAIT! NO! MICHAEL!" Jackie snapped. "I'm the model! I'm doing it alone!"
"No! I will!" Kelso shouted back.
They erupted into a full-blown screaming match over who deserved the flyer.
I smiled, satisfied, and quietly slipped out while they were too busy fighting to notice.
…
By noon, it had started drizzling again. Red still hadn't come back from the shop. Kitty had already left for work, so there was no supervision in the house.
I headed to the roller rink to find a model for the sporting goods store.
"Thanks for coming with me," I told Eric and Donna. "I'm pretty sure I won't be able to cross the threshold of this hell on my own."
"You got it, buddy," Eric said sarcastically.
Donna glanced around. "So you're really not picking Jackie? She's going to be mad. Again."
"Hey, I gave them a chance," I replied gruffly. "They argued for over two hours instead."
That's when I saw her.
A girl skating confidently across the rink floor, wearing snug Wonder Woman–themed roller-disco shorts and a fitted tank top with the emblem across the chest. She had knee-high striped socks, quad skates with bright wheels, and a cheap plastic tiara perched in her dark hair. She moved easily, laughing as she circled the rink with practiced grace.
"Hey, Wonder Woman," I called out.
She immediately slowed and frowned.
"Hyde, that's rude," Eric and Donna said at the same time.
I checked my watch. "I've got fifteen minutes to submit this."
Donna stepped in smoothly. "Sorry about that. We don't know your name. Could you come here for a second?"
The skater rolled toward us and stopped near the rink's perimeter rail, resting one hand against it as she waited.
Eric helped me, "This is Steven Hyde. He designs flyers for shops around the town. He needs a model for a new roller skating shoes. Are you interested?"
"Really?" her eyes lit up. "Wait, this is not one of the jobs where you said you want me to become a model, and bring me to a basement or something and we shoot porno instead?"
"No, No. He's legit." Donna took out my binder from my bag and showed her the flyers I've made.
"Oh. Alright. I'm in." She replied gleefully.
Another girl, wearing a lycra bodysuit heard everything and rushed towards us.
"Hey, are you looking for a model? How about me?" She said, posing with her hands around her waist and pushing her butt out.
"Sorry. We already picked one." Donna said apologetically.
"You're not in charge. He's in charge, right?" She pointed at me and smirked. "How about it boy? If you pick me, I'll let you do whatever you want to me." She leaned in closer and said with a sultry voice, "Whatever. You. Want."
"Yeah. I'm cool." I rejected her subtly and turned to the WonderWoman girl. "What's your name?"
"Riley."
"Alright. Can you change into the new skates now? I have a few sizes here, I need to make sure it fits."