Hey, you've reached Conner McKnight. Leave a message, will ya? I'm not as fast as I used to be but I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

This normal life stuff is harder than you'd think.

The impossible had happened: Conner's car had broken down. Naturally this would happen when he was on a road trip, on his way out to Illinois to meet with a few youth league coaches out there; he'd been thinking of forming a sort of buddy program between his league and theirs.

With nothing left to do but wait for AAA to show up and give him a tow, he was on the phone to Ethan, bitching his heart out. "Dude, how could this happen? She's never broken down on me before! Why now?"

"I don't know, man," Ethan replied. "Sucks to be you?"

"Shut up. It never sucks to be me," Conner griped.

"Where are you again, anyway?"

"Turtle Cove, Colorado . . . what? What?" Conner demanded, when his answer prompted a torrent of laughter from Ethan. "You know this is where the Wild Force R -- what's so freaking funny, man?"

"Turtle Cove," Ethan wheezed on the other end of the line, "Colorado. Do you know how much is wrong with that?"

Conner stared around at the completely landlocked expanse, listened to Ethan laugh some more, and finally shrugged. "Dude. I don't get it."

At least Ethan's hysterical guffaws, for the next ten minutes, were better than silence?

It was a good time of year, if you were Conner McKnight; UEFA Champions League was in season and the fifty million satellite channels at the Cyberspace meant he didn't have to miss a game if he didn't want to. Unless there were more than two on at the same time; picture-in-picture did have its limitations, after all.

He was sprawled out on the couch in front of the giant flatscreen TV, working his way through his fourth smoothie and making loud commentary on the game when the power went out.

"NO!" he bawled. "What's going on?"

"Conner, relax," Hayley said, walking by. "Didn't you hear the announcement twenty minutes ago? They're doing maintenance on the power grid. It'll be back up in half an hour."

Conner stared at her in stunned disbelief. "But there's only ten minutes left in the game!" Of course he hadn't heard the announcement; there had been a game on. All things were clearly secondary to that.

"Oh, Conner. You'll live," Hayley said indulgently, and went on her way, flashlight in hand.

"Reefside Power Company! How could you do this to me?"

Things had been so much easier when he could blame power outages on skyscraper-sized stampeding dinosaurs, honestly.

It'd happened to Conner before, so when he woke up and looked into the mirror in his hotel room he had to pause, admire himself, and grin. "Oh, yeah. Can't argue with a classic."

. . . Conner McKnight had not thought this through to the point where he made the connection between the way he looked today and the fact that he was in a hotel in Washington with his largely-made-up-of-girls youth soccer team. He didn't have time to think about that; today was the last day of practice before the big regional tournament started tomorrow.

Actually, more accurately, he didn't have time to think about it, because the second he stepped out of the room and went to go round up the kids he got mobbed. By his own players.

"Wow, guys, I know you think I'm a rockin' coach and all, but you're not usually this happy to see me . . ."

This was gonna take so much explaining later.

[OOC: Estaaaaaaaaaablishy, for great Mia Hamm!Conner justice. Look, it's not my fault genderswap day happened to fall the day before Women's Professional Soccer playoffs start . . .]

Day three of the statewide youth soccer league tournament, and Conner's team from Reefside was sitting handily in first place with a five-point lead over the team from Stone Canyon. Actually, as the final whistle blew, that'd be an eight-point lead since his left defensive back, and man was he proud of that kid, had scored a glancing header in the final seconds of stoppage time that had gone in off the goalpost and beaten the Stone Canyon goalie to break a 5-5 tie.

It had been a good, clean game -- if nothing else, Conner considered it very serious business to teach his kids to play solid defense without dirty tricks -- and a good win. One of his players' parents was very proudly talking about that to one of the Stone Canyon players' parents in the bleachers right now, as a matter of fact. That was, until the rhythmic STOMP-STOMP-CLAP, STOMP-STOMP-CLAP started up from the Reefside team's bench and a couple of the girls who played midfield for Reefside began to giggle.

Yeah, that was their coach standing on the bench stomping and clapping, and singing at the top of his lungs:

"BUDDY, YOU'RE A BOY, MAKE A BIG NOISE, PLAY IN THE STREET, YOU'RE GONNA BE A BIG MAN SOMEDAY! YOU GOT MUD ON YOUR FACE, YOU BIG DISGRACE, KICKING YOUR CAN ALL OVER THE PLACE!" And he kept on going, all the way through, arms waving in the air right up until he finished up with a big flourish, "WEEEEEEEE ARE THE CHAAAAAAAAAAAAMPIOOOOOOOOOOONS OF THE WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORLD!"

One of the Stone Canyon forwards stepped up and nudged the Reefside holding midfielder. "Wow, is your coach possessed or something?"

She sighed. "No. He does this at least once a week."

[OOC: NFI, NFB for distance/alumniness, but OOC welcome. I blame 100.3 The Sound for playing Queen at me on my way to work, and . . . I have no excuse for my insanity.]

There were certain things Conner McKnight was used to upon waking up: drool on his pillow, his computer beeping repeatedly because Eric thought it would be hilarious to keep IMing him until he replied, the feel of his Dino Gem bracelet against his cheek, likely embossing patterns into his face because he never took the thing off (despite the fact that the gem was nothing but a burned-out chunk of rock now) and had a habit of sleeping on his left arm.

The first two things were as usual today when Conner stirred, only vaguely aware of a nagging feeling like he should be jealous of Anders right now for some reason and a surprisingly pleasant . . . herbal aroma in the air.

As for the third . . .

"Duuuuuuuude," mumbled a voice -- a male voice, way too close to him. "Do you have to drool on me too? 'cause that's, like, totally gross, man."

Conner cracked his eyes open, peered over, and caught a glimpse of a hippie-looking guy sprawled out on the bed next to him, smoking a joint.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!"

Super speed had never been used for so much good before as far as Conner was concerned. He'd be sorry about that later when he found out his bracelet had been hotboxing in his car.

[OOC: Eeeeeeeeeeestablishy!]

There was a red-clad figure lying prone on the floor in front of the big-screen TV, flat on his face, and from the way people were nonchalantly maneuvering around his splayed-out limbs like he was just another piece of furniture, you might guess he'd been there a while.

Hayley, carrying a tray of drinks across the cafe, stopped and prodded the supine figure with one toe.

"Conner, it's been days. Are you going to get up yet?"

"Mmmmmmph."

"And what have we learned about betting on Manchester United then?"

The only answer Conner gave her was a choked whine.

"Right," Hayley said, and stepped calmly over his arm.

[OOC: Pretty much establishy, heh -- running out for errands for a bit. This is why I shouldn't be allowed to think of things to post while I'm precaffeinated and going to buy stuff for breakfast.]

Conner had a Serious Crisis on his hands -- and had for a few days now, which meant he'd been really out of it.

Namely, the satellite provider had dropped Fox Soccer Channel from the package they had. And their customer service was awful. He'd been on the phone almost nonstop since Friday, trying to get it back. He had to have FSC.

Mission finally accomplished, he flopped back onto his bed and waited. And waited.

He wasn't great with waiting.

[OOC: Also for calls from weetiny types!]

Conner wasn't spending a whole lot of time alone this week with Gwynn visiting, but every now and then he did have to peel himself away to do things like, you know, go to the bathroom.

He was on his way back from the bathroom when the weirdest notion took hold of him, and he dug his phone out of his pocket and hit speed dial to call the one person he knew he could annoy without even trying.

. . . okay, the one person who wasn't Kira.

"Dude," he said when the person on the other end of the line picked up. "Do you get the feeling we just missed a really hot chick fight?"

[OOC: I'm done now, I swear.]

One of the problems with being Conner McKnight was not being blessed with the most acute of memories. Or the most mental clarity at all, for that matter.

. . . he'd completely forgotten his girlfriend's birthday due to it falling on a leap day, and this not being a leap year. Still, he felt like there was something he was forgetting, and he was lying on his bed, staring at the calendar with a perplexed look on his face.

"Why do I feel like I'm forgetting something?" he asked it.

The calendar, singularly unhelpful, didn't answer. Naturally.

[OOC: For ze girlfriend, or phone calls or what have you.]

The door to room 117 at the Briarwood Motel swung open to reveal a boy in a leopardskin Speedo loincloth, with feathers and animal tails dangling from his hair (and alarmingly pasty white legs), peering out curiously at the red sports car with black racing stripes that was parked just outside.

Not that Tarzan knew it was a car. All he knew was that he'd woken up here in some warm but uncomfortably scratchy pants, and it was strange, and there were weird noises. Obviously he had to get back to his jungle. How convenient, though! It was right behind this very large and funny looking hut!

Shrugging -- and leaving the motel room door wide open -- he climbed up on top of the car, leaped up to the second floor by way of scrambling up the railing, then climbed up to the roof and disappeared into the nearest tree.

People in Reefside were going to be so sorry they'd missed this.

[OOC: Yeah, Conner's Tarzan, courtesy of James Napier's turn in some production of it in New Zealand. Be glad the icon spares you the pasty doom legs.]

It had been a good night of pickup soccer down at the park (no, he hadn't used his speed, because surprisingly he was a Good Little Ex-Ranger), and after a shower and some food Conner headed back to his room and sprawled out on his bed.

That was when the phone rang; scrambling to get it, he hit the power button on his stereo remote, which started the classic rock station blaring as he yelled, "Hello?" into the phone.

"McKnight," came the voice he barely made out over Bob Dylan's weird talk-droning voice, going on about watchtowers and barefoot servants and wildcats growling. Um, okay then. Whatever. "What's up, dude?"

Conner pulled the phone away from his ear and squinted at the caller ID, then rolled his eyes. "Anders? Why are you calling me?"

"I was bored. Haven't annoyed you in a long time." Brief pause. "What, not listening to DuJour? Never would've pegged you for a classic rock guy." A snicker on the other end of the line, suggesting the choice of words was deliberate, made Conner narrow his eyes more. He could occasionally be Not Dim.

He finally got hold of the remote again and turned the stereo back off. "Go be weird in the inferior half of the state, space jock. Like you have room to talk about my taste in music?"

"Hey," Anders retorted, "I have better taste than you. I totally could've written that song."

"In another freaking world maybe."

Anders snorted. "And don't you forget it -- crap, gotta go!"

"Yeah, well --" Click.

Conner snapped his phone shut and tossed it into his pile of laundry. "Jerk."

[OOC: . . . I don't know. I had to, okay?]

Eric had been driving him crazy all week, so Conner had finally begged off last night and gone for a very long drive -- one that had ended up with him all the way down the coast in the southern half of the state. With a pocket full of Christmas money, as it happened, that he fully intended to spend; if not in this particular shop he was wandering into now, he was going to spend it in one of the many, many funky vintage clothing shops that lined this street. (Nobody had told Conner that "vintage clothing shop," particularly in this neighborhood, was frequently code for "overpriced thrift store.")

Most of the shoppers wandering in and out were punk types in their teens and twenties, so when Conner drifted over to a rack of leather jackets and bumped into a guy in his late forties who looked like he'd be more at home in a UC lecture hall or a black-tie dinner (or, for some reason, an ancient tomb) than a store that sold motorcycle boots and spiked leather wristbands he couldn't help but notice.

"Sorry," said the guy, who had shirts and jeans piled up over one arm. "Didn't see you there."

"Yeah, no kidding," Conner said, and stared at the top shirt on the pile. Then down at his own. "Hey . . ."

"It's not for me," the guy said hastily. "It's for my . . . son." A more observant person might have wondered about the pause before that last word, but a more observant person wasn't Conner.

"Yeah, I was about to say." Conner looked pointedly down at his own chest again, then up at the guy, then reached out and peered at the size tag inside the shirt. "Red's so not your color, and this is the exact same size as mine!"

The guy looked affronted at that, but sighed. "Well, that's a relief, at least. He's about the same size as you. Excuse me," he added as his phone rang, and he turned away. "Hello? Andrew Hartford here . . ."

Conner watched him go up to the counter to pay, perplexed. "What does that have to do with red not being your color?!?"

[OOC: Yep, still lampooning PR's wardrobe recycling habits. And I swear, it really is called San Angeles in Operation Overdrive. No, I don't know either. WTF, PR? Oh, Gogo Sentai Boukenger, you were so much better. Establishy mostly, but open for phone calls!]

Conner McKnight hadn't left his room all day.

Sure, he'd done this before, and no, he had absolutely no problem with looking the way he did right now, but there was just one problem. Eric was home. And there was no freaking way he was going out looking like this in front of his twin brother. Who didn't look like this.

"Duuuuuuuuuuuude!"

Conner could barely hear the yell, obnoxious as it was, over the frenetic door pounding. He sighed, pulled the pillow over his face, and hoped Eric would go away.

"Dude, I know you're in there!"

Conner pulled the blanket over his head, too. Because it'd make such a difference through the closed door.

"Duuuuuuuuuuuude!!!"

"Go away," Conner finally snapped, his patience having exploded in a spontaneously-combusting ball of *poof*.

"Dude." The exclamation was a reverent whisper this time. "You've got a girl in there with you! Got it, bro, I'll leave you alone now!"

Moments later, as he enjoyed the blissful silence from the hallway, Conner thought that it just figured that this was one time he ended up getting out of trouble by not keeping his mouth shut.

[OOC: Establishy, and for the girlfriend, but open for calls to Mia Hamm!Conner too, hee.]

Man, the kids had been a handful today. Not that the soccer camp wasn't going well, because it was going better than Conner had ever hoped, but one guy with super-speed that he couldn't go off showing all willy-nilly to everybody couldn't keep up with three dozen of them.

Three dozen. In only the camp's second year. Conner was definitely pleased with himself, and a little intimidated with this kind of success.

They'd been riotously playful, and in the end he'd given in and let them spend the last hour of the camp just goofing off.

The reason he was grinning now, as he sprawled out on the floor in front of the TV looking for something to watch? The kids had wanted to play Power Rangers, and about six of them had been fighting over who got to be the Triassic Ranger.

He might've done some growing up, but Conner McKnight hadn't grown out of the ol' ego just yet.

[OOC: Hey, I think I've recovered from the con now and have brainpower to play. Phone calls, visits, and whatnot are totally welcome . . . and someday I'll have an alum who doesn't end up in California. In like . . . two years.]

This whole super-speed thing was going to make Conner the world's most effective procrastinator ever, he thought as he dashed around the house in a blur, doing a literally last-minute cleanup job and hoping Gwynn's portal wouldn't do something wacky like show up early.

Shame he didn't notice he was knocking down as much stuff as he was picking up in his extreme hurry . . .

[OOC: For the gf, natch.]

The soccer camp was going well, and Sundays were his down days, so Conner was flopped on the couch with his laptop, enjoying what he considered to be a well earned rest day.

The AIM chimes were coming rapidfire as he cheerfully taunted friends in southern California about how it was thirty degrees cooler in the Bay Area. Mwahahahaha.

[[For the girlfriend, but open for phone calls!]]

Conner had spent all morning on the phone with Parks and Rec, making sure the soccer field booking schedule lined up right with all the days and times he'd scheduled for his camp this summer. Now he was emailing back and forth with Ethan, trying to bribe wheedle talk his friend into recruiting a graphics-design student friend of his at Reefside Tech into working up a brochure for him for a decent price.

Man, when had he gotten all responsible?

Oh yeah. Last year, when he'd started this soccer camp.

[OOC: For the girlfriend primarily, but open for calls, visits, random pranking . . .]

It was hot out, and like most Californians who you'd think would be used to the heat, Conner was lying around on the couch in his shorts demolishing his fourth bottle of Gatorade (red, of course), windblown from the fan going full blast, and grumbling that he was going to melt into the cushions.

Juuuuuuuuuuust a perfectly normal day in the life of a retired Ranger. Didn't seem like anything was going to change that.

[OOC: For a specific kidlet, but for anybody who wants to bother Uncle Conner. Or just Conner.]

The table was set, food was laid out, and to Conner's credit he hadn't set anything on fire when he lit the frankly intimidating array of candles he'd set out with excessive enthusiasm.

. . . no, he hadn't actually made the food. He wasn't out to ruin Gwynn's birthday. But he'd taken it out of the takeout containers, and done a fairly presentable (for a boy) job of putting it in serving dishes.

He just hoped she didn't look in the kitchen.

[OOC: For the girlfriend, of course, and SP will be of the awesome.]