Their Walk Of Blame down the hallway now resumed, Max sarcastically deems Michael's attitude toward Maria as "nice" (hey, Max? You leave "snarky" to the professionals and stick with the "bland" and "vanilla" your strange Granolith God gave you, k?), just as they run into the Earthbound manifestation of nice herself (it's Liz, by the way. Duh), who tells Max, "I don't know what to do. Calls keep coming into Congresswoman Whittaker's office. I mean, should I return them, or" But she too is soon to be cut off by Michael, who positively bites her head off (hope you like vanilla, Crankitola Khomeini) with a resolutely evil, "Not. Now." Liz skulks off as well with the giddy, flirty promise, "We'll talk in trig," leaving Max and Michael alone again. Max searches futilely for a pre-departure zinger possessing a modicum of originality, and parts from Michael with less the pre-departure zinger and more the Spencer Gifts t-shirt: "Mean People Suck." Not to say King Max shouldn't search for alternative methods of keeping his royal subjects in line, but the best way to garner respect in any universe probably includes the strenuous avoidance doing so via a collection of bumper stickers read off of the back of a Ford Pinto while looking for a parking space at a Grateful Dead concert. So let us briefly bask in the palpable relief that Max didn't choose a parting shot of "Keep your laws off my body" or "Don't blame me, I voted for Mondale" and get on with our recapping day.
Max slides off to read an informative Safire column on the dissolution of clever language on this planet, as well as to promise that his conversational too-fine-a-point-on-it won't include a hoary chestnut of a retort often to be found ironed onto the t-shirt of a comic-book store owner (also discarded: "Thank you, Jerry"). Michael, meanwhile, is briefly left to his own devices. Soon, he is to run into a short, bearded, balding, bespectacled (if that sounds just as charming as you think it is, you're still not thinking creepy enough) man who looks coincidentally like a Judy-the-Time-Life-Operator version of alien life himself. He speaks. In English! Damn, these aliens soak up the local color in a hurry: "Mister Guerin. True or false. We're not even a month into the semester and you're already failing my class. This is a new record." Um, true? Michael informs the Chris Elliot But Uglier doppelganger (I know. I can't believe I wrote it, either), "World War II just doesn't do it for me." Ugly Elliot tells Michael that he has to write a first-hand account of a World War II vet from "the 509th Bomb Group," which will be on his desk by five. Because that must be when school closes nowadays. And also because the prospect of a kitschy flashback episode is carte blanche for skipping all of your other classes. Michael counterstrikes, "Old people creep me out," and Ugly Elliot suggests, "Well then, think of them as living history." Ew. Same to you, Ugly Elliot. It's how I prefer to think of you. Buh-bye.