For a moment, nothing happened. Sarah shrugged and started to get up, when all of a sudden, she felt dizzy. The world seemed to swim around her and her room seemed to blur and twist. After a second or so, her sight cleared up. She blinked - then blinked again, unable to believe what she was seeing.
She was no longer in her room. Instead, she found herself a well-lit apartment of some sort. There was a couch, an ottoman, a couple of chairs, and a small dining room set. A couple of doors seemed to lead away to bedrooms of some sort, and a small kitchen was visible across a dividing counter. Everything looked odd somehow - not wrong (well, not much, considering!), but somehow different. It looked like - like - like one of those old shows from the Seventies she'd seen on cable from time to time!
Then Sarah caught sight of herself in a mirror and gasped. Somehow, Sarah saw that she had gotten about 5-7 years older. Her hair was darker, and cut short like that old-timey ice skater - Dorothy something. Even worse, she looked like she belonged in the Seventies! She was wearing a long-sleeve pullover shirt that had lots of multi-colored strips across it, along with a set of brightly colored hot pants held up by equally garish suspenders (suspenders, for crying out loud!) and some kind of weird sneakers. And, she could tell, whatever else she had on under these silly clothes, she seemed to be lacking a bra!
What in the world is going on here?
Just then, the door flew open, and Karen walked in. Karen seemed to have been affected by the change as much as she was, Sarah saw. Like Sarah, Karen now seemed a little older. Her blonde hair was now platinum, and pulled to the side in a ponytail. Her t-shirt, festooned with a Smiley face, was probably about a size too small for her, and the hot pants she wore must've been painted on. She also wore a pair of leather boots with two-inch heels. And, like Sarah, Karen was definitely braless.
"Hiiii!" she squealed, her voice about an octave higher than Sarah remembered it being. As she did so, the deafening sound of applause broke out all around Sarah, who jumped in surprise. "Sorry," she said, apparently not noticing as the cheers and whistles subsided, "I guess I should've called and let you and Jonny know I'd be out all night - but it's morning now, so I guess you kinda figured it all out by now, huh?"
It was an incredibly lame joke - in fact, Sarah didn't even think it was funny at all - but just as the phantom applause emerged before, so now did the sound of raucous laughter. It's a laugh track! Sarah realized. "Uh, yeah we did, Karen."
Now Karen laughed. It actually wasn't so much a laugh as an explosive giggle punctuated by a snort. "Oh c'mon Sally, you can still call me 'Kerrie' - we've been roomies since college! Well, since you were in college. You were studying math - I was studying the football team." This produced another round of laughter, both from the unseen "audience" and Karen. Sarah couldn't help but notice that when "Kerrie" laughed, her she had a tendency to bounce up and down - which only helped to accentuate her braless state.
"Yeah," Sarah said automatically, "And you were always the teacher's pet." Again, canned laughter, interspersed with hoots and whistles, filled the room.
Oh my God! That box stuck us in a lame, 30-year old sitcom, and I'm the only one who knows - and it's even making me act like one of the characters! How are we gonna get out of this?
Then, the door flew open again, and Jon entered. Applause welled up again as he bounded in - and tripped over the ottoman. "Hey Sally!" he exclaimed enthusiastically as he picked himself up. "Hey Kerrie! I've got some great news"
