My piece of the pie

Knocked Up has now grossed more than $100 million. Given that it cost about $35 million to make and market, that's an impressive performance to date. So I've decided that maybe Eckler has a good idea, and I should find a way to cash in.

Now obviously this won't work with Knocked Up. No matter how I try to spin it, I just can't make "committed lesbian couple carefully plan for a child after almost a decade together" fit "stoner accidentally gets entertainment reporter pregnant and they stumble into making a go of it."

No worries, though, I'll just mine Judd Apatow's earlier work. And so I submit to you that Apatow blatantly plagiarized my high school experience in creating the character of Lindsay Weir for "Freaks and Geeks," specifically my time in Grades 10 and 11.

Here's the core of my case:

• Lindsay is a good-girl brainiac who attends high school in the 80s. I also was in high school in the 80s, at the top of my class, and considered a straight arrow.
  
• Then Lindsay gets tired of that identity and begins to hang out with the "freaks," or the burnout druggies, eventually dating one of them. My first "steady" boyfriend was one of the burnouts, and I definitely felt rebellious hanging out with him and his friends.

The minutiae:

• Lindsay's army surplus jacket. I wore one too, starting in about 8th grade.
• Long, wavy brown hair? Check--exact same style.
• Parents with no real clue. Mine either never suspected or purposely ignored their suspicions.

It's an airtight case!

If we gloss over just how Apatow got this intelligence on me. And that the show is set earlier in the 80s. And that my first boyfriend was more of a drunken burnout than a druggie burnout--though several of his friends match the latter description. And I never lied to my parents about going to math camp, but instead decided to follow the Grateful Dead. And that smart girls frequently get tired of the label and seek to shake things up. But those are immaterial points.

We'll just keep that information quiet, won't we? Play nice and I'll cut you in.