Sesame Street All-Star Alphabet: Vocabulary Lesson
Title: Vocabulary Lesson
Fandom: All-Star Alphabet; Elmopalooza
Rating: PG (dirty talk)

Summary: Jon runs into some trouble before his appearance on Sesame Street and tracks down the letter Z for help.

The cartoon at the beginning is from The Far Side, and is just there to set the mood.




Jon still wasn't quite used to this street.

Oh, it was definitely a wonderful place to be. All the neighbors were friendly, all the people were happy, the days were sunny, the air was sweet, and everything was generally A-okay. And he had never worked with anyone quite as cute and likeable as the seven-year-old Prairie Dawn. There was perhaps no place in the world more focused on making people comfortable.

It was still disconcerting to hear things like "the number 3 just pulled its sponsorship".

Elmo, the big star of the show, seemed to need to be in three places at once at any given moment, but he found the time to drop by Jon's dressing room, and the energy to do it with boundless enthusiasm. "Jon! Elmo wanted to stop by and say thank you!" he exclaimed. "Elmo is so pleased to have Jon helping out with his big special!"

"I'm the one who should be thanking you, Elmo," said Jon, grinning at the bright-eyed little monster. "It's really an honor to be working with you on Elmopaloo-a."

"That's Elmopalooza, Jon," corrected Elmo brightly.

"Uh, that's what I meant. Elmopaloo-a." Jon frowned and tried again. "Elmopaloo-a. Elmopaloo-a. Um. I seem to be having some trouble."

How a creature with no eyebrows could look so adorably sympathetic, Jon would never know. "Uh-oh! What's the matter, Jon?"

"I don't know. I confess, I'm really pu--led."

"Jon is pulled? Where?"

"No, I was trying to say—wow, this is cra-y—okay, this is seriously bi--arre. I can't say the letter -!"

"Which letter can't Jon say?"

"Well, if I can't say it, it's kinda hard to tell you. It's the last letter in the alphabet."

Elmo frowned. "Elmo doesn't remember which one that is. Will Jon sing the alphabet song with Elmo, to help Elmo remember?"

So they chorused: "A, B, C, D, E, F, G; H, I, J, K, L-M-N-O-P. Q, R, S; T, U, V; W, X; Y, and..."

"...Z!" finished Elmo in triumphant solo. "Jon can't say the letter Z!"

"Exactly! Good work, Elmo!" And he meant it. Something about this street made you want to give positive reinforcement for everything.

Elmo bounced up and down happily, then got serious again. "Why can't Jon say the letter Z?" he asked curiously.

"I don't know, Elmo. I have no idea. I used to be able to say it."

"Maybe," suggested Elmo, "Jon did something to make the letter Z mad at him."

"Don't be silly, Elmo. Letters don't get . . ."

He stopped.

It was true. Letters didn't get offended. Letters of the alphabet did not have feelings.

On other streets, at least.

"I guess I should find out if I need to apologi-e to the letter," he said. "And soon; I can't do a show without being able to say one whole letter of the alphabet! Where do I find him?"


—


There were many things Jon had never expected to find himself doing, but knocking on the door of the house of the letter Z was so far down the list that he hadn't even realized it was a possibility.

"Come in!" called an enthusiastic voice from inside. The doors on this street were never locked; Jon went in.

"Hello?" he called into the empty front room.

"I'll be out in a jiffy," said the voice, coming from the kitchen. "I'm just finishing a snack—steamed zucchini—you're going to love it..."

And then he appeared, the last letter of the alphabet, wearing oven mitts to hold a steaming tray of delicately arranged zucchini, openly grinning. The grin froze when he saw his visitor.

"Uh, hi," said Jon. "You must be the letter..." It would have been a stupid thing to say even if he'd been able to finish the sentence, but hey, he was still getting used to this street.

"Z, yes, that's me," said Z. "I know who you are. You're one of Elmo's guests."

"That's right. Jon Stewart."

Z looked decidedly uncomfortable on hearing the name. There was an awkward silence, then Jon decided to cut to the chase.

"Are you mad at me?" he asked, at the same time as Z said, "Why don't you like me?"

They both stopped. Jon frowned. Z bit his lip.

"I don't...not like you," said Jon at last. "At least, I never really thought about letters as something to like or dislike. You just are. Why do you think I don't like you?"

Z looked surprisingly shy. "I know I'm the least popular letter of the alphabet," he said. "I know. And I don't resent that, I really don't. I'm just not in a lot of words. You can't help it that you don't need me a lot. But when you deliberately avoid me—that hurts."

"I didn't reali-e—I mean, er, I didn't know I was avoiding you. I certainly haven't done anything to try to avoid you . . ."

"Your name, Jon!" exclaimed the letter.

Okay, that was it. Jon was officially lost.

Z must have seen Jon's confusion, for he hurried to explain, words tripping over themselves (not, to Jon's relief, literally) in the rush to get out. "Your name. You used to have a Z on the end of your name. Every time you wrote it—every letter you addressed, every autograph you signed, every check you made out—not to mention every time someone used your name, talked about you on television or wrote about you in the newspaper—there could have been a Z! But you changed it, to something with no Zs at all!"

Of all the complications Jon had anticipated when he made the change, this was not one of them. But the letter looked practically about to cry, and he couldn't let that slide.

"Hey, listen," he said soothingly. "I didn't mean to upset you. I changed my name for personal reasons, and they were important to me. But it wasn't anything to do with you."

Z looked nervously up at him. "Really?"

"Really. I promise. As letters go, I quite like you. You're in a lot of my favorite words. Like...crossword puzzle."

Hey, he could say the letter! Progress!

Z was perking right up at this, so Jon plowed on. "And Zen. I've always been fond of Zen," he said. "And then there's jazz. I love jazz."

"Oh, me too!" exclaimed Z. "It starts with a J, you know."

Jon smiled in spite of himself. "Hey, that's right! Just like my name. Are you a friend of J?"

"I love J," replied Z with childlike zeal. "He's jovial, and jocular, and judicious, and a jenius, and jenuine, and..."

"I hate to interrupt," said Jon, "but actually, 'genius' and 'genuine' start with the letter G."

Z frowned. "They do? But they have the 'J' sound..."

"Well, G can make two sounds. The soft G, which sounds like a J—as in "Geoffrey"—and the hard G."

"Oh." Z looked as though the news were hitting him hard. "Don't get me wrong," he added, "it's not that I don't like G. He's a good guy. Great, even. And no one would say he isn't gutsy, or doesn't have gravitas. But..." Lowering his voice conspiratorially, he finished: "Don't tell him I said so, but he's a bit of a grouch."

"I won't tell a soul," promised Jon.

"But it is still a J in 'jazz', right?" pressed Z.

"That it is."

"Oh good! I was worried. You see, there aren't a lot of words that have both a Z and a J. In fact, that's the only one I know."

"There's always 'jizz'," said Jon, without thinking.

The letter Z looked at him with wide, puzzled, innocent eyes. "What does that mean?"


—


Nine years later, a new expression of gratitude still turned up in his mailbox every couple of months.

He didn't think much of them until he got the unlabeled DVD with the note encouraging him to "use this however you want, and thank you again!"

That afternoon, he took it to the writers' meeting.

"If we can't get a Giuliani joke out of this, we might as well quit," he said. "9 and 11 just sent me a sex tape."