#be boring

Some more random head canons about Hop’s parents (Senior and Ethel). Continued from part 1and part 2.

· Senior and Ethel had such a good time visiting Hop and El, they decide to get a hotel room and stay an extra week in Hawkins.

· Ethel drops by the cabin one afternoon to keep El company, to do some cleaning (cause she can’t fight her mom instincts), and to leave some food in the fridge. She sews proper curtains to replace the drab sheets covering the windows. She picks flowers and buys small vases to put on the tables and in El’s room. She bakes fresh bread to warm up the cabin and banish the smell of cigarettes.

· “Seriously? The sock drawer?” Mrs. Hopper thinks as she’s cleaning. She smiles, remembering how teenage Jim used to hide cigarettes and stolen Playboys in the same place. With a smirk she replaces the cigarettes with a couple apples and wishes she could be there to see the horrified look on his face. “Some things never change,” she muses.

· That morning, Jim decides to tell his parents about El’s past. Over breakfast at the cabin, he sits them down as El calmly levitates a book into her hand.

· Senior pauses for a moment and just says, “Huh... okay” and goes right back to his eggs.

· Ethel rushes up to El and hugs her. She says she can’t imagine how hard it must have been for El to live with this secret.

· When Jim asks how his dad can be so casual about this, Senior just replies, “I’ve had an interesting life.” Later on, when Senior and El are going out for a walk in the woods, he tells her about some of the weird things he saw during the war. The scrawny kid the government turned into a weapon. The red demon child with the stone hand. The pain-in-the-ass history professor with the whip. He makes her  pinky swear promise not to mention it to anyone  (not even her dad).

· The Hoppers spend an evening parking their car at Lover’s Lake. Awkwardness ensues when they bump into Jonathan and Nancy parked nearby. Eventually they all end up going out and grabbing late-night dinner at a local diner together. Ethel grills Nancy about Mike and El’s relationship. Senior drops a few quarters in the jukebox and convinces Jonathan to ask Nancy to dance (and impress her with the new dance moves he just learned). Both couples have the unspoken agreement to never speak of how they ran into each other that evening.

· One day Ethel visits Jim at work to bring him lunch. She and Flo instantly take a liking to one another. They take turns messing with Jim until he can’t take it anymore and says he needs to answer an “emergency call” and rushes out of the police station. Hours later, when he returns, they’re still chatting like they’ve known each other for ages. Even after she leaves Hawkins, Ethel and Flo still keep in touch and make plans to visit each other.

· Ethel and El bond over their mutual love of soap operas. They throw popcorn at the screen when they’re mad. They pass tissues when they cry. They debate on who they ship and why. Even when Ethel goes back home, they’ll call each other and watch soaps with the phone line open so they can comment during the episode. This keeps up even when El goes off to college and later when she moves in with Mike. All of the men (Senior, Hop, Mike) have learned that they risk their lives in interrupting this ritual and if they want to make a phone call during this time, they’d better go to another house and use that phone.

· While Ethel is out running errands, Senior spends his time volunteering at the local VA (Veteran Affairs) Office. He talks to young soldiers returning from the war, listens to their stories, and helps them deal with their grief. He gives them his number and tells them to call him any time if they just want to talk

· The day before Senior went off to fight in WW2, his father gave him a small compass for good luck. Continuing the tradition, the day before Jim was about to go to Vietnam, Senior gives him a small compass that he got at the local general store. Jim still wears that compass on his watchband to this day (Seriously, go to Season 2 Episode 3 when he’s showing El the tripwire and you can see it).

· One day Senior and Ethel go to pick up El up after school and they see her hanging out with the rest of the party. They ask if they’d like to go a couple towns over to the local mall and have dinner and walk around (because what teenager in the history of anything has ever turned down food?). The Party all pile up into the truck and bound off. (Mike and El in the back seat; Will, Lucas, Dustin, and Max sitting in the truck bed savoring the wind in their hair as they race down the highway.)

· Ethel takes the girls to check out the clothes racks and try out the make-up counters. She thinks it’s so cool that Max skateboards and even buys her a new set of wheels since the current ones are getting a bit bare. Max has never met a girl who knows how to work on cars before and is amazed when Ethel stops by the auto parts department to buy things for the truck.

· Senior follows the boys into the local book store where they check out the latest comics and role playing games. Senior surprises the boys with his knowledge of comics (since G.I.s often took comics with them as entertainment during the war). The boys are surprised that a lot of the heroes they love are actually reboots of Golden Age characters. As the boys buy figures for their next campaign, Senior teaches them a few tactical maneuvers for the next time they play.

· Everyone meets at the arcade. They cheer on Max and Lucas as they continue their rivalry for highest Dig Dug score. Senior destroys the Wild Gunman arcade game (he used to be a competitive pistol champion in the Army). Ethel astounds with her skills at Skee-Ball. When she and Senior were dating she used to win stuffed animals for herself whenever they went to the carnival. They end up getting so many tickets, everyone walks out with a mood ring.

· As the Hoppers drop off each of the kids, they make plans for every one of the Party. Lucas wants to hang out in the woods and learn some survival training. Will would like to read some of Senior’s old comic book collection. Dustin has a cooking date to be Ethel’s assistant in the kitchen while she bakes. Ethel plans to show Max some basic car care tips (and also do some work on her skateboard). 

· Ethel gives Mike some secret dance lessons for the next time he goes out with El (and a laundry list of date ideas to impress her). Also, being a mom, she patches up a few holes she spots in his sweaters. She smirks when he says he never got that sweater she made for him...

· Senior asks El if she can help him out at the VA one day. He makes up some excuse about his arthritis acting up and how she can help him get out of the car and open doors. When they get there, El sits next to him as the veterans form a circle and talk about their experiences: the PTSD, the Survivor’s Guilt, and the hardship with acclimating to civilian life and not having people who understand. He holds her hand as she tears up and just nods her head. The car ride back is quiet until El whispers a quiet, “Thank you.” They hold hands the rest of the way. 

· On the Hoppers last day in Hawkins, they get to their truck and find all the kids waiting there for them. They’ve decorated the truck with streamers and painted the windows with “Come Back Soon!” tags. 

· In the Driver’s seat they find a SuperCom walkie-talkie with a bow on it. Even though the Hoppers live far away, the kids say if they ever come back to Hawkins all they have to do is send the signal and they’ll come running.