Nov. 11, 2009

Posted: Nov. 14, 2009

Continued from Chapter 8: Septerodactyl

Gully says, "So, how do we... I mean, what's next?"

There is a pause.

Sen says, "Uhh... well..."

The pause resumes once more from its hiatus.

Sen says, "So... Hey. Okay, uhh, let's do this. Rose should probably stay out of harm's way for a while, and we have this whole section of safe meetups, though with little chance of success, 'Old Ladies Who Hate Television,' 'Fire Breathers Afraid of Fire,' pretty much the whole Northeast. Why don't you take as many of those as you can, Rose, for the next week or two, and, Stan, Gully, and I will team up on the Northwest, see if we can tagteam lasertag, 'Billy Bob Thorton Lookalike Project,' and 'Serious! Attempt to Resurrect Dead People and Form a Zombie Army.'"

Stan says, "So, I understand that we're continuing on the 'let's be imbeciles to convince people we're cool?' track?"

Sen scowls at Stan. She says, "Yes, unless you have a better suggestion."

Stan sighs; the Earth trembles; the sun cries. He says, "We could, I don't know, look somewhere that isn't saturated with ill-wishers and weirdos: Craigslist, Twitter, Facebook. Or is there only one website on the Internet now?"

Sen stomps. She says, "Fine. How about you take care of that, and Gully and I will rockstar the groups ourselves."

Stan sighs; the sun explodes; somebody presses a big red button, and somebody else dies. Maybe. He says, "Great," and he starts to walk to his bedroom.

Sen says, "Hey! Remember to hit up your costume shop buddy!"

As a response, Stan walks into his bedroom, closes the door, and sneezes four times. We hear him say, "Fuck."

There is a pause.

Gully says, "Okay, so... uhh... Good."

The pause finds her friend, Ms. Pause-daughter the Second, and joins her for a game of charades.

Gully says, "So...?"

I say, "Uhh, good. Yeah. So, we all know what we're going to do."

Sen says, "Yeah..."

I say, "Let's... I..."

Gully says, "Hey, who's up for totally retro Star Trek...?"

Sen looks up.

Gully says, "Like season one retro. Like rubber suits retro. Like weird super power electro-magnetic field retro."

Sen says, "Like half the cast still aren't around retro?"

Gully says, "Like named characters dying even if they aren't wearing red retro."

They smile.

Chapter 9: The Old Lady Adventure(permalink)

Basically, there's no way anybody's going to know me at Old Ladies, so what the Hell? I dress up as a pirate. The problem is, I don't have an eyepatch or a parrot, and all that the Salvation Army can offer me is a bandanna with a mustache on it and a papier-mâché snake. So, I look less like a pirate and more like an outcast from a music video ("We need you to be more slithery, Rose! We need you to be more... I don't know. You just stand there and say 'YARRR!' like a fucking pirate. I need you to move! ... You know what, forget it. I'm tired of your too-hip-to-move attitude. I'm calling my robotics girl. You're fired!" [And, the sad thing is, the robotics girl actually turns out to be a good dancer. {And, this is her big break. <One day, years down the road, as she's winning the Nobel Prize in Dancing and Robotics, she'll says, "You know, this is all really thanks to Rose. If she hadn't been such an awful dancer, I never would have been discovered. Plus, when we were 6, she couldn't figure out how to use legos, and I showed her, and that's how I discovered my love of robotics. So, thanks, Rose. Thanks for being so terrible at everything.>}]), but whatever. I'll certainly catch those women's attention!

The meetup is being held at the house of a woman named Darlene. As I walk up the driveway, I notice that instead of gargoyles, in front of her house, she has two giant statues of cats, "Snow Spectacular the Silly, 1991-2007, may he rest in peace" and "Beast o' Beauty, 1992-2007, may she rest in peace." The cats look anything but at peace. BoB is eyeing Triple-S like she either wants to give him a love quest or like she is planning on eating his rotted corpse (which, I assume, lies somewhere beneath this shrine) as a snack on the path to world domination. The S-o-matic is, in turn, about to pounce on the unsuspecting street, wrestle it to the ground (in case it somehow gets away from the ground) with its massive paw, and then proceed to torture it slowly and methodically until all that remains is the will to die (or, you know, inanimateness). One possible explanation for 3S's fascination with the street is its missing ear and the ear-shaped rock gracing the curb on the other side of the street with a kid's-handwriting "$10" sign next to it. This is either a taunt or a bribe, and either way, the S-Machine is going to piss all over it. He's going to piss-

Someone says, "Excuse me miss," from behind me.

Shit.

I say, "Oh, uhh... sorry."

I look behind me. There is (surprise, surprise) and old woman there. She is using a walker to travel slowly up the driveway. I step out of her way.

She says, "We don't need any Girl Scout Cookies, thank you."

I say, "I'm... I'm here for the meetup...?"

She says, "Oh, pardon me, of course! I'm terribly sorry. You know how it is."

I say, "Uhh... Sure."

She says, "Let's go inside."

And she leads the way in a matronly wobble.

The house is pretty incredible. It's huge, filled with tile and a way-high-up ceiling, and her kitchen has an island! I love that shit.

All the old women are in the living room (no television!) sitting on a single, wraparound couch (except for one in a rocking chair in the corner). Classical music is playing from invisible speakers.

As we approach, all the ladies turn to look at us, and this is the payoff. Several mouths purse; one lady says, "Oh my!," and the one old woman sitting in a rocking chair by herself stops rocking, in mid rock, her bony legs holding the rocking chair in place.

The lady who led me in says, "Sorry to be late, ladies. I trust you made yourselves at home as always?"

There is no perceivable response. The no-longer-rocking-lady's legs are shaking a little bit.

The lady who led me in (who I'm starting to think is Darlene) says, "I found this newcomer on my porch, looking up, amazed at my monuments... What's your name, dear?"

My name... Oh, what the Hell. I say, "Yarr, my name be Monkey Breath the Scoundrel. I be here to hate the television... yerr..."

Darlene(?) turns to me. She says, "Oh... love... lovely."

The rocking-lady's legs finally give out, and the rocking chair springs forward, knocking her off of it.

A few old ladies rush to help her up. I should have done that too.

As she stands up, leaning on another lady, she says, "What... Are you?"

I, God, I feel like an idiot now, but... well, it would be ridiculous to stop, so... so, I say, "Yarr! I be a scallywag, a red blooded pirate of the seven seas. Me captain, the great and fierce," uhh... "Senifrair Cutthroat sent me here to get that bloody television contraption o' yers and throw it to th' fishes, if ye be getting my meaning."

The rocking-chair lady says, "You're... you what? Speak up! I can't understand you!"

Oh, God, you know that point in which you realize too late that this plan your friend hatched is completely infeasible and is making you look completely ridiculous? I have a feeling that this is a common event in life with Sen.

I say, "I be sayin' that I'm here t' be rid of that bloody television thingie once and fer all!"

The rocking chair woman says, "Here here!"

And, another woman says, "That's the spirit!"

And, yet another woman says, "That'll get 'er done right!"

Darlene(?) says, "How fantastic to have another like-minded lady in our midst. So, everybody, let me get the lemonade and brownies and then, let's get started."

I imagine strangling my former self with my bare hands. I imagine what her neck must feel like (hey! It feels like my neck!). I imagine her wondering why at first and then, right before she passes out, realizing what she's done, what she's deciding to do, a look of apology and understanding creeping over her face, a look of remorse and vengeance on all of the other past Roses that led up to this moment of bad decision making, of all of her ancestors (hey! They are also my ancestors!) whose sexing each other up passed on the wrong genes, from generation to generation, until they manifested in my old self and her god-awful decision making. If I had the ability to travel through time and space and a whole lot of free time on my hands, I'd insult every possible ancestor of mine, in alphabetical order. "You're a real jerk, single-celled organism number 512. You're a real ass-in-your-pants shit-bunny."

Darlene(?) says, "And, to start, maybe our newcomer can tell us a little about herself and the struggles she has had with our objectification-obsessed society."

Fuck.