Nov. 18, 2009

Posted: Nov. 22, 2009

Chapter 14: Poison(permalink)

The strategy Sen ends up suggesting is "The Wait and See" strategy, with a hint of "Hey, Stan, try to see if they can really kick us out because of one measly riot."

Stan, of course, is unhappy with this development but when queried for better suggestions just shrugs.

So, yeah, the next few weeks are starting to seem like they'll basically be this:

CAST OF CHARACTERS

• Sen - likes to eat waffles, but not just waffles, really any kind of dessert-ish pastry: be it your scone, your pancake, your cookie, even - on very rare occasion - your biscotti, also potentially from a different planet (researchers are still working on this).
• Gully - has watched not only every episode of "Star Trek," but also of "Star Wreck" and "Space Trek" and sometimes hums along to "Star Trekkin'" without realizing it.
• Rose - once killed a man because he looked at her funny, or rather, because he looked funny, or rather, didn't kill so much as laugh at, or rather, didn't laugh at so much as feel sorry for, and it wasn't so much a he as it was herself. In the tub. Singing into her detachable showerhead. ... Singing "Star Trekkin'" into her showerhead.
• Stan - is unhappy
• Woman who was on the left (let's call her Gorilla Balls the Ever-Smelly) - wanted, her whole life, to be a poet, but quickly discovered that she lacked even the slightest inkling toward creative thought required to string together words; She eats macaroni and cheese every day, not because it makes her happy, but because it makes her unhappy.
• Man who was in the middle (let's call him No Brains the Unimportant) - never learned how to talk, or think, or exist; spends his life following Gorilla Balls the Ever-Smelly, not because he actually works with her, but because she reminds him of a lima bean he thinks was his mother.
• Woman who was on the right (let's call her Ass Face the Woman With an Ass for a Face) - is secretly planning a violent takeover of the United States using nothing but a chainsaw and her almost infinite collection of Mad Magazine advertisements.

Sen : Boy, this here old scifi movie that we're gonna watch sounds like fun!

Gorilla Balls : Fun! Why, I decree that fun is a devilish thing and must be banned!

Ass Face : MMM! MM mm! *fart*

Gully : But, fun things are good; we all want to have fun in our own ways.

Gorilla Balls : Not I! I have a personal vendetta against fun from when it pushed me in the mud when I was a little girl.

Sen : And, you're sure that wasn't another child? Someone named something like "fun" ... maybe "Sun" or "fum" or maybe it was a "nun."

Gorilla Balls : No! For such a vile insinuation, I will punish you with vague threats and ruin as many of your evenings as possible!

Ass Face : mmm! MMMM!!!

Gully : Why do you derive such pleasure out of our misery, Gorilla Balls?

Gorilla Balls : Because I am a stupid and horrible person.

Gully : Oh! That makes sense, then.

Stan : I am unhappy.

Gorilla Balls : Finally! Perhaps I will get a raise!

Sen : Where do you work that would give you a raise for making Stan unhappy?

Gorilla Balls : Why, I work for meetup.com, of course, where our motto is "If you're happy, we're not doing our job right." Well, that's one of our mottoes. The other is Postatem obscuri lateris nescitis. We also have a third, but it's a picture, and if I showed it to you, your eyes would bleed even more than I want them to.

Sen : How does it even make sense for a website to hire someone to make its users unhappy?

Gorilla Balls : Well... I...

You know, come to think of it, that doesn't actually make a whole lot of sense. If meetup.com is running out of money, why is it hiring spooks to go around and unhappify people? That's about as smart as a dance-off with Wally the Break Dancing Armadillo. I mean, how are you gonna compete with that shell?

***

The clearest sign that our meetup is under siege is that Gully and Stan aren't dressed up when I arrive the following week. Gully's chosen to watch a scifi spoof of "Waiting for Godot" (called, believe it or not), "Waiting for Godot IN SPACE!" It's basically like the original, except that Vladimir and Estragon are wearing space suits (and are maybe supposed to be robots? Every so often, Estragon goes into robot voice: "People are bloody IGN-OR-ANT APES!"), and every so often, it goes to one of those weird "2001: A Space Odyssey" laser special effects things that makes you wish you could just have a seizure and be done with it. Oh, plus, for some reason, the writer chose to modify the play to have Godot come in the end but be a space highway robber who steals from V and E and then runs off yelling, "That's what you get for waiting for me, jerks!" Oh, and God, there's even a question mark at the end of "The End." Yeah, Mr. Beckett, you better get on that posthumous sequel, "Chasing After Godot (to Get Back the Money He Stole From You [Because He's a Space Highway Robber {Yes, In Space, Because That is Apparently Where We Are <I'm Sorry, World.>}])" If only the power with which I roll my eyes could make all of my problems go away. Man, I am an eye-roll queen!

During the movie, the only response we get from The Three is Ass Face the Woman With an Ass for a Face muttering to Gorilla Balls the Ever-Smelly about what a "waste of a fucking time" this is and how she "can't wait" to write her report.

After the movie, Sen says, "Well... that was... fun."

Ass Face mutters to Gorilla Balls, just audibly enough for all of us to hear it, "The sooner we get out of here, the less likely it is that I'll go berserk."

And then, and I'm not even kidding, she farts.

***

Another week goes by, and now Stan's chosen for us to watch "Romeod and XulieX: a Romance of Horror," which is a movie from the '70s about two monsters (one a giant rubber bird puppet and one a giant rubber lizard puppet) who are part of two alien species out to conquer Earth to turn it into fuel (since, I think, most of the universe runs on bones and blood... which isn't explicitly stated, because, let's face it, the script was probably written by a five-year-old, but I get it from lines like, "It is up, and XulieX is the BoneCrusher MMMMCMXCIX" [which, you know, bone crusher - why else do you have to crush bones if you're not grinding them up for the express purpose of fueling your clearly space ships?], and "It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night like a tasty blood clot in a human's brain"). And, apparently our five-year-old writer found Shakespeare's ending unsatisfactory, because the new ending has Romeod and XulieX killing their clan chieftains, taking over, and ultimately uniting, their clans, to form an unstoppable force of anguish and torment and blood. The worst part, I think, is the sex scene.

After the movie, Ass Face looks pale, and she isn't even looking at us. Her face is pointed directly at Gorilla Balls. Her shoulders are, for the first time, stumped, and there's a frown on her face the size of XulieX's star-shaped genital contraption.

Gorilla Balls looks at her for a couple of seconds and then turns to us, turned around on our couches, just looking at them, and she says, "Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, it was... an experience... as it always proves to be. I believe that we are nearing our assessment of this situation, so we should have a decision regarding your future with meetup.com shortly."

And then, without waiting for a response, all three of them turn and leave. Ass Face is at the front, and we hear the front door open before No Brains is out of the living room.

Finally, as the door closes, we hear her yell, "Oh. My. G-" and then the door closes.

Sen scowls at Stan. She says, "What are you doing?"

Stan shrugs and says, "I am doing what most people call sitting."

Sen says, "What the Hell kinds of movies are these?"

Stan says, "Science fiction."

Sen's voice is rising. She says, "You know what I mean!"

Stan's voice is quieting. He says, "Yes, Sen, I do."

Sen says, "... So, what the Hell, Stan?"

Stan says, "I'm taking the obvious route to removing some pests."

There is a pause.

Stan sighs. He says, "I am poisoning them."

Sen's eyes grow wide. She says, "You... you didn't actually..."

Stan says, "Not literally." He sighs. "These people's job is to attend problematic meetups. They're probably used to rowdy parties and terrorist cells. They probably consider themselves central to the success of meetup.com. Their poison is a waste of their time. They can't stand it. They shrivel up and die."

Sen is just looking at Stan.

Stan sighs. He says, "Metaphorically."

Sen's voice is rising again. She says, "Well, obviously, Stan!"

Stan shrugs. He says, "I solved our problem. You're welcome."

Sen says, "You didn't solve our problem! This is their job. They're not just gonna leave because you make them unhappy!"

Stan says, "I have made my point, and now I am going to retire."

Sen ughs, "EUGH!!"

Stan stands up, stretches his arms, and walks to his bedroom.

Gully and I look at each other. He does the "Holy shit; this isn't good" raising of one eyebrow and lowering of the other with a frown. I return a "we'll manage" faint smile plus shrug, which I don't know if I believe.

Nov. 19, 2009 →