It’s times like these when I realize how woefully inadequate my familial support network really is. I mean, I can’t turn to my mother for advice in this matter. She is the person who was responsible for our cable going out once a month because she forgot to pay the bill—at least before Mr. G moved in.
And I can’t turn to my dad. If he finds out how badly I’ve screwed up my STUDENT government budget, he’s not going to be exactly jazzed about turning me loose on our COUNTRY’s budget. The last thing I need right now is a series of lectures from Dad on cost-effective municipal planning.
I already told Grandmère, and you can see the good THAT did. Who else is there for me to turn to, except Michael, of course?
And we all know how helpful HE was in the matter.
Speaking of Michael, the only e-mail I got that was unrelated to today’s Braid! audition was the one I got from him. And that’s just because he doesn’t even go to AEHS anymore, and didn’t know anything about what was going on:
SKINNERBX: Hey, Thermopolis! How’s it going? I was wondering if you wanted to come over tomorrow night for a sci-fi film fest. I have to screen a bunch of them for my History of Dystopic Science Fiction in Film elective, and since I’m having the party Saturday night, I figured I should watch them while I had the chance. Want to join me?
It would have been inappropriate, of course, for me to say what I WANTED to say, which was: Michael, you are my lifeblood, my reason for living, the only thing that keeps me sane in the tempest-tossed sea of life, and I would like nothing better than to screen a bunch of dystopic sci-fi flicks with you tomorrow night.
Because it’s lame to say that kind of stuff in an e-mail.
But I still thought it, in my head.
FTLOUIE: I’d love to.
SKINNERBX: Excellent. We can order in from Number One Noodle Son.
FTLOUIE: And I can make some dip.
SKINNERBX: Dip? What for?
FTLOUIE: For the party! Don’t people serve dip at parties?
SKINNERBX: Oh. Yeah. But I just figured I’d buy some Saturday afternoon, or whatever.
I could see that my effort to appear enthusiastic about Michael’s party had fallen completely flat. But I persevered nonetheless, because I couldn’t let him know, you know, how NOT excited I was about it.
FTLOUIE: Homemade dip is always better. I can make it and leave it overnight in the refrigerator, and that way it will be all gelled and everything for the party. Which I’m so excited about coming to.
SKINNERBX: Um. Okay. Whatever you want. See you tomorrow then.
FTLOUIE: Can’t wait!
Actually, though, I CAN wait… both for the party AND the dystopic sci-fi film festival. Because those movies Michael has to watch for that class of his are MAJOR bummers. I mean, Soylent Green? Excuse me, but gross.
Plus a lot of them have very scary parts, and scary movies have completely screwed with my psyche. Seriously. I think scary movies are responsible for half, if not more, of my neuroses.
TOP 20 WAYS SCARY MOVIES
HAVE MESSED ME UP:
1) I can’t see chairs pulled away from the table without thinking of Poltergeist and having to push them back in. Ditto drawers that have been pulled out.2) I can’t pass those red-and-white smokestacks across from the FDR without thinking about poor Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory.3) I can’t go over a bridge without thinking of the Mothman Prophecies. Ditto see a chemical plant. 4) After seeing Blair Witch, I can no longer goa) into wooded areasb) campingc) into any dark basements.
Not that I would have done any of those things anyway. But now I REALLY won’t.
5) For a long time I couldn’t look at the TV without thinking that a girl might crawl out of it and kill me like in The Ring and The Ring 2.6) Every time I see an alley, I expect there to be a dead body in it. But that’s probably from too many episodes of Law and Order, not the movies.7) Don’t even talk to me about boiling pots of water on the stove (Whitey the rabbit from Fatal Attraction).8) Little white dogs = Precious from Silence of the Lambs.9) Any supermodern-looking, windowless building in the middle of nowhere is the place where they harvest the organs of people in comas from the movie Coma.10) Cornfields = the movie Signs, and we’re all going to die.11) After Titanic, I will never, ever, ever go on a cruise.12) Whenever I see an oil tanker on the road, I know I’m going to die, because whenever you see one in the movies, it explodes. 13) If a semi is tailing us, I always assume it’s trying to kill us, like in The Duel.14) I can’t go through the Holland Tunnel without thinking it’s going to leak like in Daylight.15) I don’t know if I will ever be able to have children thanks to Rosemary’s Baby. I will definitely never live in the Dakota. I don’t know how Yoko Ono stands it.16) I’ll never adopt, either, thanks to The Good Son.17) I will never get anesthesia for anything but non-elective surgery because of She Woke Up Pregnant.18) After talking at length to several elevator repairmen, I know now that unless someone places an incendiary device on top of the elevator, like in Speed, it is mathematically impossible for all the cables supporting it to snap at once. Still. You never know.19) Thanks to Jaws I will never set foot in the ocean again.20) The call is ALWAYS coming from inside the house.
See? I have been SCREWED UP by the movies. The whole reason I hate parties, probably, is because of how traumatized I was over Broken Lizard’s Club Dread, which I watched with Michael thinking it was going to be a comedy, like Super Troopers. Only it turned out to be a horror film about young people being killed at a tropical resort, usually during a party.