Ivy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ivybgreenflower) wrote2007-08-11 01:43 am
ivybgreenflower) wrote2007-08-11 01:43 am
Entry tags:
Cookie dough ice cream
Fiction.
She was sitting on the couch in her baggiest pajamas and a messy ponytail, holding a gallon carton of ice cream up to her face and staring over it at the television screen. She took a bite and then said to her roommate, "The thing I don't get about this show is why the people are so freaking stupid about everything!" She didn't look at him or bother to swallow the ice cream before speaking. He didn't look away from the computer screen. "Well, aren't the people on all of the reality shows stupid?"
She dug around in the carton with her spoon. Still peering into the carton she replied, "But why do they suck so much at, like, social skills? Don't they know that if they go in a dark room drunk with someone's boyfriend, the girl is going to call her a slut?"
"If they're stupid enough to go on television-" but he stopped and looked at her. "Are you picking out all the cookie dough pieces again?"
She looked up, holding the carton in one hand and a spoon that was filled with one part ice cream to three parts cookie dough chunks in the other. "No," she lied innocently. "Lucky spoonful?" She held it up and grinned. He shook his head and turned back to the computer screen. "Just change the channel if they're too stupid."
"No, I want to see if Shanna-Marie gets together with Junior."
He shook his head. "You know if she does it'll be over the minute they win."
"No, no, this isn't the show where they win anything, this is the show where they think the whole group of kids think they're really interesting but they're really not."
"And yet everyone watches anyway." He rolled his eyes.
"Fine, I'll change the channel." The next station up was the news channel.
"Local man found dead in closet; half naked mistress also found dead outside home, girlfriend nowhere in sight, story at eleven."
"Eww, that's awful." She changed the channel. The next station up was a replay of an awards show.
"Ugh, that girl can't even sing! Why did she get five awards for an album full of shrieking and moaning?" She switched the channel again. Cartoons.
"Well, at least the relive-your-childhood-instead-of-growing-up-and-getting-a-job-channel's always got something good."
Her roommate at the computer next to her chuckled and shook his head.
She got up to put the ice cream away before she ate too much and "got fat". "They need to make more channels," she said from the kitchen. He looked at her. "Hmm, what was it we're paying thirty bucks a month for, again? Oh, that's right, premium cable, which has only about, let's see, nine hundred channels!"
She sat back down on the couch, this time sitting closer to the desk next to it. She looked up at him.
"Okay, better channels, then. I mean, half of those are for movies we don't want to see, or those music channels full of music we don't want to hear."
"That's the problem with this society. Everyone wants everything instantly. Any information, game, show, movie, or song, people want every last thing at their fingertips."
"And that's the problem with you. You're content to sit there and complain about society while doing absolutely nothing to make it better."
"How am I supposed to make people like you stop complaining about everything? Or stop wanting a constant stream of music in her ears and good shows on television twenty-four hours a day and never waiting for anything? How am I supposed to make you turn off the television and read a book?"
"You're smart, I'm sure you could think of a way."
"Well- not like that, I mean, that's not what I..." He trailed off, realizing that that wasn't what she meant at all. She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. He continued staring at his computer screen and was thankful it was too dark for her to see him blushing.
"Anyway," he began again, "There's nothing I can do to stop you being obsessed with celebrities' lives, or anything like that."
"Maybe that's the problem," she said, and he turned to look at her. "Maybe people like you gave up too soon on people like me. Maybe you stopped writing the good newspaper editorials and the good books because you thought no one would read them. Maybe you stopped shopping the good screenplays around because you thought no one would watch something that wasn't a sequel or a remake or a sequel to a remake. Maybe you stopped making good documentaries because you thought people wanted reality shows. Maybe you stopped making good clothes because you thought the girls only wanted to look like trash. Maybe your people give up just as easily as my people do."
He turned and looked at her. Neither spoke for several seconds. Then he said, "Supply and demand. You demand reality garbage, trashy clothes, asinine movies- and they give them to you. Only a small minority's demanding quality stuff anymore." He turned back to the computer.
"But if you stop producing the quality stuff, the minority gets smaller and smaller, until there's no one left to try to convert the rest of us."
He looked down at the keyboard, frowning slightly. She continued, "We watch the Britney Spears train wreck because she's representing the worst of humankind. The celebrity meltdowns get the news coverage because the represent the devil that lives in all of us. We watch them fall from the pedestals we've put them on because it's like watching ourselves fall and fail and be human. We like seeing heroes knocked down, and we like making them heroes in the first place."
He turned back to her. "The same struggle, the same idea that we're all Christ and we're all Hitler-"
"John Lennon's idea-"
"Is in all of the great literature. The classic struggle, man versus himself."
"Exactly. But the great literature- it's too old. We hate reading pedantic, overly worded Elizabethan nonsense. Shakespeare's too old for us to relate anymore. I don't care how much Hamlet has to do with humanity... it's too old for us to relate."
"And if someone came up with a book-"
"Or a movie, or a television show, or a play-"
"That dealt with these issues, really explored them-"
"Then we'd be interested. Unfortunately, we've all been brought up to expect the good stuff to come in the fancy packages, so we don't even realize that all we're really doing is looking for examples of that classic moral struggle within ourselves. And since the fancy packages only hold the crap..."
He stared at her. "Then no one learns anymore!"
"Exactly."
"So we're not really that different after all."
"No, we really aren't."
"Then I've been wrong."
"About what?"
"About you, and all of your friends."
"Of course."
"So," he said, looking at her carefully, "what do we do about it?"
"Well, for starters," she answered, looking back at him, "someone like you can take someone like me out to dinner tomorrow."
"We- I mean, you, uh- wait, what?"
"Oh, good. You can pick me up from work tomorrow and take me someplace nice."
"Wait, you want to go on a date?"
"Glad you caught on so quickly."
"But we eat dinner together every night, why would tomorrow be so different?"
"Because tomorrow you're going to start researching what people like me are really like."
He blushed. "Oh, not like that, you little pervert. Well, maybe like that someday, but certainly not tomorrow night."
"Uh, right, right..."
"Well, goodnight, then."
She got up to go to bed.
"Yeah... goodnight." He watched her leave the room and wondered what he had gotten himself into.
-2:36 AM
She was sitting on the couch in her baggiest pajamas and a messy ponytail, holding a gallon carton of ice cream up to her face and staring over it at the television screen. She took a bite and then said to her roommate, "The thing I don't get about this show is why the people are so freaking stupid about everything!" She didn't look at him or bother to swallow the ice cream before speaking. He didn't look away from the computer screen. "Well, aren't the people on all of the reality shows stupid?"
She dug around in the carton with her spoon. Still peering into the carton she replied, "But why do they suck so much at, like, social skills? Don't they know that if they go in a dark room drunk with someone's boyfriend, the girl is going to call her a slut?"
"If they're stupid enough to go on television-" but he stopped and looked at her. "Are you picking out all the cookie dough pieces again?"
She looked up, holding the carton in one hand and a spoon that was filled with one part ice cream to three parts cookie dough chunks in the other. "No," she lied innocently. "Lucky spoonful?" She held it up and grinned. He shook his head and turned back to the computer screen. "Just change the channel if they're too stupid."
"No, I want to see if Shanna-Marie gets together with Junior."
He shook his head. "You know if she does it'll be over the minute they win."
"No, no, this isn't the show where they win anything, this is the show where they think the whole group of kids think they're really interesting but they're really not."
"And yet everyone watches anyway." He rolled his eyes.
"Fine, I'll change the channel." The next station up was the news channel.
"Local man found dead in closet; half naked mistress also found dead outside home, girlfriend nowhere in sight, story at eleven."
"Eww, that's awful." She changed the channel. The next station up was a replay of an awards show.
"Ugh, that girl can't even sing! Why did she get five awards for an album full of shrieking and moaning?" She switched the channel again. Cartoons.
"Well, at least the relive-your-childhood-instead-of-growing-up-and-getting-a-job-channel's always got something good."
Her roommate at the computer next to her chuckled and shook his head.
She got up to put the ice cream away before she ate too much and "got fat". "They need to make more channels," she said from the kitchen. He looked at her. "Hmm, what was it we're paying thirty bucks a month for, again? Oh, that's right, premium cable, which has only about, let's see, nine hundred channels!"
She sat back down on the couch, this time sitting closer to the desk next to it. She looked up at him.
"Okay, better channels, then. I mean, half of those are for movies we don't want to see, or those music channels full of music we don't want to hear."
"That's the problem with this society. Everyone wants everything instantly. Any information, game, show, movie, or song, people want every last thing at their fingertips."
"And that's the problem with you. You're content to sit there and complain about society while doing absolutely nothing to make it better."
"How am I supposed to make people like you stop complaining about everything? Or stop wanting a constant stream of music in her ears and good shows on television twenty-four hours a day and never waiting for anything? How am I supposed to make you turn off the television and read a book?"
"You're smart, I'm sure you could think of a way."
"Well- not like that, I mean, that's not what I..." He trailed off, realizing that that wasn't what she meant at all. She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. He continued staring at his computer screen and was thankful it was too dark for her to see him blushing.
"Anyway," he began again, "There's nothing I can do to stop you being obsessed with celebrities' lives, or anything like that."
"Maybe that's the problem," she said, and he turned to look at her. "Maybe people like you gave up too soon on people like me. Maybe you stopped writing the good newspaper editorials and the good books because you thought no one would read them. Maybe you stopped shopping the good screenplays around because you thought no one would watch something that wasn't a sequel or a remake or a sequel to a remake. Maybe you stopped making good documentaries because you thought people wanted reality shows. Maybe you stopped making good clothes because you thought the girls only wanted to look like trash. Maybe your people give up just as easily as my people do."
He turned and looked at her. Neither spoke for several seconds. Then he said, "Supply and demand. You demand reality garbage, trashy clothes, asinine movies- and they give them to you. Only a small minority's demanding quality stuff anymore." He turned back to the computer.
"But if you stop producing the quality stuff, the minority gets smaller and smaller, until there's no one left to try to convert the rest of us."
He looked down at the keyboard, frowning slightly. She continued, "We watch the Britney Spears train wreck because she's representing the worst of humankind. The celebrity meltdowns get the news coverage because the represent the devil that lives in all of us. We watch them fall from the pedestals we've put them on because it's like watching ourselves fall and fail and be human. We like seeing heroes knocked down, and we like making them heroes in the first place."
He turned back to her. "The same struggle, the same idea that we're all Christ and we're all Hitler-"
"John Lennon's idea-"
"Is in all of the great literature. The classic struggle, man versus himself."
"Exactly. But the great literature- it's too old. We hate reading pedantic, overly worded Elizabethan nonsense. Shakespeare's too old for us to relate anymore. I don't care how much Hamlet has to do with humanity... it's too old for us to relate."
"And if someone came up with a book-"
"Or a movie, or a television show, or a play-"
"That dealt with these issues, really explored them-"
"Then we'd be interested. Unfortunately, we've all been brought up to expect the good stuff to come in the fancy packages, so we don't even realize that all we're really doing is looking for examples of that classic moral struggle within ourselves. And since the fancy packages only hold the crap..."
He stared at her. "Then no one learns anymore!"
"Exactly."
"So we're not really that different after all."
"No, we really aren't."
"Then I've been wrong."
"About what?"
"About you, and all of your friends."
"Of course."
"So," he said, looking at her carefully, "what do we do about it?"
"Well, for starters," she answered, looking back at him, "someone like you can take someone like me out to dinner tomorrow."
"We- I mean, you, uh- wait, what?"
"Oh, good. You can pick me up from work tomorrow and take me someplace nice."
"Wait, you want to go on a date?"
"Glad you caught on so quickly."
"But we eat dinner together every night, why would tomorrow be so different?"
"Because tomorrow you're going to start researching what people like me are really like."
He blushed. "Oh, not like that, you little pervert. Well, maybe like that someday, but certainly not tomorrow night."
"Uh, right, right..."
"Well, goodnight, then."
She got up to go to bed.
"Yeah... goodnight." He watched her leave the room and wondered what he had gotten himself into.
-2:36 AM