non-sequential narrative
If you are a cashier at a coffee shop/cafe and you suddenly resume your conversation about meatloaf with a co-worker who is invisible to customers behind a stack of boxes, some confusion may occur. You see, the frazzled secretary waiting to pay for the somewhat dodgy sushi lunch will assume that your question, “So, you don’t like it with gravy?” is regarding her impending meal. And she may be overly polite and will produce an answer, despite the terrifying nonsensical context, and reply, “Um…no, I don’t think I’ve ever put gravy on sushi.” And you and your co-worker, who has suddenly peered from behind the boxes to study this odd creature who allows words to just tumble out of her mouth about meatloaf and gravy and sushi, will suddenly become just as confused as the now thoroughly embarrassed secretary. And eye contact will no longer be bearable.
So, you know, don’t do that.
The husband whisked me away for a restorative weekend of food and walks and TV because I’ve been really sad lately. We watched many episodes of Food Network’s offerings to the reality TV gods, including Chopped, Cupcake Wars, and…I don’t know…manufactured drama over fondant. Much like the tic of reality stars of other competition-based shows to say, “I’m not here to make friends,” competitive chefs have a tendency to say, “Go big or go home.” This makes sense when you’re talking about cupcakes, as they’re known for their gigantic size. The husband, who doesn’t absorb bumper sticker folk wisdom or cliches very readily, which is odd since one of the first gifts he ever gave me was a book of cliches, took note of this repetitive boast: “They keep saying…like, ‘If you’re gonna go, go big.'”
We took great delight in reconstructing cliches in this manner over the rest of the weekend.
There’s a box and you’re outside it. Thinking.
That’s evil but less so than this other evil.
If there’s something that you can do now, you should do it and not wait because procrastinating is doing stuff later.
Mi casa es mi casa but you can come over whenever.
We watched most of Sex and the City 2 last night. It was offensive. And terrible. And offensively terrible. And two and half hours long. The husband and I have a really unhealthy habit of watching particularly bad movies for the sheer delight of giving them the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 treatment.
“What happened in the first one?”
“Uhhhh…you know, honestly, I think I blacked out in the middle of it. But it was also two and a half hours long and I remember the realization that I had been watching it for hours depressing the hell out of me.”
Upon seeing Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda peek around a corner wearing burqas:
“I know that it is not in any way okay to say this, but I’m pretty sure this is why planes get flown into buildings.”
“Maybe the 9/11 terrorists saw this movie and traveled back in time to try to stop it.”
“Like Terminator?”
“Yeah…I think.”
“Maybe John Connor wrote Sex and the City 2?”
Upon watching Carrie, insecure in her marriage after confessing to kissing her old flame in Abu Dhabi, come home to a Big-less apartment and the TV missing:
“I bet he’s just out buying a new TV.”
“I hope she goes totally Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale and is halfway through burning all of his clothes when he comes home.”
Pondering the last five minutes of the movie, in which all plot development abruptly stopped and the writers just threw all of the characters back together happily with their spouses:
“Huh. They must have been two hours and 25 minutes into the movie when they realized that it was going absolutely fucking nowhere and were like, ‘Okay, let’s just end.'”
“Orphan is coming on. That movie was also terrible. Come to think of it, Orphan was similar to Sex and the City 2. This girl is being weird and killing people for over two hours and you’re supposed to be thinking, ‘What could possibly cause this little girl to go on this rampage with this ridiculous accent?'” And the big reveal is that it’s because she’s actually 35 and you’re like, ‘Uh…’ That’s not even a twist. Someone being 35 is not a twist. That’s just starting a whole other movie.”
April 8th, 2011 at 2:59 pm
I suggest a mashup: Sex and the City 3, featured 2 1/2 hours of Sarah Jessica Parker going on a rampage and killing all the other SATC characters. While dressing expensively and pretending to write crappy relationship columns. It’s a win-win for everyone!
April 8th, 2011 at 3:08 pm
You wasted valuable “Trailer Park Boys” watching time for that movie. But the stupid plotting thing is endemic. It’s like a lot of screenwriter’s base their work on Michael O’Donoghue’s “How To Write Good.”
http://www.workableweb.com/_pages/tips_how_to_write_good.htm
I watched another plot-damaged movie the other night “Cry Of The Owl.” This guy, he’s getting divorced, and has really creepily awkward interactions with everyone. Then he’s watching a woman do dishes from the shadows. She catches him at it, and invites him in. And you think ‘wow, she must be tolerant to let sad creepy peeping tom in,’ but then she starts stalking him. Then her ex-boyfriend tries to stomp him, and disappears and everyone thinks he murdered the guy. Then everyone dies except creepy guy. The End.
April 8th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
Reading stuff like this makes me want to be your sister wife. I don’t want to have sex with you guys. I just want to live with you and watch TV together.
April 8th, 2011 at 6:36 pm
What Amber said. I miss you, and love you. xoxo
April 9th, 2011 at 7:29 am
manufactured drama over fondant.
This is my favorite sentence fragment of all time.
We found ourselves sucked in to one of the giant cake shows last weekend and it seriously made me want to get rid of the FIOS so that never happens again.
April 13th, 2011 at 1:55 pm
Your re-imagined cliches gave me big LULZ here in my cubicle. Thank you.