Dear Monday Version of Erin,
It is I, Sunday Evening Version of Erin. Let's have a conversation. You might be a little angry with me because of how I just slumped in the doorway from New Orleans, filled to the eyeballs with rich food and forty eight different varieties of alcohol. You may be particularly annoyed that the six or so hours of sleep I got last night in no way makes up for the combined four hours of sleep I've had since Thursday. I understand, Tomorrow Me. But when you are growling at people who look at you and moaning that you are in dire need of vegetables and the world's entire supply of potable water, please remember how much fun Yesterday I had this weekend.
Love,
Yesterday Me
Meanwhile!! Let's get our Sense and Sensibility on!! Willoughby's gone away after taking some of Marianne's hair, Col Brandon's got some urgent business to attend to, and Edward's being all weird and distant. This calls for a special unit of the government!
TRANSCRIPT OF COMMUNICATION FROM MISSION CONTROL:
DISPATCH: Elinor! Attention Agent Elinor! Please update Mission Control with emotional status of Agent in Training Marianne Dashwood.
AGENT ELINOR: Where's the chief?! I want to speak to Chief Austen immediately! Why the hell did I get stuck with this good-for-nothing partner? What'd I do to deserve this? All she does is sit around and mope after that Willoughby chap and make us all miserable.
DISPATCH: Agent In Training Marianne is displaying classic symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Agent Elinor. Did you not attend the Agency mandated sensitivity course about Agents in the field?
AGENT ELINOR: Yeah, but she hasn't even killed her first hostile creature yet! When I was her age, I'd already taken out fourteen Martians and two alien beasts from the planet of GWAR and it certainly never upset me. This was just an interaction with a fellow human!
DISPATCH: Are you assured of said human's Homo sapien status? This Agency's been burned before. Remember that godawful beast, whatsit, Mr Elton? The one that posed as a preacher? Ugly mess, that was.
AGENT ELINOR: An ugly mess dispatched very neatly by Knightly and team, Sir. No, this Willoughby's definitely human, but Agent in Training Marianne's reaction is extreme. She keeps playing the same song on the piano--
DISPATCH: This could be a form of hypnotherapy used to turn Agent in Training Marianne into a sleeper agent for the other side!
AGENT ELINOR: Doubtful. It's a love song and it's godawful. She just sighs after she plays it and then starts playing it again. I think she's in love, Sir.
DISPATCH: In love? You're supposed to be training this agent, Dashwood! We don't have time for love! We have aliens to exterminate before they threaten the security of His Majesty's country!
AGENT ELINOR: Try telling Agent in Training Marianne that. She's mooning over Willoughby and making us all miserable. In other news, I fear that my civilian contact Mr F has been compromised.
DISPATCH: Grievous, indeed. On what evidence do you base your assumption?
AGENT ELINOR: Subject is moody and unresponsive and has spent the last week at my base of operations, talking around subjects and never giving me straight answers to my gentle interrogation.
DISPATCH: Could be an issue of bad chicken. Any hard evidence to support your claims?
AGENT ELINOR: He has taken to wearing a lock of hair around his neck. He claims it is his sister's, but the lock looks vaguely supernatural in origin. I tried to steal it away to run some forensic tests, but Agent in Training Marianne got in my way with her ennui. But my gut says it's nothing good.
DISPATCH: Agent Elinor, you are a trusted and skilled veteran agent. Command respects your intuition - it sure as shit saved our bacon back in the '68 Skirmish in Surrey. But we need hard evidence. Can you obtain it?
AGENT ELINOR: After knocking some sense into Agent in Training Marianne, it is my highest priority. Will report back on any suspicious activity in either AiT Marianne or Mr F.
DISPATCH: Roger. Keep your eye on young Marianne, Agent Elinor. We don't want another Rita Leeds situation.
AGENT ELINOR: God, what an embarrassment that was. Never send a Bluth to do a Dashwood's job. Agent Elinor out.
END COMMUNICATION.
About the Author: Erin is loud, foul-mouthed, an unrepentant lover of trashy movies and believes that champagne should be an every day drink. When she isn't drowning in a sea of engineers for whom Dilbert is still uproariously funny, she's writing about books, tv, the cult of VC Andrews and more.
