Chapter 7
Drinking Game Tally: 19 drinks, 7 chugs, 1 shot
Creep Award: Grandfather Malcolm
Chapter 8
Drinking Game Tally: 36 drinks, 10 chugs, 4 shots
Creep Award: Christopher
Chapter 9
Drinking Game Tally: 21 drinks, 4 chugs, 5 shots
Creep Award: Corrine
What? They were both locked in attics! Too soon?
That’s right, it’s Flowers in the Attic day!! So fix yourself a stiff drink, eye up your hottest family relation, and let’s get to snarking!
(Need a refresher on the drinking game? The rules are here.)
Chapter 7: Minutes Like Hours
“Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ . . .”
Number of Drinks Taken: 19
Number of Drinks Chugged: 7
Number of Shots Taken: 1
Chapter Summary
Gosh, you guys. It sure is boring, being locked up in an attic every day for weeks on end! There’s nothing to dooooo! In fact, I should write an entire chapter just about all of the boring things we do to pass the time! Like sleeping! And taking baths! And reading, ugh, books! It’s so boring! We’d much rather be working 40 hours a week in a boring job that we hate than lounging around and having all of our meals prepared for us!! Our lives are so hard!
Grandmother keeps quizzing us on the Bible, so we’re memorized a selection of quotes to appease her. Only all of our quotes are from Job, so they’re, like, super sanctimonious and depressing. Kind of like this book I’m writing, actually!
Plus, Momma seems more and more distant. She only comes to visit us for a few minutes a day, and she keeps going sailing in her free time! Plus she said she can only type about twenty words a minute at her secretarial school. That doesn’t sound very good. It’s like she’s not even trying!
The Creepy Award Goes To
The Grandfather!! Oh, I know he hasn’t been mentioned much yet, but his douchetastic presence is ever-looming over his giant mansion, scaring his poor wife into being a crazy tyrant. Plus, he’s been totally suckered by his daughter, and is already letting her drive around his fancy cars and go to dinners with his fancy rich friends. Make up your mind, Malcolm Foxworth!! Either your daughter sucks or she doesn’t! Stay consistent!
P.S. in case you were having problems making up your mind, YOUR DAUGHTER SUCKS OKAY.
Notes from the Margin
“. . . and in this way we often had our little jokes, at her expense, for if you looked hard and long enough, you found words in the Bible to suit any occassion.”
REALLY, Cathy? YOU DON’T SAY. Why, it’s almost as if people have been using bits and pieces of religious texts to trumpet their stupid haterade causes for centuries!! WELL I NEVER.
“An injured small finger was enough reason to demand cuddly-baby things, and lullabies sung as I tucked them into bed, and kissed their faces, and tickled where laughter had to be freed.”
Well, okay, Buffalo Bill’s mother, but did you ever think that maybe this isn’t the best way to prepare these children for a childhood of attic dwelling and/or actual real life (in case you ever get to experience that)? I mean, I’m all for kids being kids, and granted I don’t have a lot of experience with kids who’ve been locked away in an attic or anything, but I think I’d tell them to cowboy the hell up. It’s just a splinter.
“Cathy, Christopher,” she began, her head still bowed, though her hands were in her lap nervously working, “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
WHAT. Well, blow me down! Your mother, who has LOCKED YOU AWAY IN AN ATTIC, might not have been 100% truthful all this time? What is this world coming to, when we can’t even trust the word of an unclefucker who conspires with her psychotic ultra-fundamentalist mother to lock her four children away for years in an attic?? Great! Now I find it difficult to believe inanything! IS SANTA STILL REAL? AM I STILL REAL?? IS THIS INCEPTION AND I AM JUST A DREAM FIGMENT OF MYSELF? AND IF SO WHERE IS JOSEPH GORDEN-LEVITT?
“He’s never going to like us, no matter how pretty the twins are, or how smart Chris is, or how good I dance.”
Well, Cathy. How well you dance.
At the end of the rainbow waited the pot of gold. But rainbows were made of faint and fragile gossamer – and gold weighed a ton- and since the world began, gold was the reason to do most anything.
Oh, Jesus. HOW DID THIS GET PUBLISHED???
Chapter 8: To Make a Garden Grow
“Mistress Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle-shells, and pretty maids all in a row.”
Number of Drinks Taken: 36
Number of Drinks Chugged: 10
Number of Shots Taken: 4
Chapter Summary
Well, good golly-lolly! Momma’s just told us that we’re not getting out of this attic until the Grandfather dies, so we’ve decided to improve our living conditions and I’ve finally decided to hammer home the motif of this book in one long chapter! Cory and Carrie are awful-scared of the dirty old attic, so we’ve decided to turn it into a garden! Momma bought us all sorts of arts and crafts supplies, and we’ve made tons of flowers to string up to turn our attic into a garden! Attic, attic, attic! Flowers, flowers, flowers! I’m just going to keep repeating these words until Erin succumbs to alcohol poisoning!
The Creepy Award Goes To
Chris, clearly. At one point, he has Corrine buy Cathy some ballet outfits so that she can practice up in the attic. Much is made of how sweaty she is after practice, and of course Christopher creepily watches her dance from the corner of the room, like the pervert he is. Frankly, I’m surprised he wasn’t rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet with one hand in his pocket, furiously jamming his fingers through a hole in his jeans and touching himself.
Also, Christopher, ballet isn’t sexy. I mean, maybe if it’s that ballet from Center Stage! But Swan Lake is not sexy. Perv.
Notes from the Margin
. . . our audience of two were stomping their feet impatiently, eager to see Atlanta burn. I followed Rhett onto the “stage” and was ready to taunt and tease, flirt and bewitch, and put him on fire, before I rushed off to some pale-haired Ashley Wilkes . . .
Ugh. FIRST OF ALL, brothers and sisters really shouldn’t be playing at Gone With The Wind. Unless the characters you’re playing are Aunt Pittypat and Uncle Peter.
Also, ASHLEY WILKES IS THE WORST HUMAN BEING ALIVE! Or on the page! Or whatever! DOWN WITH ASHLEY!
“We’ll take it with us,” said Momma . . . “We wouldn’t want to leave anything living, and loving of sunshine, in this attic.”
Except for my kids!! Fuck those guys!
“And I’m going to tell you a secret I’ve known about for some time – in this world, where everything is complicated, there is also a book to teach you how simple everything can be.”
Like this one!! Need to know how to imprison your children? Have sex with your siblings? This is the book for you! At least until Sisterfucking For Dummies gets published.
Also, Christopher, if all of these books exist to explain the world so simply, perhaps you should read one that explains not to use passive voice in your writing?
Patience. I colored patience gray, hung over with black clouds. I colored hope yellow, just like that sun we could see for a few short morning hours.
I color my disgust puke-green. To match the vomit that erupted from having to read this passage.
“Fool! Never wait on a man! Make him wait on himself.”
See! I KNEW I LOVED YOU, GRANDMOTHER!
“Nobody is going to tell me I have to do anything! Besides, you can’t do ballet positions unless you’re properly dressed for it!”
WHAT. Cathy, you are high. It’s not like ballet positions are difficult. THERE ARE FIVE OF THEM. They’re pretty easy! I did warm-ups in a pair of jeans and a tshirt yesterday! And yet, this girl, despite years of malnutrition, lack of Vitamins A and D, and formal training, will end up as a prima ballerina. That might actually be the most unrealistic plot point of this entire book series.
There wasn’t any kind of dance I couldn’t do, and didn’t want to do.
Not true, my little Aryan asshole! Here’s a list of dances I am like 99.8% sure you can’t do:
- The boot-scootin’ boogie
- The Electric Slide
- The Running Man
- The Kid’nPlay
- The Roger Rabbit
- The “get low” dance
- The Viennese Waltz
- Crunk
- The FYA Dance (because we haven’t choreographed it yet. But it’s coming.)
He would meet and fall in love with the most beautiful, sexy woman who was brilliant, understanding, charming, witty and enourmous fun to be with; she’d be the perfect housekeeper, the most faithful of devoted wives, the best of mothers, and she’d never nag, or complain, or cry, or doubt his judgement, or be disappointed or discouraged if he made stupid mistakes on the stock market and lost all their money. . . . .
“Momma’s not stupid,” he defended vehemently. . . “She was put down as a child, and made to feel inferior because she was a girl.’
Gosh. I can’t imagine why.
Chapter 9: Holidays
“Through the years, we’ll always be together, if the Fates allow.”
Number of Drinks Taken: 21
Number of Drinks Chugged: 4
Number of Shots Taken: 5
Chapter Summary
It’s the holiday season! Hooray! For most people that means parties, baked goods, gift shopping and an extra ten pounds, but for us it means we get a meal other than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! Hooray!
Except, Carrie and Cory get a pretty bad cold! I told Momma to take them to the doctor, but Grandmother wouldn’t let her! And it took them 20 days to recover! And now they look like sickly little plucked birds! Gosh! I wonder if this will at all affect their future health and happiness!
Then Christmas comes, and Momma sure does spoil us! It’s almost as if she feels guilty for keeping us locked up in an attic for more than six months! We got a tv! And candy to rot our teeth! Everything’s forgiven! Plus, Momma’s going to let Chris and I sneak down to watch the Christmas party! I’m sure nothing will go wrong with that plan!
And we made a present for Grandmother! We spent lots of time on it, even though it’s god-ugly. But Grandmother didn’t take our present! She hates us! Oh, if only we’d learned that EIGHT CHAPTERS AGO.
The Creepy Award Goes To:
Corrine, again, ad nauseum, in infinite. Ugh. So her kid has a fever of 104 degrees and she’s like, “Well! That’s not worth risking my inheritance! Hope he pulls through!” Look, I’m just saying, if you’re going to hate your kids, that’s fine. But own that shit. Don’t try to pretend it’s just because you want some money.
Notes from the Margin
“The medium-sized portions were mine, and, of course, he served himself last – huge amounts for the one who needed it the most, the brain.”
Really? Not the ballerina who burns 3-4000 calories a day? Not that one?
“Do you believe she’s happy knowing her four children are locked in one room, and left to play in an attic?”
Oh, Christopher. How do I say this gently? YES!! YES OF COURSE SHE’S HAPPY! You’re stuck in an attic and she’s out sailing! You idiot! You think she is worrying about her children? No! She’s worrying about jibs or hoists or whatever happens when you sail, I don’t know! NOT ABOUT YOU.
{I} began to sing the lyrics I had written myself to music I had heard Cory hum…
I hear the wind when it sweeps down from the hill,
It speaks to me when the night is still,
It whispers in my ear,
the words I never hear,
even when he’s near.I feel the breeze when it blows in from the sea,
It lifts my hair, it caresses me,
It never takes my hand,
To show it understands,
It never touches me, ten-der-ly.Someday I know I’m gonna climb this hill,
I’ll find another day,
Some other voice to say the words I’ve gotta hear,
If I’m to live, another year…
This reminds me of another popular song wirtten by a teenage “singer”/”songwriter”:
That’s it for this week, mostly because I can’t possibly hope to top Voldemort covering Miley Cyrus. It’s the macro to end all macros. Plus I have about 10 levels of Angry Birds to beat. Enjoy your weekend, and try not to lock any of your offspring into a small room, please!
