I think this is what I'm reading today....
You know, for all of you who won't be there.
She really needs to invest some time in finding new friends. Maybe try the internet. Unfortunately, that's going to take time, and for now she's stuck with what she has, which is why she's pushing a cart through Shaw's with David Green lagging behind her. If nothing else, it an exercise in masochism. If she's to believe her mother, that's something she'll need to get used to once the baby is born.
"So it was the two of you, alone on the very romantic roof of your building, sharing the last piece of pie and talking about how intertwined your lives have become, and you still didn't tell him?" Dave asks. He's juggling three oranges as Laura fights with the bag dispenser in front of the apple section. She can tell the oranges are overly ripe from where she's standing. One of the weirder aspects of her pregnancy has been the heightened sense of smell, or rather, how the strangest smells seem over powering and, on one memorable occasion, make her sick to her stomach. She's momentarily grateful Dan isn't juggling limes.
"Yes," she finally answers through gritted teeth. If she's snappish, it's only because the cheap plastic bags keep ripping in half every time she tries to separate them.
"Are you sure he hasn't figured out some other way?" Dave asks. "Because at this point, it almost seems like he's fucking with you."
Laura grins as she successfully manages to pull away an intact produce bag. The boy shelving kumquats five feet away is staring at the torn remnants of her struggle, which are piled on top of the apples. He doesn't look happy, but Laura's too busy filling her bag with apples to care.
"Yes, I'm sure he doesn't secretly know I'm carrying his love child," she says. "For one thing, Ryan is the least subtle person on the planet. For another, as soon as he found out he'd start treating me like I was made of glass."
Dave winces, catching each orange in turn and replacing them on the shelve. Laura knows that he, too, is flashing back to the delightful post-prom memories of Ryan following her around frantically, offering to attend to her every need until her mildly sprained ankle had healed.
"Yeah, yeah," Dave says. "He is kind of..." A thoughtful pause. "I really want to use the word 'stalker,' but I feel like having a key to your apartment and permission to rifle through your stuff precludes that."
Laura snorts and gently places the bag of apples in the back of her cart. She heads towards vegetables with Dave on her heels and tries not to think about the fact that Ryan has had the spare key to her apartment for eight years, while the men that she had dated over that time had barely been allowed to leave toothbrushes in her bathroom. It's completely twisted and she can feel anger bubbling up in her stomach. Anger at herself, which is even stranger.
She blames it on her hormones, which is an excuse that no amount of internal guilt will stop her from using. She also blames her hormones on the way she abruptly says, "I'm not marrying him."
Dave held up his hands in defense, which was mildly amusing given that he was holding a radish and an English cucumber. "Hey, who said anything about marriage? Although, that would play nicely into--" He stopped and seemed to backtrack, saying, "You know what this is all like?"
"A bad sitcom?"
"No, a telenovela." Laura blinks at him, trying to come up with an adequate response. It's not every day someone tells her that her life resembles a Spanish language soap opera. "Seriously, listen, it's like... oh, tragically two people are killed due to professional jealousy and general asshattery, right? And then you and Ryan are the dashing new characters introduced after the murder, but you're secretly detectives trying to solve it! But no one knows! And then you get separated after the murderers are cornered, each of you tragically thinking the other has died. You're so grateful, upon reuniting, that you passionately embrace. Except, gasp! Several weeks later, you realize you're pregnant with his baby and you don't know how to tell him!"
Laura's torn between rolling her eyes spectacularly and bursting into tears. Her life really does resemble something out of daytime teevee and it's almost as revolting as it is hysterical. Part of her wants to blame her sudden flair for the dramatic on Beaumont itself. In the past six months it seems like everyone working there has gone through the rigmarole of personal crises.
"Oh, you want to know what would make it even better?" Dave continues, oblivious. "If you were really carrying Ryan's brother's baby."
"Ryan doesn't have a brother," Laura manages to say. She turns her attention back to the sweet potatoes. "And he also doesn't have an evil twin separated at birth, distinguishable only by his goatee, so don't even bother asking."
"That's more Star Trek than Days of Our Lives," Dave says. "But I admire your enthusiasm."
With a put-upon sigh, Laura lobs three sweet potatoes into another plastic produce bag. This one came off the roll easily without ripping, at least not until the pointy edges of the sweet potatoes start to poke into the thin plastic.
"This is going to be an excruciating seven months," she says. Excurciating is as good a word as any. She's not about to admit to David that she'd just as easily use words like "terrifying" or "depressing." At least, she's not about to admit it in the middle of Shaw's.
David picks up on her discomfort, though, squeezing her shoulder and then running his knuckles smoothly up and down her spine. "Hey, it might be awful, but at least you've got us." That's right, she has her closest friends. Two of them are in France, one of them is bogged down by work, one of them is the father of her baby, and the other just finished comparing her life to a Spanish soap opera.
"Oh, hey, you know what you should do?" Dave's hand drops down to his side as he starts to wander away. "Buy a box of pregnancy tests and a package of wire coat hangers and check out the reaction you get from the cashier on the way out!"
Laura sighs. She definitely needs new friends. She makes a mental note to look into that internet thing later, and pushes the cart back towards poultry.
***
I stole the best joke in the entire section from xkcd. I apologize, but it was so funny and so Dan that I really couldn't help myself.
She really needs to invest some time in finding new friends. Maybe try the internet. Unfortunately, that's going to take time, and for now she's stuck with what she has, which is why she's pushing a cart through Shaw's with David Green lagging behind her. If nothing else, it an exercise in masochism. If she's to believe her mother, that's something she'll need to get used to once the baby is born.
"So it was the two of you, alone on the very romantic roof of your building, sharing the last piece of pie and talking about how intertwined your lives have become, and you still didn't tell him?" Dave asks. He's juggling three oranges as Laura fights with the bag dispenser in front of the apple section. She can tell the oranges are overly ripe from where she's standing. One of the weirder aspects of her pregnancy has been the heightened sense of smell, or rather, how the strangest smells seem over powering and, on one memorable occasion, make her sick to her stomach. She's momentarily grateful Dan isn't juggling limes.
"Yes," she finally answers through gritted teeth. If she's snappish, it's only because the cheap plastic bags keep ripping in half every time she tries to separate them.
"Are you sure he hasn't figured out some other way?" Dave asks. "Because at this point, it almost seems like he's fucking with you."
Laura grins as she successfully manages to pull away an intact produce bag. The boy shelving kumquats five feet away is staring at the torn remnants of her struggle, which are piled on top of the apples. He doesn't look happy, but Laura's too busy filling her bag with apples to care.
"Yes, I'm sure he doesn't secretly know I'm carrying his love child," she says. "For one thing, Ryan is the least subtle person on the planet. For another, as soon as he found out he'd start treating me like I was made of glass."
Dave winces, catching each orange in turn and replacing them on the shelve. Laura knows that he, too, is flashing back to the delightful post-prom memories of Ryan following her around frantically, offering to attend to her every need until her mildly sprained ankle had healed.
"Yeah, yeah," Dave says. "He is kind of..." A thoughtful pause. "I really want to use the word 'stalker,' but I feel like having a key to your apartment and permission to rifle through your stuff precludes that."
Laura snorts and gently places the bag of apples in the back of her cart. She heads towards vegetables with Dave on her heels and tries not to think about the fact that Ryan has had the spare key to her apartment for eight years, while the men that she had dated over that time had barely been allowed to leave toothbrushes in her bathroom. It's completely twisted and she can feel anger bubbling up in her stomach. Anger at herself, which is even stranger.
She blames it on her hormones, which is an excuse that no amount of internal guilt will stop her from using. She also blames her hormones on the way she abruptly says, "I'm not marrying him."
Dave held up his hands in defense, which was mildly amusing given that he was holding a radish and an English cucumber. "Hey, who said anything about marriage? Although, that would play nicely into--" He stopped and seemed to backtrack, saying, "You know what this is all like?"
"A bad sitcom?"
"No, a telenovela." Laura blinks at him, trying to come up with an adequate response. It's not every day someone tells her that her life resembles a Spanish language soap opera. "Seriously, listen, it's like... oh, tragically two people are killed due to professional jealousy and general asshattery, right? And then you and Ryan are the dashing new characters introduced after the murder, but you're secretly detectives trying to solve it! But no one knows! And then you get separated after the murderers are cornered, each of you tragically thinking the other has died. You're so grateful, upon reuniting, that you passionately embrace. Except, gasp! Several weeks later, you realize you're pregnant with his baby and you don't know how to tell him!"
Laura's torn between rolling her eyes spectacularly and bursting into tears. Her life really does resemble something out of daytime teevee and it's almost as revolting as it is hysterical. Part of her wants to blame her sudden flair for the dramatic on Beaumont itself. In the past six months it seems like everyone working there has gone through the rigmarole of personal crises.
"Oh, you want to know what would make it even better?" Dave continues, oblivious. "If you were really carrying Ryan's brother's baby."
"Ryan doesn't have a brother," Laura manages to say. She turns her attention back to the sweet potatoes. "And he also doesn't have an evil twin separated at birth, distinguishable only by his goatee, so don't even bother asking."
"That's more Star Trek than Days of Our Lives," Dave says. "But I admire your enthusiasm."
With a put-upon sigh, Laura lobs three sweet potatoes into another plastic produce bag. This one came off the roll easily without ripping, at least not until the pointy edges of the sweet potatoes start to poke into the thin plastic.
"This is going to be an excruciating seven months," she says. Excurciating is as good a word as any. She's not about to admit to David that she'd just as easily use words like "terrifying" or "depressing." At least, she's not about to admit it in the middle of Shaw's.
David picks up on her discomfort, though, squeezing her shoulder and then running his knuckles smoothly up and down her spine. "Hey, it might be awful, but at least you've got us." That's right, she has her closest friends. Two of them are in France, one of them is bogged down by work, one of them is the father of her baby, and the other just finished comparing her life to a Spanish soap opera.
"Oh, hey, you know what you should do?" Dave's hand drops down to his side as he starts to wander away. "Buy a box of pregnancy tests and a package of wire coat hangers and check out the reaction you get from the cashier on the way out!"
Laura sighs. She definitely needs new friends. She makes a mental note to look into that internet thing later, and pushes the cart back towards poultry.
***
I stole the best joke in the entire section from xkcd. I apologize, but it was so funny and so Dan that I really couldn't help myself.