BSC #31: Dawn's Wicked Stepsister
Last time:
Part One
This time:
Chapter Five
Wednesday! Another meeting! And Mallory's aforementioned illness turns out to be...dun dun dunnnnnnnnn! CHICKEN POX! Beware the pox! Apparently Mallory has had chicken pox before, so this is a rare case of a second infection, which I think I'll give Ann M. props for. You can catch it twice, and it isn't very believable that Mallory would reach the age of eleven with that many siblings without having had it once before.
Either way, Mallory is out of official BSC sick leave (BSC Constitution, Section C, Article IV: "All members are allotted three days of sick leave per each calendar year. If the number of sick days used exceeds this allotment, then a fine will be levied upon this member, to be paid upon the next available dues day. All members must provide a doctor's note explaining their absence. Any members who are abusing their sick days by feigning illness and failing to provide a doctor's note will be terminated immediately, by the official Baby-Sitters Club Systems 800 Series Model 101 Termination Unit.")
Unfortunately, Mal's absence leaves several jobs open. And one, for the Perkins, could only be taken by two members: Dawn and Mary Anne. Standoff! Both girls openly state they'd like the job, with Dawn explaining to the reader that she needs the extra money to buy Mary Anne a "now-we're-sisters" present, which I presume is supposed to be a surprise. Mary Anne reasons that she's the one who had to move, and she used to sit for the Perkins all the time at her old house. I say horseradishes to that. Everyone knows that the Perkins girls are modern saints, and practically baby-sit themselves. Mary Anne has basically been hogging them. Well your Perkins monopoly has ended, Mary Anne! Basically both girls are stubbornly refusing to back down when Mary Anne whips this gem out:
"'You know,' began Mary Anne, 'I don't think my skirt looks so great on you, after all. It's a little . . . tight.'"
Oh snap. I did not make this up. For those of you who have forgotten what just happened because you had your minds blown, here's the chain of events:
Dawn: I would like the job.
Mary Anne: I would like the job.
Dawn: I have as much of a right to it as you do.
Mary Anne: So do I.
(Pause)
Mary Anne: You look fat.
This is it, folks, in black and white. Mary Anne is a super king kong mega mega biatch. Apparently when the most sensitive member of the BSC is confronted with a situation where she may not get her way, she begins whipping out vicious personal insults about people's physical appearance. She's even giving Karen Brewer a run for her money for horribadness.
Dawn is all, "...did you just call me fat?" Mary Anne replies with, "You said it, not me," which doesn't even make any sense, because Mary Anne totally just said it. God, I wanna give her such a smack in the mouth. But before I can, Kristy interrupts with some desk banging and goes into full feeding frenzy mode, tearing into them for unprofessional behavior (At this point I'd like to point out that the only one who was unprofessional was Mary Anne. I vote that she be tarred and feathered). Before Kristy can really work on tearing them a new one, Mrs. Newton calls, and Kristy downshifts into sweet businesswoman. Following the call, the problem of the Perkins job returns, with neither Mary Anne and Dawn backing down. Kristy finally forces them to draw straws and Mary Anne gets the job, which Dawn internally bitches is not fair, but man, if there's something more fair than drawing straws, than I'd like to hear it.
Two days later Mary Anne comes back from the Perkins' job while Dawn is reading on her bed, and is all, "Well, aren't you going to ask how the Perkinses are?" After the stunt she pulled, Mary Anne should be grateful that Dawn doesn't shave her head in the middle of the night (Or hide bean sprouts in her bed, I dunno. Just sayin, bitch should watch her back). But Dawn admits she really likes the Perkins, so she asks. Gabby (who is what, three?) was rehearsing for a play for her preschool called The Three Piggy Opera. I always wonder if the claims that the Perkins' are insanely overtalented Mary Sues is exaggerated, but there's your proof right there. The three-year old is rehearsing for her role in a parody of The Threepenny Opera. What daycare is this!?!? As it turns out, Gabby wrote the adaptation, wanting to adjust it for a younger audience without losing the complex amorality of the characters, while paying a proper homage to the music of Kurt Weil. Myriah was busy writing letters to famous people, sending Cam Geary her script for a prestige piece that would likely garner him a Best Actor nomination if he took the lead role, and advising the President on how to lower income taxes for bottom income bracket families while still maintaining funding for intercity schools. It's a risky venture, but she has a feeling it'll pay off.
Discussing the Perkins and their adorable-yet-highbrow antics mends the rift between Dawn and Mary Anne, and all seems well between them. For now.
Chapter Six
Baby-sitting chapter! It opens with a club notebook entry by Claudia, and I'd really rather transcribe it than breeze past it:
Saturday
Yisterday I sat at the Pikes house boy was Mal a pain. Sory you' will read this wehn your beter Mal but you were a pain. Maybe you didn't lick being babbysat for agian, but I couldnt' help it. Your mother called because she needed to take the tir tre triplits to the doctor so that left you and Nicky and you're sisters. I hope you feel beter soon realy I do. Realy.
Man, AMM really goes for broke with the Claudia spelling errors, doesn't she? This doesn't just have ridiculous misspellings, but also indicates a complete lack of understanding of even the most basic of punctuation. As the entry says, Claudia was baby-sitting the Pikes minus triplets, with sick Mallory considered to be an extra baby-sitter in case of an emergency. Unfortunately Mrs. Pike wouldn't let Claudia anywhere near Mallory now that she knew you could get the chicken pox twice, although Claudia had already had it. Which is just silly, because the chances of that occurring again are extremely low. Certainly not enough to make everyone do what they have to, which is have Claudia yell to Mallory through the door and call the younger girls to fetch things for her.
Inspired by ol' Chicken Pox Mallory and the triplets who are off to the doctor, Claire suggests they play doctor's office. Addressing her siblings, she says, "Now look, you silly-billy-goo-goos. The whole rec room is the doctor's office. No, wait. It's the emergency room. No, a hospital. A hospital, okay? Oh, and here comes the ambulance." This absolutely cracks me up. I guess because I picture like, House limping and glaring at his diagnostics team. "All right, you silly-billy-goo-goos. Why don't you pull your heads out of your asses and we'll save some lives today?"
The kids conceive of some awesomely horrific accidents, while Mal calls for Claudia and complains that she is thirsty, bored, and wants a baking soda bath. For reasons I don't understand, Claudia denies this last request, suggesting she waits until Mrs. Pike returns. I mean, yeesh Claudia, come on. I know we all like to give Mal a hard time, but I don't think she's so stupid that she'll drown in the tub unsupervised or anything. Mrs. Pike soon comes back with the triplets, all three of whom have pneumonia. Claudia nicely offers to stay and help out until her BSC meeting, because Claudia rocks my socks.
Chapter Seven
It's the weekend, and Dawn complains that she used to love weekends, but not no more, because Richard and Mary Anne are driving her nutso. This part is a nice comparison of Richard's obsessive neatness and Sharon's frightening slobbery, and really exemplifies how neither of them are really characters, but rather the personification of two personality traits.
Richard has organized all their books by category, and then within category, by alphabetical order. I certainly appreciate doing this, and I've done something similar with my books myself, but it seems a bit invasive to do it to whatever books Sharon and Dawn might have in the common areas of the house. More hilariously, Richard arranges his clothes by type and colour, his shirts hanging (L-R): white, yellow, light blue, dark blue. Yellow seems to be the rogue colour there, I guess when Richard is feeling festive. Dawn also mentions this is the first time there's ever been dividers in the drawers for cutlery, which means everything was just floating around there willy-nilly. I dunno, maybe its just me, but I always thought that was pretty standard for everyone. Cutlery drawers cost about $1.50 tops (I saw one in the store the other day), and require almost zero effort to organize things in. Hell, they even make the spoon slot spoon-shaped. I think it actually takes more effort not to have one. Sharon had to actively think, 'To hell with a cutlery drawer! I don't need a plastic tray telling me how to live my life! Cutlery drawers are for squares!'
Oh the kookiness of Richard and Sharon. He wakes up early and has breakfast. She wakes up late and never tells him she doesn't like what he makes for breakfast. Sharon leaves towels and a newspaper out. Richard tidies up after her.
"At this point, Mom sometimes gets mad. 'I can clean up after myself!' she protests.
"'But you never do,' replies Richard."
Then Sharon cooks vegetarian meals that Richard and Mary Anne don't like it and Sharon doesn't want to clean up right away after supper but Richard so he has to do extra work because he doesn't want to wait blah blah blah.
"I can't imagine why I didn't see these problems before they got married."
Really? Really?! It didn't occur to anyone here that this issue might arise? This is why people normally live together before they got married! To see how that situation goes. You don't do it after you've wasted money on a wedding and will have to waste even more cash on a divorce. Christ! I would have expected this kind of behaviour from Sharon -- I'm amazed her pot-addled mind can even comprehend who she's married to -- but my god, Richard?! The rod up that man's butt has a rod up its butt! He really dropped the ball this time! This is his mess, and I'll be damned if Sharon is gonna clean it up!
Dawn wakes up at 9 am one Saturday and comes downstairs to find Richard and Mary Anne grinning at her like deranged maniacs. Uh oh, Sharon slipped a little something-something into their coffee. No wait, apparently they've decided it's SPRING-CLEANING DAY.
These people are fucked. Dawn was like, "Spring whatnow? I think Mom wanted to go shopping today," and Richard is all, "The stores will be open tomorrow!" Well yes. I suppose they would. I would have pointed out that the house would be still standing tomorrow as well, but that's just me.
Luckily, Sharon is so high (Dawn uses the term "laid-back") that she doesn't freak, and instead drifts around wiping stuff onto the floor, and Mary Anne follows her around with a Dustbuster, vacuuming that stuff off the floor. Dawn and Mary Anne snipe about this a bit, and then as revenge, switched the brown socks and the grey socks in Richard's sock drawer (They were arranged in alphabetical order by colour). By 6:00, "Richard had discovered that his socks were out of order. It had driven him crazy because he thought it was his fault. So as you can imagine . . . no one was in a very good mood, despite the clean house." Ok, if your socks being out of order puts you in a bad mood, that means you have a problem.
The Schafer-Spiers eat supper while watching a movie, until Richard and Mary Anne want to stop and clean up. Dawn doesn't disagree, but wants to stick up for her mother, so she's like, "Whatevs, go clean up if you want to," while Sharon apparently is so caught up in the movie, she doesn't even notice what's going on. Oh Sharon, the fact that you have the mentality of a 19-year old frat boy is almost admirable.
Mary Anne returns to the living room with a snotty, melodramatic announcement about going to Kristy's for the night when Tigger begins to throw up on their Oriental rug. Mary Anne rushes him into the kitchen and returns to find Sharon pissed, shocking Dawn ("[Mom had] never cared about our rugs before.") and scaring Mary Anne. God bless you Sharon.
Chapter Eight
Almost a week later, at the Friday BSC meeting, and Stacey is all, "What's everyone wearing to the dance tonight?" Stacey, of course, won't be wearing much, seeing as she has two dates, and will end up with a third boy behind the bleachers anyways. From this we get what is possibly the only Claudia outfit description of the book: "'I'm wearing my pink dress,' said Claudia. 'The short one. And my earrings that look like globes. Oh, and a necklace I made from candy.'" I'm sure she means one of those ones that is simply made of candy beads, but I can't help but picture Claudia with a long rope of Fifth Avenue chocolate bars hanging from her neck.
All of the BSC is going to the dance except for Jessi, who is too young, and Dawn, who wasn't invited. To me, this is a major miss on Dawn's character, who is supposed to be independent and does whatever she wants, and I specifically recall as going "stag" to a dance in another book (I remember this because when I was younger, I didn't know what "stag" meant). But apparently she "hated that no boy had asked [her] to go." Weird. I guess its just odd because the BSC books make their school dances very formal, and at my high school, it was just this big crazy fun thing. Also, people would get drunk in the woods near the school beforehand, and then sneak in. Good times.
Back at home, Mary Anne is all, "Help me get ready for the dance!" and even though Dawn is gritting her teeth at not being invited to go, she wants Mary Anne out of the house, so she does. Frankly, I would have choked her with a scarf, because Mary Anne is such a snotty brat in this scene. "I am so glad to be going to this dance," she gloats, and Dawn plays nice and says she's lucky to have Logan. Mary Anne agrees, and states that she wants to look her best for him. Then she puts together an ensemble that is sure to get Logan's heart racing: A short blue flared skirt with a black waistband (Dawn's), and a baggy white shirt with it (Mary Anne's). If this has been Mary Anne's "best," you can see why Logan's been playing for the other team.
Mary Anne preens in the mirror. "'When you have a boyfriend,' she told me, 'you want to look good for him.'"
Freeze frame. Everyone remember what the cover for this book looked like? Go back and check. Does Mary Anne look good to you? No, she does not. She looks like a heinous bitch with a saggy ass she packed in ill-fitting mom jeans. At no point has anyone ever looked at Mary Anne and said to Logan, "Boy, you're sure lucky you locked that down." That's because everyone else recognizes a beard when they see it.
Dawn says she'd rather be with a guy who she could be a slob around, and Mary Anne is all, "You probably got that from your mom," and I was all, "Yeah, well, shut up Mary Anne, cause you don't even have a mom!" I know, harsh. This book is having a bad effect on me when I feel this much hate for a fictional character. I do mentally applaud Dawn, since it takes some girls years to figure that out. Here's hoping Dawn will be happily comfortable in the future, while Mary Anne squeezes her feet into a pair of uncomfortable heels so she can look good while making a pot roast for the hubby, only to have him divorce her ass when she puts on fifteen pounds.
Dawn tries to be nice, and reasons that Mary Anne is still having a hard time because she must still feel like a guest in the house, instead of her own. Which is why its especially stinging when Mary Anne does this:
"I did not think, though, that it was necessary for her to call, as she and her father were heading out the door, 'Just try to enjoy the evening, Dawn. Don't think of yourself as someone who can't get a date, okay? It isn't healthy.'"
GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGLEBARGLE. What the hell is Mary Anne's problem? She's like a one-woman automated bitch machine on the bitchiest day of her life. Did Dawn even complain about not getting a date? No (Well, not out loud). Apparently Mary Anne took it on herself to vindictively insult Dawn and hopefully cause her to develop a complex. I'm sure we've all heard before about how in a lot of ways, girls have it worse than boys in high school because girls commit emotional bullying versus physical bullying? (As Elaine Benes says, "We just tease someone until they develop an eating disorder.") Mary Anne exemplifies these girls. She's a mean girl. She's a bitch!
Pissed off, Dawn stomps off to call Jeff. A strange woman answers the phone, and we have, low-and-behold, the first appearance of Carol. Jeff explains it's Mr. S' new woman, who's over all the time. But Jeff doesn't think they'll get married, because Carol keeps insisting she'll never get married. Oh Carol, methinks the lady doth protest too much. Besides, we've all read Super Special #12, we know how this ends you big faker.
Dawn actually has a nice chat with Jeff, and explains her problems with Mary Anne, to which Jeff replies with that age old wisdom that all the children of these books seem to eerily possess. He talks about how he feels different whenever Carol is over at their house, and he and Dawn agree that people need emotional space. Following the conversation, Dawn goes to bed and sleeps until Mary Anne comes home and wakes her. Mary Anne tells her about the dance and reassures her that half of the people there didn't have dates anyways. Also, Alan Gray stuck M&Ms under his eyelids specifically to piss Kristy off, so they got in a fight -- which means Kristy was ignoring her date, one Mr. Bart Taylor. Poor form, Kristy. (Apparently he was doing that Little Orphan Annie joke by putting yellow M&Ms in his eyes? I've never understood that. Any takers?)
Talking about the dance makes Dawn feel as though they were sisters again, and Dawn is confused at how they could be so mad at each other half the time. Pfff, I have three sisters, and I'm mad at them most of the time. Luckily all of my sisters are humans, and not the off-spring of Richard and a jackal.
Coming up: Nature blights the Pikes for their offensively excessive procreation.
Part One
This time:
Chapter Five
Wednesday! Another meeting! And Mallory's aforementioned illness turns out to be...dun dun dunnnnnnnnn! CHICKEN POX! Beware the pox! Apparently Mallory has had chicken pox before, so this is a rare case of a second infection, which I think I'll give Ann M. props for. You can catch it twice, and it isn't very believable that Mallory would reach the age of eleven with that many siblings without having had it once before.
Either way, Mallory is out of official BSC sick leave (BSC Constitution, Section C, Article IV: "All members are allotted three days of sick leave per each calendar year. If the number of sick days used exceeds this allotment, then a fine will be levied upon this member, to be paid upon the next available dues day. All members must provide a doctor's note explaining their absence. Any members who are abusing their sick days by feigning illness and failing to provide a doctor's note will be terminated immediately, by the official Baby-Sitters Club Systems 800 Series Model 101 Termination Unit.")
Unfortunately, Mal's absence leaves several jobs open. And one, for the Perkins, could only be taken by two members: Dawn and Mary Anne. Standoff! Both girls openly state they'd like the job, with Dawn explaining to the reader that she needs the extra money to buy Mary Anne a "now-we're-sisters" present, which I presume is supposed to be a surprise. Mary Anne reasons that she's the one who had to move, and she used to sit for the Perkins all the time at her old house. I say horseradishes to that. Everyone knows that the Perkins girls are modern saints, and practically baby-sit themselves. Mary Anne has basically been hogging them. Well your Perkins monopoly has ended, Mary Anne! Basically both girls are stubbornly refusing to back down when Mary Anne whips this gem out:
"'You know,' began Mary Anne, 'I don't think my skirt looks so great on you, after all. It's a little . . . tight.'"
Oh snap. I did not make this up. For those of you who have forgotten what just happened because you had your minds blown, here's the chain of events:
Dawn: I would like the job.
Mary Anne: I would like the job.
Dawn: I have as much of a right to it as you do.
Mary Anne: So do I.
(Pause)
Mary Anne: You look fat.
This is it, folks, in black and white. Mary Anne is a super king kong mega mega biatch. Apparently when the most sensitive member of the BSC is confronted with a situation where she may not get her way, she begins whipping out vicious personal insults about people's physical appearance. She's even giving Karen Brewer a run for her money for horribadness.
Dawn is all, "...did you just call me fat?" Mary Anne replies with, "You said it, not me," which doesn't even make any sense, because Mary Anne totally just said it. God, I wanna give her such a smack in the mouth. But before I can, Kristy interrupts with some desk banging and goes into full feeding frenzy mode, tearing into them for unprofessional behavior (At this point I'd like to point out that the only one who was unprofessional was Mary Anne. I vote that she be tarred and feathered). Before Kristy can really work on tearing them a new one, Mrs. Newton calls, and Kristy downshifts into sweet businesswoman. Following the call, the problem of the Perkins job returns, with neither Mary Anne and Dawn backing down. Kristy finally forces them to draw straws and Mary Anne gets the job, which Dawn internally bitches is not fair, but man, if there's something more fair than drawing straws, than I'd like to hear it.
Two days later Mary Anne comes back from the Perkins' job while Dawn is reading on her bed, and is all, "Well, aren't you going to ask how the Perkinses are?" After the stunt she pulled, Mary Anne should be grateful that Dawn doesn't shave her head in the middle of the night (Or hide bean sprouts in her bed, I dunno. Just sayin, bitch should watch her back). But Dawn admits she really likes the Perkins, so she asks. Gabby (who is what, three?) was rehearsing for a play for her preschool called The Three Piggy Opera. I always wonder if the claims that the Perkins' are insanely overtalented Mary Sues is exaggerated, but there's your proof right there. The three-year old is rehearsing for her role in a parody of The Threepenny Opera. What daycare is this!?!? As it turns out, Gabby wrote the adaptation, wanting to adjust it for a younger audience without losing the complex amorality of the characters, while paying a proper homage to the music of Kurt Weil. Myriah was busy writing letters to famous people, sending Cam Geary her script for a prestige piece that would likely garner him a Best Actor nomination if he took the lead role, and advising the President on how to lower income taxes for bottom income bracket families while still maintaining funding for intercity schools. It's a risky venture, but she has a feeling it'll pay off.
Discussing the Perkins and their adorable-yet-highbrow antics mends the rift between Dawn and Mary Anne, and all seems well between them. For now.
Chapter Six
Baby-sitting chapter! It opens with a club notebook entry by Claudia, and I'd really rather transcribe it than breeze past it:
Saturday
Yisterday I sat at the Pikes house boy was Mal a pain. Sory you' will read this wehn your beter Mal but you were a pain. Maybe you didn't lick being babbysat for agian, but I couldnt' help it. Your mother called because she needed to take the tir tre triplits to the doctor so that left you and Nicky and you're sisters. I hope you feel beter soon realy I do. Realy.
Man, AMM really goes for broke with the Claudia spelling errors, doesn't she? This doesn't just have ridiculous misspellings, but also indicates a complete lack of understanding of even the most basic of punctuation. As the entry says, Claudia was baby-sitting the Pikes minus triplets, with sick Mallory considered to be an extra baby-sitter in case of an emergency. Unfortunately Mrs. Pike wouldn't let Claudia anywhere near Mallory now that she knew you could get the chicken pox twice, although Claudia had already had it. Which is just silly, because the chances of that occurring again are extremely low. Certainly not enough to make everyone do what they have to, which is have Claudia yell to Mallory through the door and call the younger girls to fetch things for her.
Inspired by ol' Chicken Pox Mallory and the triplets who are off to the doctor, Claire suggests they play doctor's office. Addressing her siblings, she says, "Now look, you silly-billy-goo-goos. The whole rec room is the doctor's office. No, wait. It's the emergency room. No, a hospital. A hospital, okay? Oh, and here comes the ambulance." This absolutely cracks me up. I guess because I picture like, House limping and glaring at his diagnostics team. "All right, you silly-billy-goo-goos. Why don't you pull your heads out of your asses and we'll save some lives today?"
The kids conceive of some awesomely horrific accidents, while Mal calls for Claudia and complains that she is thirsty, bored, and wants a baking soda bath. For reasons I don't understand, Claudia denies this last request, suggesting she waits until Mrs. Pike returns. I mean, yeesh Claudia, come on. I know we all like to give Mal a hard time, but I don't think she's so stupid that she'll drown in the tub unsupervised or anything. Mrs. Pike soon comes back with the triplets, all three of whom have pneumonia. Claudia nicely offers to stay and help out until her BSC meeting, because Claudia rocks my socks.
Chapter Seven
It's the weekend, and Dawn complains that she used to love weekends, but not no more, because Richard and Mary Anne are driving her nutso. This part is a nice comparison of Richard's obsessive neatness and Sharon's frightening slobbery, and really exemplifies how neither of them are really characters, but rather the personification of two personality traits.
Richard has organized all their books by category, and then within category, by alphabetical order. I certainly appreciate doing this, and I've done something similar with my books myself, but it seems a bit invasive to do it to whatever books Sharon and Dawn might have in the common areas of the house. More hilariously, Richard arranges his clothes by type and colour, his shirts hanging (L-R): white, yellow, light blue, dark blue. Yellow seems to be the rogue colour there, I guess when Richard is feeling festive. Dawn also mentions this is the first time there's ever been dividers in the drawers for cutlery, which means everything was just floating around there willy-nilly. I dunno, maybe its just me, but I always thought that was pretty standard for everyone. Cutlery drawers cost about $1.50 tops (I saw one in the store the other day), and require almost zero effort to organize things in. Hell, they even make the spoon slot spoon-shaped. I think it actually takes more effort not to have one. Sharon had to actively think, 'To hell with a cutlery drawer! I don't need a plastic tray telling me how to live my life! Cutlery drawers are for squares!'
Oh the kookiness of Richard and Sharon. He wakes up early and has breakfast. She wakes up late and never tells him she doesn't like what he makes for breakfast. Sharon leaves towels and a newspaper out. Richard tidies up after her.
"At this point, Mom sometimes gets mad. 'I can clean up after myself!' she protests.
"'But you never do,' replies Richard."
Then Sharon cooks vegetarian meals that Richard and Mary Anne don't like it and Sharon doesn't want to clean up right away after supper but Richard so he has to do extra work because he doesn't want to wait blah blah blah.
"I can't imagine why I didn't see these problems before they got married."
Really? Really?! It didn't occur to anyone here that this issue might arise? This is why people normally live together before they got married! To see how that situation goes. You don't do it after you've wasted money on a wedding and will have to waste even more cash on a divorce. Christ! I would have expected this kind of behaviour from Sharon -- I'm amazed her pot-addled mind can even comprehend who she's married to -- but my god, Richard?! The rod up that man's butt has a rod up its butt! He really dropped the ball this time! This is his mess, and I'll be damned if Sharon is gonna clean it up!
Dawn wakes up at 9 am one Saturday and comes downstairs to find Richard and Mary Anne grinning at her like deranged maniacs. Uh oh, Sharon slipped a little something-something into their coffee. No wait, apparently they've decided it's SPRING-CLEANING DAY.
These people are fucked. Dawn was like, "Spring whatnow? I think Mom wanted to go shopping today," and Richard is all, "The stores will be open tomorrow!" Well yes. I suppose they would. I would have pointed out that the house would be still standing tomorrow as well, but that's just me.
Luckily, Sharon is so high (Dawn uses the term "laid-back") that she doesn't freak, and instead drifts around wiping stuff onto the floor, and Mary Anne follows her around with a Dustbuster, vacuuming that stuff off the floor. Dawn and Mary Anne snipe about this a bit, and then as revenge, switched the brown socks and the grey socks in Richard's sock drawer (They were arranged in alphabetical order by colour). By 6:00, "Richard had discovered that his socks were out of order. It had driven him crazy because he thought it was his fault. So as you can imagine . . . no one was in a very good mood, despite the clean house." Ok, if your socks being out of order puts you in a bad mood, that means you have a problem.
The Schafer-Spiers eat supper while watching a movie, until Richard and Mary Anne want to stop and clean up. Dawn doesn't disagree, but wants to stick up for her mother, so she's like, "Whatevs, go clean up if you want to," while Sharon apparently is so caught up in the movie, she doesn't even notice what's going on. Oh Sharon, the fact that you have the mentality of a 19-year old frat boy is almost admirable.
Mary Anne returns to the living room with a snotty, melodramatic announcement about going to Kristy's for the night when Tigger begins to throw up on their Oriental rug. Mary Anne rushes him into the kitchen and returns to find Sharon pissed, shocking Dawn ("[Mom had] never cared about our rugs before.") and scaring Mary Anne. God bless you Sharon.
Chapter Eight
Almost a week later, at the Friday BSC meeting, and Stacey is all, "What's everyone wearing to the dance tonight?" Stacey, of course, won't be wearing much, seeing as she has two dates, and will end up with a third boy behind the bleachers anyways. From this we get what is possibly the only Claudia outfit description of the book: "'I'm wearing my pink dress,' said Claudia. 'The short one. And my earrings that look like globes. Oh, and a necklace I made from candy.'" I'm sure she means one of those ones that is simply made of candy beads, but I can't help but picture Claudia with a long rope of Fifth Avenue chocolate bars hanging from her neck.
All of the BSC is going to the dance except for Jessi, who is too young, and Dawn, who wasn't invited. To me, this is a major miss on Dawn's character, who is supposed to be independent and does whatever she wants, and I specifically recall as going "stag" to a dance in another book (I remember this because when I was younger, I didn't know what "stag" meant). But apparently she "hated that no boy had asked [her] to go." Weird. I guess its just odd because the BSC books make their school dances very formal, and at my high school, it was just this big crazy fun thing. Also, people would get drunk in the woods near the school beforehand, and then sneak in. Good times.
Back at home, Mary Anne is all, "Help me get ready for the dance!" and even though Dawn is gritting her teeth at not being invited to go, she wants Mary Anne out of the house, so she does. Frankly, I would have choked her with a scarf, because Mary Anne is such a snotty brat in this scene. "I am so glad to be going to this dance," she gloats, and Dawn plays nice and says she's lucky to have Logan. Mary Anne agrees, and states that she wants to look her best for him. Then she puts together an ensemble that is sure to get Logan's heart racing: A short blue flared skirt with a black waistband (Dawn's), and a baggy white shirt with it (Mary Anne's). If this has been Mary Anne's "best," you can see why Logan's been playing for the other team.
Mary Anne preens in the mirror. "'When you have a boyfriend,' she told me, 'you want to look good for him.'"
Freeze frame. Everyone remember what the cover for this book looked like? Go back and check. Does Mary Anne look good to you? No, she does not. She looks like a heinous bitch with a saggy ass she packed in ill-fitting mom jeans. At no point has anyone ever looked at Mary Anne and said to Logan, "Boy, you're sure lucky you locked that down." That's because everyone else recognizes a beard when they see it.
Dawn says she'd rather be with a guy who she could be a slob around, and Mary Anne is all, "You probably got that from your mom," and I was all, "Yeah, well, shut up Mary Anne, cause you don't even have a mom!" I know, harsh. This book is having a bad effect on me when I feel this much hate for a fictional character. I do mentally applaud Dawn, since it takes some girls years to figure that out. Here's hoping Dawn will be happily comfortable in the future, while Mary Anne squeezes her feet into a pair of uncomfortable heels so she can look good while making a pot roast for the hubby, only to have him divorce her ass when she puts on fifteen pounds.
Dawn tries to be nice, and reasons that Mary Anne is still having a hard time because she must still feel like a guest in the house, instead of her own. Which is why its especially stinging when Mary Anne does this:
"I did not think, though, that it was necessary for her to call, as she and her father were heading out the door, 'Just try to enjoy the evening, Dawn. Don't think of yourself as someone who can't get a date, okay? It isn't healthy.'"
GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGLEBARGLE. What the hell is Mary Anne's problem? She's like a one-woman automated bitch machine on the bitchiest day of her life. Did Dawn even complain about not getting a date? No (Well, not out loud). Apparently Mary Anne took it on herself to vindictively insult Dawn and hopefully cause her to develop a complex. I'm sure we've all heard before about how in a lot of ways, girls have it worse than boys in high school because girls commit emotional bullying versus physical bullying? (As Elaine Benes says, "We just tease someone until they develop an eating disorder.") Mary Anne exemplifies these girls. She's a mean girl. She's a bitch!
Pissed off, Dawn stomps off to call Jeff. A strange woman answers the phone, and we have, low-and-behold, the first appearance of Carol. Jeff explains it's Mr. S' new woman, who's over all the time. But Jeff doesn't think they'll get married, because Carol keeps insisting she'll never get married. Oh Carol, methinks the lady doth protest too much. Besides, we've all read Super Special #12, we know how this ends you big faker.
Dawn actually has a nice chat with Jeff, and explains her problems with Mary Anne, to which Jeff replies with that age old wisdom that all the children of these books seem to eerily possess. He talks about how he feels different whenever Carol is over at their house, and he and Dawn agree that people need emotional space. Following the conversation, Dawn goes to bed and sleeps until Mary Anne comes home and wakes her. Mary Anne tells her about the dance and reassures her that half of the people there didn't have dates anyways. Also, Alan Gray stuck M&Ms under his eyelids specifically to piss Kristy off, so they got in a fight -- which means Kristy was ignoring her date, one Mr. Bart Taylor. Poor form, Kristy. (Apparently he was doing that Little Orphan Annie joke by putting yellow M&Ms in his eyes? I've never understood that. Any takers?)
Talking about the dance makes Dawn feel as though they were sisters again, and Dawn is confused at how they could be so mad at each other half the time. Pfff, I have three sisters, and I'm mad at them most of the time. Luckily all of my sisters are humans, and not the off-spring of Richard and a jackal.
Coming up: Nature blights the Pikes for their offensively excessive procreation.