Get You And Your Fupa A Track Suit And Call It A Day

Get You And Your Fupa A Track Suit And Call It A Day

So you’re going along and two new writers in their early 20’s show up at your job. They sit on either side of you, and the three of you start to get to know each other. And pretty soon you’re making pop culture references and bantering, and a week later the most amazing thing happens. One of them says, “Have you ever done any voiceover work?”

And miraculously, you have! So you say, “I have!” And then you realize you have to tone it down a little, so you go with, “I mean, yeah. I have. It was mostly government tutorials, and my husband when he heard them tore at his ears and yelled, “No! Make it stop! It’s like I’m at work and you ARE the bureaucracy I despise!” 

The 22-year-old goes, “Cool. I have a project and I was going to ask if you’d record a line for me.”

You’re so flattered. More than that, you’re like, “Still got it! Still so cool! YES!” But you respond, “Happy to. Whenever,” because you are cool, dammit.

Later that day, the young writer grabs you before you leave and reminds you about the recording. And you’re like, “Oh, sure. We could do it today if you’re ready.” But really you’re like, “Holy shit it’s happening. It’s happening now! What if the 22 year-olds want to get a drink after work or want to start some kind of millenial craft circle where we make avocado cozies out of recycled turtlenecks? Or what if the 22 year-olds are like, “Cool! Show me your video work and then you’ll have to explain this and this and this and what if those things aren’t funny to them? What if they’re like, “I guess things were spastic and hirsuite before the i-phone,” or, “Was everyone crass and untalented in the early aughts?”

But, like, Elizabeth Warren, you persist in your desperation to make the young people like you. So you step into the recording booth at work (everyone has one), and you go, “What’s my line?”

And the young gent says, “You say, ‘No, Dale, no! Please, Dale, stop!’”

You grow alarmed. You feel a feminist lecture forming in your throat.

“What’s happening in this scene?” You ask gingerly.

“Dale is having a flashback to when he killed you.”

“Oh,” you say. “How did I die?”

“Dale ripped you apart with his bare hands.”

“Uh-huh. I, um…” And, lord have mercy, because there are a flood of things you are about to school this person on because partner abuse is not funny and dramatizing violence against women is not a callous matter and—-

“What’s cool is that I’ll get Dave (our boss) to do the other part and then I’ll have both parents!” my new coworker exclaims with filmmaker glee.

“Wait. I’m Dale’s mother?” 

“Yeah. Marlene.” 

“Marlene!?!” You go plummeting from feeling like this dude’s hipster writer friend to his old, cigarette teeth-stained aunt with a large fupa in a too-tight nylon track suit.

“I’m Dale’s mother? And he’s how old?” Outrage and realizing-your-mortality sensations emerge in your throat and taste like a cross between bile and roasted squash, which, like the Marlene you are, is exactly what you had for lunch. You realize now you didn’t even chew at lunch. Not once. In your mind it was all Autumn harvest and earthy delight, but now that you think about it what you had was a geriatric meal. Fit for Marlene, who probably got to be such a burden that Dale had to murder her. With his bare hands.

“Why does Dale kill his parents?!” You want to know.

“Oh, they weren’t really his parents. He has powers on Earth? And he’s in hiding. And Marlene and his dad got in his way?”

So, it was a sci-fi thing. And poor Marlene never saw it coming. She was too wrapped up in her heyday in the 80’s hairdo with the feathered bangs and split ends that she just couldn’t see Dale for who he was. 

The 22 year-olds are so nice. And their skin is unbelievable. And even if you were to compliment them on that great skin and tell them how you stare at it in wonderment, you know they aren’t going to ask you to go get drinks. There won’t be craft hour or craft beer hour. You’ll go home to your kids and they’ll go order dinner on GrubHub. 

As soon as you figure out Venmo you’re going to do that, too.