Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Romantic comedy

You do not get a romantic comedy ending. You don't get to have Mr. Darcy show up at the end of the book and tell you he can't spend one minute of the rest of his life without you. That doesn't exist. Even if he truthfully can't spend his life without you, he'll never say it.

His lips will seal up, sewed together by an impenetrable magic. He can't write it down either, his fingers will cramp and the pen will turn into a slug. And you're afraid of slugs, aren't you? Because of that one time when you went camping as a little kid and your friend Andrew told you that slugs crawl on people's faces when they sleep and suck the souls out of little girls. That was the same camping trip when he wouldn't let you play with the tyrannosaurus doll because girls had to be brontosaurus. Looking back on it he may have been sexist. But that doesn't matter, because your almost-psuedo-wannabe Mr. Darcy's fingers have already turned into slugs. A long time ago, a witch cursed happy endings and bound them with a strong magic so that they can't get to you. The witch lives in a cave at the end of the woods and hates everyone and cursed all men forever in an effort to make sure that everyone would feel lonely and isolated, in their own emotional cave at the end of the woods.

Before the witch was a witch she was a sandwich. She was a delicious tuna sandwich that appeared in the middle of the woods thousands of years ago in caveman times. There was a rift in space and time and through a hole in the fabric of reality, the delicious meal flopped down into existence. The sandwich appeared miraculously in the middle of a clearing and sat patiently on a rock. It had whole wheat bread, lots of lettuce, fresh tomatoes, tuna salad with chopped up celery, onions and craisins and it was dripping with mustard. It was the perfect sandwich.

Unfortunately no one came upon it as the rock was too high for most animals; birds steered clear of craisins, and humans were too busy grunting and failing to invent fire. Thus the sandwich remained uneaten, and slowly decayed. Its fresh tomatoes rotted quickly and the tuna immediately went bad. After a day it was clear that if anyone had taken a bite they would have suffered from massive diarrhea and vomiting. That's when the once delicious sandwich turned into a bitter and angry witch, replete with immortality and enough power to make "god" jealous. The witch named herself Susan and vowed to wreak havoc on society and emotional health for the rest of eternity.

So that's why you don't get your fairy tale ending. If you could build a time machine and go back and eat the sandwich, maybe none of this would have ever happened. I'm not blaming you. But as it stands, you do not get a Lloyd Dobler or any sort of John Hughes hero. You don't get a guy to run after you through the airport and tell you that he's never met anyone like you. That's not even how the airport security works anymore, silly. Maybe you'll fall in the airport and land in a puddle of acidic cleaning solution, coffee, and baby vomit. Maybe you'll cry. Maybe your tears will fill the airport terminal like a salty sea full of fish and dead mermaids and you'll have to build a raft out of all the dreams you've forgotten and you'll sail away to safety or something not at all resembling it.

And your arms will bleed and your thoughts will cringe upon each other, writhing like worms in the dirty pit of your filthy brain. you will feel bad for yourself and then loathe yourself for feeling bad about yourself. But you'll find an island full of people who turn into palm trees when they die.

And then you'll go out and eat a tuna fish sandwich by yourself.

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