(no subject)

[inthebones]

[phone]
Oh, marvelous, it's August again.  My favorite time of the year.

Students, I hope you've been working on your summer assignments.  Adult men, I hope you're prepared to be perfect gentlemen when we all find ourselves floundering in that ghastly hotel.  Anything else to expect this month?  No?  On to business, then.

I'm sure we're all very distracted by talking pony parties and pool parties and platter parties and inpourings of perpetually perplexed new populations, but has anyone made any effort whatsoever to sort out that business from last month or are we still playing the game where we ignore all interesting information in favor of smashing random objects we find in the dairy?  I don't mind that game; of course, quite invigorating, good for the vasculature, but it might be worth trying a different approach at some point in time.  I venture to suggest today, if no one's too busy holding competitions to see who looks the most absurd absent their clothing.

[action, 726 Anderson Lane]
[Susan can be found hanging up black cloaks and other assorted clothing in uniform crepuscular shades around the house where garish green was all there was formerly to see.  A welcome change, in her opinion; she'd missed her wardrobe from home, even if everything looked exactly the same as the black cloak she had commissioned here in Mayfield.

Still, she pauses for a moment as she handles an emerald-green cloak, never worn, hanging in the hall closet since the previous Christmas.  ...It goes back on the rack after a bit.  And she'll only push it back behind the others an inch or two.]

[action, park]
[A rather unusual sight in the park later on that week.  Somehow, Miss Susan the English teacher has been cajoled into reading a nice story for a small group of drones.]

And so, adding conspiracy and first-degree murder to their trespass and property damage charges, Hansel and Gretel pushed the old woman into the oven and ignored her anguished screams as they left the house of gingerbread, naturally taking all of her valuables with them as they went.  With these illicit goods, they reunited with their criminally negligent father, but not, surprisingly, their 'wicked' stepmother, who had mysteriously vanished in the space of the two nights in which the children were gone, leaving the father sole keeper of his property and remaining funds and raising suspicion as to who it was had devised the plan to leave the children in the forest in the first place.

But it doesn't matter, because they all lived happily ever after.

The End.

[The drones seem quite pleased with her recitation, at any rate.]

Comments

[inthebones]

I suppose I'll have to settle for you taking the moral to heart, then. Behave around your parents.

[commentboxtroll]

A little late for that warning, don't you think? I'm not a kid, you know.

[He turns his coat pockets back in, leaving his hands in along with them even if it is a warm summer day.]

Why were you carrying a dreadful book like that around, anyway?

[inthebones]

You should always behave around your parents, no matter how old you are. They can write you out of the inheritance, you know.

And do you mean this?

[Susan turns it about and glances at the cover, which reads A Guide to Early 20th Century American Works.]

I was making questions for your first-day-of-term examination.

[commentboxtroll]

Considering how their sons turned out, they likely already willed it all to the church.

[The very mention of an exam brings about a scowl.]

On the first day! Now you're just being cruel. I might not even be there for it, which just leaves everyone else stuck there to suffer.

[inthebones]

Oh, don't worry too much about missing it. There's a handy invention that came around a few decades ago called a 'mailbox'.

[commentboxtroll]

As if I've done any of the other assignments you've left stuffed in that before... [Spoilers: he hasn't.] But I meant don't plan on anything just yet. I don't know if I'll still be a student when Fall rolls around.

[inthebones]

Are you graduating? With those grades? Goodness, no, it won't do. I'll submit a form to have you held back immediately.

[commentboxtroll]

Maybe. I'm actually surprised they haven't moved me into a house with some kind of serial killer for a wife yet.

[But the form remark gets a smirk.]

What? No hoping you'd finally be rid of me instead?

[inthebones]

Don't be absurd. It wouldn't take a serial killer to murder you.

And I, naturally, would be desolate to have you missing from my daily life, whether through graduation or untimely death.

[commentboxtroll]

Come on now, I never said it would take one. Considering what's killed me in the past...

[But that's terribly depressing, so he won't list those things.]

Ha. So you would miss me. I suppose I'll take that as a compliment while I can.

[inthebones]

Don't you know sarcasm when you hear it?

[Technically, she hasn't denied it.]

In any case, if you're eighteen, I suppose that means I'm getting on in years.

[commentboxtroll]

Your voice has about one and a half tones to it, so no, not usually. Not unless you're being sarcastic every time.

[Which wouldn't surprise him, frankly.]

And not that many years. Two, maybe, but do you even age?

[inthebones]

How extraordinarily uncouth.

[She says in the same deadpan tone.]

I certainly do age, and two is rather a lot when it's a tenth of your life.

[commentboxtroll]

You were expecting manners?

[He shrugs and steps around her to flop down on the very bench she just left to lounge there.]

I thought you might be one of those eternal horrors or something... But no, two really isn't that long. Or I'd rather just not think of it as long. It means I'd have to think I've been here a long time and that's too depressing!

[inthebones]

I certainly do intend to be an eternal boon to society, but you must be aware that nothing is eternal - certainly not gods, let alone humans.

And I find ignoring depressing things only makes them more depressing when they swing back around again.

[commentboxtroll]

Hmm... Then I'll just ignore it again when it does. It's worked this long so far.

And I could name a few things that are eternal. Or, if not eternal, then at least long-lived enough to cause everyone a headache. It's is all the same to me. But that'd require a history lesson and I'm not the teacher here, now am I?

[inthebones]

Under those criteria, the first thing that springs to mind is your idea of homework. Or the blank pieces of paper that pass as homework.

[commentboxtroll]

For which part? That I ignore it or that it's an eternal headache?

[inthebones]

Both. But mostly the headache.

[commentboxtroll]

Maybe if you stopped assigning it, you'd save us both the headache.

[inthebones]

Or perhaps if I assigned more, it might finally stir you into activity.

[commentboxtroll]

More? of it? I don't see how that's even a logical solution...

[inthebones]

Your logic must be lacking from your sad neglect of your work.

/throws that extra ? into the void >:|

[commentboxtroll]

While your old age must be affecting yours.

/throws LA into the void >:)

[inthebones]

Given that the one is controllable while the other shall only worsen with time, I suggest you amend your attitude to determine which is the correct solution. And quickly.