Shakespeare and Mono
Shakespeare is the building block for soap operas everywhere. And there was little doubt that not even god himself could've stopped soap queen Miss Patty from putting on a remake of Romeo and Juliet. Did the fact that she had to ambush ninety town-goers in order to get them to come to her play matter? No sir, it didn't. And lord have mercy, with soap queen Patty being Juliet, the only thing that could've halted the production was mononucleosis.
And coincidently it just so happened, god help her, our dear Patty had come down with mononucleosis five minutes into intermission. Which quickly ingnited what we like to refer to as, 'the ripple effect.' Where every male specimen, young and old, who had in any way been associated with Patty's lips came down with a nasty rash on their mouth. Among them, unfortunately, was the play's Romeo. And Tybalt. And Tybalt's friend . And the majority of the Capulet's army, for that matter. But it's hardly worth mentioning. What mattered was that our Romeo had gone sayonora there they were in deep need of a replacement Juliet and Romeo.
After a few suggestions of subtly transitioning Romeo and Juliet into a warped screenplay version of the Blair Witch Project, Patty settled on finding replacements, quickly arranging a hasty cattle-call backstage.
Her first choice for the part had actually been Luke and Lorelai. But sadly, our dear inn-keeper couldn't manage to get through a single scene without bursting into a fit of hysterical giggles over sight of a humiliated Luke in tights. Where he had, hastilyripping off the scratchy purple tights, quit right on the spot. In which Lorelai had in return, became even more hysterical seeing that alas, Luke wasn't wearing pants.
So Patty settled for the latter's nephew, who had been this whole time, sticking ice cubes into Taylor's skivvys. Jess, our victim in question, had originally attempted to pull the fire alarm as a distraction and hopefully save from getting stuck wearing a feathered hat. (The tights were out of question seeing how they had been previously shred to pieces by his uncle.) But stopped resisting after Rory was cast unknowingly as Juliet.
Cast unknowingly you ask? This process is best described as… what to call it? Aha, kidnapping. Or as Miss Patty like to call it—selecting. So after getting 'selected' from her seat in the audience and mauled backstage where she was forced into a scratchy dress which previously had been occupied by our former Miss Juliet, making it roughly thirty sizes too big and equipped with a push-up bra, poor Rory found herself shoved onstage, face to face with a bored looking Jess, in his Romeo-costume sans tights pro army pants, reciting his lines in a monotonal voice.
Rory looked questioningly over to the side, where Patty made a cutting motion which indicated she was supposed to be dead. Her gaze wandered behind her, where a very pissed off Dean in his Mercutio costume, pro tights, was making a very different kind of cutting motion involving the theatrics of waving his arms around like a drowning chicken and mouthing 'NO! NO!' Confused beyond reason, Rory looked past him where she caught sight of her mother making kissy noises to the back of her palm.
She returned her gaze to Jess, who was in the process of reluctantly downing a bottle of a curious purple concoction which looked suspiciously similar to baby ear medicine. He made a face made complete with a gagging noise, "Thy drugs are quick. And gross. Kids don't try this at home. Thus with a kiss I die," And after brushing his lips onto hers, lingering a little longer than neccessary,he fell on top of her in an overly-dramatized way.
Rory didn't even have to look up to know that Dean's face was in the process of chemically combusting. Give it a few minutes.
She cleared her throat, attempting to recall the final lines ofthe novel she'd polished through in 5th grade.
"Oh churl!" or was it hurl? "Drank it all, selfish, and left none for me?" even though you could clearly see the bottle was still half full of baby ear medicine. "I will now, um," she was getting a great deal of the lines wrong, she could tell, judging by the look on Patty's face, "kiss thy lips happily, er- haply some poison dost lingers. To die with a restorative."
She leaned over, with all intentions of a mere brush against the lips. Which backfired. Greatly. Seeing Jess, though supposed to be dead, had resorted to reaching up and cupping her face, pulling her against him till the entire concept of personal space had turned into a figment in their imaginations. Air? What air? Who needs oxygen anyway?
Well Dean, for one. Because if he was breathing, his face wouldn't be the color of a tomato right now.
He rushed onstage, plastic sword in hand, though at the moment he was forgetting it was plastic seeing he was now unrelentlessly trying to slaughter Jess with it, inevitably ruining the moment to say the least.
Jess attempted to shield his head, emerging unsuccessful, "What the hell are you—you're supposed to be dead!"
"So are you!" Dean hollered, along with more swording.
"You're both dead!" Rory yelled exasperated, jumping to her feet, "We," she gestured to themselves, "are all dead, Dean put down the sword."
"No!"
Jess guffawed, "You're wearing tights, Mercutio."
"You're kissing my girlfriend, Romeo!"
"All of you dead! Down! You're dead!" Miss Patty bellowed, emerging from the curtains.
The audience, which had previously been cast in a festive state of snoring, had woken up, and was quite intrigued with the sight before them.
The plastic sword, having slipped from Dean's grasp, accidentally thunked Kirk on the head, who had taken his cue to come in and ended up bawling on the stage, holding his rapidly swelling head and screaming for his mother.
And his mother, though almost annoyingly perky to the level of Pippi Longstocking, could very well resort to Omarosa when the time calls. Screaming bloody murder and holding a rather large baster (courtesy of Luke Danes) she rushed onstage, taking the time to pursue the task of bashing it over Dean's head.
See what a simple case of mono could turn to. Shakespeare would've been proud.
END
