Disclaimer: I do not own iCarly.
Geth342: This just popped into my head. I've always thought that Sam's home life must be quite difficualt, so this is my interpretation. Hope you enjoy.
Charades
They know the charade well- almost off by heart- but every few days, they will start a new game.
This is how the game begins. Sam will walk in and Mrs. Puckett will ask her if she's had a good day at school. This question is just a preliminary- Sam will never say more than 'yeah' and her mom will never enquire further.
Then comes the second round- the problem of whatever trouble it is that Sam has gotten herself into. For example:
"Sam, I got a letter from the school." Mrs. Puckett will start. No guessing needed yet. "Why did you shout at Ms. Briggs?" It's never a question of 'did you do it' because they both know she did.
"She was shouting at me." Sam will reply as though it's the most obvious thing in the world.
There will be silence for a moment as Mrs. Puckett considers this. Then it will go one of two ways. Two words, two syllables... How many guesses?
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The most common way is for Mrs. Puckett to ask Sam if she will try to stop getting in so much trouble.
If Sam is in a good mood, she will say 'yes' and they will both smile at each other as though buoyed by the promise of a calmer future. It seems like a win for Mrs. Puckett. But, that is just a charade within a charade because the smiles will be empty. Sam will not stop getting into trouble and Mrs. Puckett knows that she will barely even try.
If Sam is in any other kind of mood, she will give a non-committal grunt and then proceed to the fridge where she will get herself some ham. Mrs. Puckett will not reply and it seems like a win for Sam. But this just a charade within a charade because Sam will feel guilty. There will be a silence in the building which she will seem to ignore, except she won't really. She'll just pretend to.
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The other way it can go is far more rare- a very difficult charade to guess. Mrs. Puckett will begin to shout at Sam.
"Is it so hard to follow the rules?" She will shout. "Can't you stay out of trouble for one day?" Sam may or may not try to give a flippant answer here. Either way, Mrs. Puckett will continue. "You're going to end up in jail, just like your father. And your uncle and your cousins…what did I do to deserve this?" By this point, Sam knows not to give a flippant answer because the shouting will get worse and she will lose. "Why can't you be more like Carly or that Freddie boy? They're never in trouble. Why don't you do as you're told, at least for me?" There will be a pleading note at the end of this but Sam will ignore this.
Sam will, inevitably, shout back at her, in an unusually eloquent fashion- in a voice she reserves just for these games.
She will call her mother useless. She will ask what kind of mother doesn't even feed her daughter and what kind of mother sends said daughter to practically live at someone else's house.
Her mother will keep on fighting. She will point out that Sam never washes her hands, never cleans her room. She will ask why Sam doesn't even bother to stay out of trouble. What does she want? She will ask. To go to jail? Does she think it's 'cool'? Why doesn't she even try to do school work?
It will be Sam's go again, then. She will shout even louder. She will ask why her mother never stays at Parents' evening for longer than ten minutes. She will shout that Mrs. Puckett has no interest in one of the few law-abiding things that Sam does- iCarly. She will point out that all her 'family visits' are to a jail.
And so the argument continues. It will end when Sam tells Mrs. Puckett to go and start drinking again- after all, it's the one thing she's good at. Mrs. Puckett will tell her she's a brat (a grounded brat) who will never amount to anything.
The game has not ended yet though. For the rest of the day, there will be a stony silence. Sam will smash something in her room and eat whatever she finds in the fridge. Mrs. Puckett will drink her way through a bottle of wine, looking at old pictures of her family and wondering what went wrong.
By the next day, they will both pretend to have forgotten the fight. But, in truth, neither one of them has. Because, in their desperate bid to win the game, they both used the truth.
And as much as they like to pretend, they can't dismiss the truth as part of their charade.