TITLE: What Kind Of Parties Do You Go To?
AUTHOR: Jo. T
GENRE: Humor
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: A few back references but no real spoilers I can think of.
SUMMARY: "The question that remains on my lips though, Sir,
is why would a person want that information at their disposal in
the first place?" "Parties!"
FEEDBACK: meetjoynoone@yahoo.co.uk - am interested to hear any
feedback, good, bad or indifferent.
ARCHIVE: If anyone wanted to it would be an honor. Just let
me know where
DISCLAIMERS: I'm just borrowing these great creations, they
remain the property of Aaron Sorkin, Warner Brothers, and lots
of other people who are to countless and powerful to name!
WHAT KIND OF PARTIES DO YOU GO TO?
It was late on a Tuesday night (or to be more accurate early on a Wednesday morning), and the White House was in darkness but for one light emanating from the Communications Bullpen and all was quiet but for the soft clicking of the keys on a laptop. Not a soul was there in sight but for two committed White House employees, frantically working on a very important Presidential address to be given at 10am, Wednesday morning to some inconsequential group that at least one of the two could care less about.
"Sam, you see this draft?" Toby Ziegler the bearded Communications Director asked, his dark eyes darting around the room. He held up a sheaf of loose papers and waved them in the air to draw his deputy's attention.
"My draft of the speech?" Sam Seaborn asked as he took off his glasses and looked intently at his boss from his position on the sofa. Toby was pacing frantically, back and forth, aware that time was of the essence.
"Yeah. That one."
"What about it?" Sam asked, an air of pride in his words.
"It sucks!"
"My draft?"
"Yeah."
"You think that it sucks?"
"Yes I do."
"Why?"
"Because it does Sam. It's all poetry and no substance."
"You don't like poetry?"
"I'm not fond."
"You're not a fan of literature?"
"Not poetry, no. Unless of course, it comes in the guise of Tabitha Wade."
"Ah. O.K."
"We need to do something about it. We need to rewrite it."
"It's that bad?"
"It's pretty bad, Sam."
"That was the best I could come up with at this time of night. The speech was short notice, you know that." Indeed it was. The President had accepted the invitation the evening before at the urging of Mrs. Bartlet, who had taken a strategy that wasn't dissimilar to Toby's in getting Gillette to join the blue ribbon commission. As was his wont, the President had taken his life in his hands and criticised something the First Lady held dear. BIG MISTAKE! The biggest problems were not the President's however, no, no, the biggest problems lay in the Communications department who were the only speechwriters left in the building when the assignment came in. As they are a deeply committed pair who both serve at the pleasure of the President, they gladly took on the task despite their busy day spinning the Paraguay situation, Their decision spurred by a series of threats that came directly from Leo McGarry, the White House Chief of Staff.
"We can save this."
"We can't save this, Toby. I'm dry. I have no words left to write."
"I find that very hard to believe." Toby ran his hand over his head. "You're dry?"
"Yeah."
"O.K., we might need to work through that."
"You think?"
"Let's look at what we've got." Toby sat down next to Sam on the couch while Sam opened up his trusted laptop.
"She's called Susan."
"What?" Toby looked confused.
"My laptop, she's called Susan."
"O.K. Sam, are you feeling all right?"
"I'm fine Toby, why?"
"You named you laptop."
"I did. She's called Susan."
"I got that." Toby took a very deep breath. "Sam, now we've got that cleared up, do you think we could maybe look at what we've got so far for the speech?" Sam nodded.
"Sure thing." They both looked down at the pile of papers and sat in silence as they passed them between them. They sat like that for several minutes, the exact time was indeterminate. Sam was the one to crack first, known for his need to keep conversation flowing and his dislike for noiselessness.
"Toby?" Toby shifted his eyes to Sam without looking up at him properly.
"Hmmm?"
"Are you getting anything?"
"For the speech?"
"Yeah."
"No."
"O.K."
"I don't suppose anything's crossed your mind?" Toby said, though his lack of hope was evident in the tone of his voice.
"Nope. You want I should call Josh?"
"Why would I want you to call Josh?"
"Something may cross his mind that we could use."
"That's not exactly a long journey Sam."
"Crossing Josh's mind?"
"Yeah." They sat in silence for a few more minutes. Sam tapped on his laptop, producing the standard key test over and over: the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog, while Toby reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his pink rubber stress balls, which he began to throw against the nearest wall to him.
"Toby?"
"Sam."
"Have you ever not had a beard?"
"I'm sorry?" Toby was so baffled by what he thought he had heard, he wondered if he had been mistaken.
"Have you ever not had a beard?"
"I thought that was what you said."
"Well?"
"There was a time, when I was, you know, five."
"Yeah?"
"Sam."
"What do you look like without a beard?"
"I look like me without a beard. God Sam."
"Yeah."
"Can we get on?"
"Yeah. Perhaps we could call C.J. she's good with this sort of thing, I'm sure she'd be great."
"Does she know anything about science?"
"She knows that the chemical formula for table salt is NaCl."
"And you think that knowledge will be sufficient."
"Probably not."
"I shouldn't think so."
"The President can't make it up?"
"If it was an address on grisly bears Sam, I'm sure that the President would be fine, but it's not. Wish to would it were."
"Do you know much about the science of animals?"
"Unlike Josh I know the difference between a panda bear and a koala."
"Josh doesn't know the difference between a panda bear and a koala bear?"
"Just a koala, Sam."
"Huh?"
"The koala isn't a bear, it's a marsupial."
"Oh. I did not know that. I on the other hand did know that the lynx was not a type of possum."
"How many times do I have to tell you, I am not Mr. Wildlife. If it's possible, I'm less of outdoorsman that Josh."
"I used to do physics you know. That could help."
"Were you any good?"
"I used to think that I was."
"What about your professor?"
"Not so much."
"O.K."
"Do you think that we've lost our talent again?"
"I think that is one very distinct possibility. Either that or there is the vague chance that neither of us have the faintest idea about what this speech is truly about."
"I don't think that it's fair that every time the President does something to upset the First Lady we end up pulling an all-nighter."
"Do you want to be the one to tell her that Sam?"
"Not really."
"No. Me either."
"Maybe we should just get on then."
"That sounds like an idea I've been having for the past half hour."
"Yeah. We could put in a joke about fish here."
"Got any good ones?"
"No. Used 'em all up when he had that thing in front of the United Organisation of Trout Fishermen."
"You had that many?"
"Not very good ones, no."
"O.K."
"We really have lost our talent again, haven't we."
"I think it looks likely."
"Do you think that we'll get it done in time."
"What choice do we have, Sam?"
"I'll call Larry and Ed."
"What can they do?"
"Probably nothing, but we can staff it out, blame them, and we can go home and get some sleep."
"It's not that I don't see the logic in that Sam, but there is one fundamental flaw that you seem to have overlooked in the formulation of your plan."
"What's that?"
"Ed and Larry are at the convention in Washington State."
"Damn, they're a whole continent off?"
"So it would seem. Yes."
"We should perhaps write this ourselves then." Toby just glared at Sam and grunted his indignation at his young colleague's slow grasp of reality.
They both sat with their heads bowed over the papers, Toby with a pen at hand. After about an hour of looking at words on paper that had begun to merge into a blur for Toby, and the same hour that turned into a jolly good nap for Sam, the Communications Director sat straighter in his seat as if there was a string attached to the top of his head. The movement jolted the sofa and stirred Sam, who looked at Toby through his sleep-softened mind. After a moment Toby's pen suddenly made contact with the paper, moving slowly and methodically at first, then it took flight. Toby's pen whizzed along line after line of Sam's original draft altering a word here, a phrase there and cutting this paragraph only to replace it with another.
As Sam watched his eyes opened wider, until with a flourish Toby threw the pen down onto the coffee table and dropped the draft onto Sam's knee. Sam put on his glasses and skimmed through what Toby had done.
"Wow."
"You think?"
"It's what I wrote only a million times better and like I could never write it. Toby, this is like magic."
"It's fine." Toby said blandly.
"It's more than fine!"
"Type it!" Toby instructed and leaned back on the sofa. He closed his eyes to relax as Sam's fingers flew over the keys on his keyboard and soon the speech was done.
After they had read through it a couple times to proof read for any mistakes, (heaven knows they could not face jibes from the President about whether the pound sign in the word hallowed was silent as he stood gazing into the 321st Century), Sam connected his laptop to the printer and valiantly hit the print button. Both so tired after that, they nodded off, right there on Toby's couch.
Victory was theirs!
* * *
AFTER THE SPEECH
"I think that went well, Toby, don't you?" The President grinned as he took long strides out of the building in an attempt to keep pace with his secret service escort.
"I think it would have been much better had you stuck to the speech that Sam and I spent all of last night writing, Sir." C.J. walked up to them.
"You were up all last night writing Toby?"
"Pretty much all of it, yeah."
"How come I found you and Sam asleep on your couch when I got in this morning?" she grinned. Sam flushed an interesting shade of red as he listened from behind while Toby grinned, not taking the bait the way C.J. had anticipated: there were no explosions, fireworks or other loud bangs of any kind. He was too relieved.
"Sam suggested that we called you and Josh too, C.J. I mean, if I'd known that you would be so jealous about Sam and me spending some quality time together."
"Rousting you is no fun in this mood Tobias."
"That's really sad for you, isn't it?" Toby grinned.
"It really was a great speech, guys."
"In that case, Sir, can I ask, if it was that good, why did you not use it?"
"I spilt coffee on it in the green room." It was now the turn of Toby's face to turn red, you could almost see the steam coming out of his ears.
"You spilt coffee on it? We were up all night! I worked my ass off on that."
"Come, come, Toby, there's no 'I' in team."
"I think you might find that there are three 'f's in offs, though," Toby muttered under his breath.
"What was that, Mr. Ziegler?"
"I said that Sam fell asleep, there, Mr. President."
"That true Sam?"
"Yes Sir, I did." Sam looked sheepish.
"I meant was that really what Toby said?" Sam glanced to the side and thought better than to contradict, he valued his health too much.
"Um, yes Sir?" Toby smirked.
"It was a good speech Toby, especially as it meant showing interest in the mating habits of pond life. It was magical."
"The thing that I would like to know, Mr. President, is how would a person know all that information to talk about that topic off the cuff."
"Ah," The President gave a sly look, "Unbeknownst to Abbey I used to have a big interest in pond life. I used to be an expert in the field, or pond." He chuckled.
"The question that remains on my lips though, Sir, is why would a person want that information at their disposal in the first place?"
"Parties!"
"Parties?"
"Yes, Toby."
"O.K."
THE END
SUMMARY: "The question that remains on my lips though, Sir,
is why would a person want that information at their disposal in
the first place?" "Parties!"
FEEDBACK: meetjoynoone@yahoo.co.uk - am interested to hear any
feedback, good, bad or indifferent.
ARCHIVE: If anyone wanted to it would be an honor. Just let
me know where
DISCLAIMERS: I'm just borrowing these great creations, they
remain the property of Aaron Sorkin, Warner Brothers, and lots
of other people who are to countless and powerful to name!
WHAT KIND OF PARTIES DO YOU GO TO?
It was late on a Tuesday night (or to be more accurate early on a Wednesday morning), and the White House was in darkness but for one light emanating from the Communications Bullpen and all was quiet but for the soft clicking of the keys on a laptop. Not a soul was there in sight but for two committed White House employees, frantically working on a very important Presidential address to be given at 10am, Wednesday morning to some inconsequential group that at least one of the two could care less about.
"Sam, you see this draft?" Toby Ziegler the bearded Communications Director asked, his dark eyes darting around the room. He held up a sheaf of loose papers and waved them in the air to draw his deputy's attention.
"My draft of the speech?" Sam Seaborn asked as he took off his glasses and looked intently at his boss from his position on the sofa. Toby was pacing frantically, back and forth, aware that time was of the essence.
"Yeah. That one."
"What about it?" Sam asked, an air of pride in his words.
"It sucks!"
"My draft?"
"Yeah."
"You think that it sucks?"
"Yes I do."
"Why?"
"Because it does Sam. It's all poetry and no substance."
"You don't like poetry?"
"I'm not fond."
"You're not a fan of literature?"
"Not poetry, no. Unless of course, it comes in the guise of Tabitha Wade."
"Ah. O.K."
"We need to do something about it. We need to rewrite it."
"It's that bad?"
"It's pretty bad, Sam."
"That was the best I could come up with at this time of night. The speech was short notice, you know that." Indeed it was. The President had accepted the invitation the evening before at the urging of Mrs. Bartlet, who had taken a strategy that wasn't dissimilar to Toby's in getting Gillette to join the blue ribbon commission. As was his wont, the President had taken his life in his hands and criticised something the First Lady held dear. BIG MISTAKE! The biggest problems were not the President's however, no, no, the biggest problems lay in the Communications department who were the only speechwriters left in the building when the assignment came in. As they are a deeply committed pair who both serve at the pleasure of the President, they gladly took on the task despite their busy day spinning the Paraguay situation, Their decision spurred by a series of threats that came directly from Leo McGarry, the White House Chief of Staff.
"We can save this."
"We can't save this, Toby. I'm dry. I have no words left to write."
"I find that very hard to believe." Toby ran his hand over his head. "You're dry?"
"Yeah."
"O.K., we might need to work through that."
"You think?"
"Let's look at what we've got." Toby sat down next to Sam on the couch while Sam opened up his trusted laptop.
"She's called Susan."
"What?" Toby looked confused.
"My laptop, she's called Susan."
"O.K. Sam, are you feeling all right?"
"I'm fine Toby, why?"
"You named you laptop."
"I did. She's called Susan."
"I got that." Toby took a very deep breath. "Sam, now we've got that cleared up, do you think we could maybe look at what we've got so far for the speech?" Sam nodded.
"Sure thing." They both looked down at the pile of papers and sat in silence as they passed them between them. They sat like that for several minutes, the exact time was indeterminate. Sam was the one to crack first, known for his need to keep conversation flowing and his dislike for noiselessness.
"Toby?" Toby shifted his eyes to Sam without looking up at him properly.
"Hmmm?"
"Are you getting anything?"
"For the speech?"
"Yeah."
"No."
"O.K."
"I don't suppose anything's crossed your mind?" Toby said, though his lack of hope was evident in the tone of his voice.
"Nope. You want I should call Josh?"
"Why would I want you to call Josh?"
"Something may cross his mind that we could use."
"That's not exactly a long journey Sam."
"Crossing Josh's mind?"
"Yeah." They sat in silence for a few more minutes. Sam tapped on his laptop, producing the standard key test over and over: the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog, while Toby reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his pink rubber stress balls, which he began to throw against the nearest wall to him.
"Toby?"
"Sam."
"Have you ever not had a beard?"
"I'm sorry?" Toby was so baffled by what he thought he had heard, he wondered if he had been mistaken.
"Have you ever not had a beard?"
"I thought that was what you said."
"Well?"
"There was a time, when I was, you know, five."
"Yeah?"
"Sam."
"What do you look like without a beard?"
"I look like me without a beard. God Sam."
"Yeah."
"Can we get on?"
"Yeah. Perhaps we could call C.J. she's good with this sort of thing, I'm sure she'd be great."
"Does she know anything about science?"
"She knows that the chemical formula for table salt is NaCl."
"And you think that knowledge will be sufficient."
"Probably not."
"I shouldn't think so."
"The President can't make it up?"
"If it was an address on grisly bears Sam, I'm sure that the President would be fine, but it's not. Wish to would it were."
"Do you know much about the science of animals?"
"Unlike Josh I know the difference between a panda bear and a koala."
"Josh doesn't know the difference between a panda bear and a koala bear?"
"Just a koala, Sam."
"Huh?"
"The koala isn't a bear, it's a marsupial."
"Oh. I did not know that. I on the other hand did know that the lynx was not a type of possum."
"How many times do I have to tell you, I am not Mr. Wildlife. If it's possible, I'm less of outdoorsman that Josh."
"I used to do physics you know. That could help."
"Were you any good?"
"I used to think that I was."
"What about your professor?"
"Not so much."
"O.K."
"Do you think that we've lost our talent again?"
"I think that is one very distinct possibility. Either that or there is the vague chance that neither of us have the faintest idea about what this speech is truly about."
"I don't think that it's fair that every time the President does something to upset the First Lady we end up pulling an all-nighter."
"Do you want to be the one to tell her that Sam?"
"Not really."
"No. Me either."
"Maybe we should just get on then."
"That sounds like an idea I've been having for the past half hour."
"Yeah. We could put in a joke about fish here."
"Got any good ones?"
"No. Used 'em all up when he had that thing in front of the United Organisation of Trout Fishermen."
"You had that many?"
"Not very good ones, no."
"O.K."
"We really have lost our talent again, haven't we."
"I think it looks likely."
"Do you think that we'll get it done in time."
"What choice do we have, Sam?"
"I'll call Larry and Ed."
"What can they do?"
"Probably nothing, but we can staff it out, blame them, and we can go home and get some sleep."
"It's not that I don't see the logic in that Sam, but there is one fundamental flaw that you seem to have overlooked in the formulation of your plan."
"What's that?"
"Ed and Larry are at the convention in Washington State."
"Damn, they're a whole continent off?"
"So it would seem. Yes."
"We should perhaps write this ourselves then." Toby just glared at Sam and grunted his indignation at his young colleague's slow grasp of reality.
They both sat with their heads bowed over the papers, Toby with a pen at hand. After about an hour of looking at words on paper that had begun to merge into a blur for Toby, and the same hour that turned into a jolly good nap for Sam, the Communications Director sat straighter in his seat as if there was a string attached to the top of his head. The movement jolted the sofa and stirred Sam, who looked at Toby through his sleep-softened mind. After a moment Toby's pen suddenly made contact with the paper, moving slowly and methodically at first, then it took flight. Toby's pen whizzed along line after line of Sam's original draft altering a word here, a phrase there and cutting this paragraph only to replace it with another.
As Sam watched his eyes opened wider, until with a flourish Toby threw the pen down onto the coffee table and dropped the draft onto Sam's knee. Sam put on his glasses and skimmed through what Toby had done.
"Wow."
"You think?"
"It's what I wrote only a million times better and like I could never write it. Toby, this is like magic."
"It's fine." Toby said blandly.
"It's more than fine!"
"Type it!" Toby instructed and leaned back on the sofa. He closed his eyes to relax as Sam's fingers flew over the keys on his keyboard and soon the speech was done.
After they had read through it a couple times to proof read for any mistakes, (heaven knows they could not face jibes from the President about whether the pound sign in the word hallowed was silent as he stood gazing into the 321st Century), Sam connected his laptop to the printer and valiantly hit the print button. Both so tired after that, they nodded off, right there on Toby's couch.
Victory was theirs!
* * *
AFTER THE SPEECH
"I think that went well, Toby, don't you?" The President grinned as he took long strides out of the building in an attempt to keep pace with his secret service escort.
"I think it would have been much better had you stuck to the speech that Sam and I spent all of last night writing, Sir." C.J. walked up to them.
"You were up all last night writing Toby?"
"Pretty much all of it, yeah."
"How come I found you and Sam asleep on your couch when I got in this morning?" she grinned. Sam flushed an interesting shade of red as he listened from behind while Toby grinned, not taking the bait the way C.J. had anticipated: there were no explosions, fireworks or other loud bangs of any kind. He was too relieved.
"Sam suggested that we called you and Josh too, C.J. I mean, if I'd known that you would be so jealous about Sam and me spending some quality time together."
"Rousting you is no fun in this mood Tobias."
"That's really sad for you, isn't it?" Toby grinned.
"It really was a great speech, guys."
"In that case, Sir, can I ask, if it was that good, why did you not use it?"
"I spilt coffee on it in the green room." It was now the turn of Toby's face to turn red, you could almost see the steam coming out of his ears.
"You spilt coffee on it? We were up all night! I worked my ass off on that."
"Come, come, Toby, there's no 'I' in team."
"I think you might find that there are three 'f's in offs, though," Toby muttered under his breath.
"What was that, Mr. Ziegler?"
"I said that Sam fell asleep, there, Mr. President."
"That true Sam?"
"Yes Sir, I did." Sam looked sheepish.
"I meant was that really what Toby said?" Sam glanced to the side and thought better than to contradict, he valued his health too much.
"Um, yes Sir?" Toby smirked.
"It was a good speech Toby, especially as it meant showing interest in the mating habits of pond life. It was magical."
"The thing that I would like to know, Mr. President, is how would a person know all that information to talk about that topic off the cuff."
"Ah," The President gave a sly look, "Unbeknownst to Abbey I used to have a big interest in pond life. I used to be an expert in the field, or pond." He chuckled.
"The question that remains on my lips though, Sir, is why would a person want that information at their disposal in the first place?"
"Parties!"
"Parties?"
"Yes, Toby."
"O.K."
THE END