NoV: Lalala! I am enjoying the holiday snacks, my peoples!!!
Oh, and the insane part about Angel's leg…..that's inspired by me when I watched Titanic and that guy jumped off and hit the propeller….that was funny.
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Quote of the day:
NoV: (eating a very salty pretzel at the mall) Ugh! This is too salty! We should take it back and tell them it's too salty.
Alley: But they'd be like 'It's a pretzel!'
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"So, where's Joanne?" Mark asked, noticing that she was the only one absent from the room.
"She went to ask the front desk about a wake up call," Mimi replied. "But that was a long time ago….should we go find her?"
"Well, don't look at me!" Roger said defensively. "I had to go find Mark and knock him out of the tree."
"A gesture for which I am eternally grateful," Mark muttered.
"There are a thousand things to do in this place," Collins added, as he and Angel emerged from the bathroom. He was now band-aided. "She's probably having fun at a show or something….."
--
"—I know it sounds clichéd and overstated, but overall I think that our involvement with the Arabian nations during the world wars in essence has led to the oil crises that we are experiencing. Even now we are still heavily occupying those nations that we greatly depend on for our oil. And basically that's why I think we are experiencing a national oil crisis," Joanne said. She and Tim, his name was, were sitting on the floor of the elevator discussing the topic at hand. Tim actually turned out to be a pretty decent albeit creepy guy.
"Hmmm…." he mused. "That's the best answer I've gotten all day."
"Really?" Joanne wondered. "…..how many people have you trapped in this elevator today?"
"Just you," he replied.
"Why me?" Joanne asked, feeling uncomfortable once again.
"Because I want your SOUL!!" Tim yelled, and the darkness enveloped Joanne.
--
"Miss! Miss! Can you hear me?" a nasally voice was asking.
Joanne's eyes opened to see the hotel manager and a couple of engineer-types hovering over her. She immediately felt her throbbing head and sore back. She slowly sat up, finding herself on the floor next to the elevator. "Did he get my soul?" she asked immediately.
"What?" the manager asked, squinting at her.
"Never mind," Joanne said, deciding that experience wasn't real. "What happened?"
"You fell down the elevator shaft," one of the other men said. "Didn't you see the CAUTION signs?"
Joanne rolled her eyes and sarcastically said, "Yeah, but I decided I wanted to take a thirty-foot plummet anyway."
"It was actually more like ten feet," the manager interceded. He shrugged, "For liability reasons. Can I call you an ambulance Miss—"
"Joanne," she said, "and no. I feel fine." She rose to her feet, ignoring his outstretched hand. Joanne had had enough emergency room experiences for one lifetime, so she decided to take a couple of aspirin and sleep it off.
She arrived back at the hotel room just as Mark was setting up his projector with his camera to show everyone his bigfoot proof. Joanne looked at her watch and then to all the people in the room. "Okay, I was missing for forty-five minutes when I should have been gone for maybe ten," she said. "So, why didn't you guys come looking for me?"
"Hey, I was stuck up in a tree for four hours before anyone came looking for me," Mark protested. "What were you doing?"
"I fell down the elevator shaft," Joanne said quietly.
"No wonder they wouldn't let us get on the elevator," Collins mused like it wasn't a big deal. He, Angel, Roger and Mimi were all squished on the couch, having been talked into watching Mark's crazy bigfoot footage.
"Okay, okay," Mark said. "Go sit down. It's ready." Joanne rolled her eyes and sat down on the bed next to Maureen, who was still out cold. She lovingly stroked Maureen's hair.
Mark stood in front of them all, before turning the film on. "You all laughed at me," he said. "For a very long time. Like I was just another crazy bigfoot fanatic! But now you'll see the proof and you will bow down and respect me like you should have all along. You'll see the error of your way. You will rue the day—"
"Just show us the damn movie!" Collins snapped, growing restless.
"Fine, but I just want to say that I haven't seen this before, so I haven't gotten a chance to edit—"
"MARK!" yelled everyone except Joanne who shushed them, mindful of Maureen's sleeping needs.
Without further ado, Mark turned on the film and went to sit on the floor by the couch so he could watch as well. The projection on the wall at first showed snowboarders flying down the hill, blazing past the trees. Then, suddenly, the shot jerked backwards, shaking but capturing nothing. A moment later, it went back to focusing on the skiers and snowboarders. A few minutes after that, it wrenched back toward the forest again catching a glimpse of something brown, then falling to Mark's lap. All that could be seen for twenty seconds was a terrified shaking Mark from the waist down.
Roger was getting weak and tearful. "Oh my god!" he cried, bursting into fits of laughter. "Did you wet your pants?? No, wait, it's just a shadow….oh, man! Wouldn't it be great if you did though and we got it on film?"
Mark, embarrassed beyond belief, jumped up and ran over to turn the movie off.
The others were laughing hysterically by this point as well. "No, don't turn it off!" Mimi wailed, unable to control her own laughter. "Maybe bigfoot will walk into the shot and we'll see him from the ankles down!" This made them all roll with laughter some more.
Mark's face was as red as a tomato when he turned off the projector. "See if I ever show you guys anything ever again," he said. "You're all immature."
"Hey, Markie," Angel said, once she had herself under control. "Do you have the beach film with you?"
"Yeah, I think so," Mark replied, looking through his camera bag. Finding the desired footage he asked, "Do you want to watch it?"
So they watched the beach film and relived those memories. Mostly they were memories of good times, but Joanne threatened to smash the camera while everyone giggled at the part where the seagulls attacked her. Then came the part where Mark had captured the parasailing and seadoo accident that Mimi and Angel had. The two of them sat on the couch, certain that they too would be embarrassed beyond belief when the film revealed their less than flattering crash into the buoy. The group watched as the seadoo collided with the buoy, flinging Angel and Mimi in two directions.
"Oh my god! Did you see my leg?" Angel cried, pointing and staring with her eyes wide. "Rewind it, Mark, rewind it!"
Mark, confused, went over to the camera and rewound it a couple of frames.
When he pushed play and returned to the couch, Angel instructed everyone, "Okay, now watch my leg when we fly off the seadoo….." They did and then she cried, "That's too weird!"
Collins grimaced. "That was really…..unnatural," he commented.
"How…..how did that happen?" Mimi asked.
"I didn't think a person's leg could bend that way….without getting broken, I mean," Roger said.
"Rewind it again!" Angel pleaded. She made Mark rewind it several more times so she could enjoy laughing at her flexible leg. She then made him show it to her frame-by-frame, and afterwards everyone went to bed.
--
The next morning, Joanne was woken up by giggling beside her. She groggily rolled over to see that Maureen was the source of this insane sound. The girl's eyes were slightly open and she looked drugged….because she was. "Maureen?" she wondered, only getting an insane-sounding laugh in reply. Alerted to the dangers of the overdose, Joanne crawled over Maureen and stood by her side of the bed. "Mimi!" she cried, for Mimi was sleeping in the next bed with Roger.
"Hmm…." Mimi said, not moving.
"Get up!" Joanne pleaded. "There's something wrong with Maureen!"
Mimi sat up slowly and kneeled on the floor, resting her elbows beside Maureen. When she noticed that Maureen was giggling hysterically with demonically possessed-looking eyes, she came to full wakefulness. "Oh my god, why is she laughing like that?" Mimi asked, her eyes wide.
"She must have took too much of that Nyquil!" Joanne exclaimed. "I told her—"
"Would you all shush?" Collins snapped from the bed on the other side of the room. He had Angel cocooned beside him in blankets and pillows and decided to sacrifice one of the smaller pillows to throw at the noisy girls.
"Maureen OD'd!" Joanne yelled at him. "I'll be as loud as I want!"
"OD?" Angel asked, the two simple letters jarring her fully awake. Collins missed the warmth that suddenly fled from him. Angel jumped beside Maureen on Joanne's empty side of the bed and felt the delirious girl's forehead. "She feels clammy," Angel reported.
"What does that tell you?" Joanne asked, worriedly.
"I don't know," Angel shrugged.
"Then why feel her forehead?" Joanne demanded.
"It's something that people do when someone is sick….should I take her pulse too?" she said as an afterthought.
Mimi sighed. "We need to call for an ambulance."
"It's just Nyquil, though right?" Mark said from the fold-out sofa-bed. The others looked at him in surprise, not realizing that he had been listening. Mark reached over to the night stand and grabbed his glasses. "It can't be too serious," he insisted.
Roger gave a huge groan as all the chatter forced him from his slumber. "What are we talking about at seven am?" he asked. He looked to see all of them clambering around Maureen and her giggly self. "Maureen overdosed on Nyquil?" he said. "The shenanigans never end…." He walked around to stand beside Maureen. "There's a very simple way to tell how far gone she is," he explained. He picked up Maureen's hand and held it up in the air so that her arm was stretched all the way out. When he let go, her hand hit her in the face with a resounding SMACK! "And that was it," he said, looking guiltily at the others. "She's gone."
--
A little later Maureen fell soundly asleep, so everyone decided to let her sleep her delirium away. They were all pretty hungry, so it was decided that they would draw straws to see who would stay and watch Maureen while the others went downstairs to the buffet. Roger sighed, sitting on Mark's abandoned couch-bed. He had drawn the short straw. He stared blankly at the TV, mildly interested in some music video, wishing it were him on TV rocking out.
Eventually he got bored, and since he still hadn't gotten a good night's sleep, he laid down on the sofa bed and fell asleep. Unfortunately, this was the point in time when Maureen woke up….in theory. Still heavily under the cough medicine's influence, Maureen got up shakily and walked all the way around the bed to Joanne's side. "Wake up, Pookie!" she said in a wispy, five-year-old's voice. She patted the spot where Joanne's head would have been if she were still asleep in the bed. "Oh, you're not there," Maureen commented, not upset, but just wanting to continue her conversation with herself. "La la la la la…." She mused. She walked over to the fold out couch Mark had slept on. Mark was no longer sleeping in it. But silly Mark for leaving it all messy and unfolded! "Markie!" Maureen giggled. "You left your bed in a pigsty!" The logic in her mind, although she distinctly saw another person sprawled out on the makeshift bed, told her it needed to be neatly folded up so it would be out of the way. Everyone would thank her for it later and maybe reward her with cookies and hot chocolate! Or brownies! So, even with her weakened strength, Maureen began to fold up the couch with Roger in it.
Roger didn't realize what was happening until it was all but too late! "Wait! NO! HELP!" Roger screamed, as he was smunched between the scratchy upholstery and the cushiony pillows. All the light of day left him and he was alone, smothered and squished.
--
Half an hour later, all the others returned to the hotel room. They found Maureen sitting on the couch watching Sesame Street, holding the remote toward the screen and drooling.
"Maureen!" Joanne cried. "You're awake, honey." She sat next to her on the couch, taking note of the drooling. "….are you okay?"
"Where's Roger?" Mimi wondered, looking around. "Maureen, where's Roger?"
Maureen giggled and said, "You'll never guess!"
"Roger?" Mimi called.
"EMM IMM HMMM!" said the couch, apparently.
"Oh my god, he's in the couch!" Collins exclaimed, with a slight smile growing on his face.
"Maureen, let's get off the couch," Joanne said, helping her to her feet.
"Okay, Janelle," Maureen said.
"Joanne," Joanne corrected.
"My name is Maureen, silly!" Maureen laughed.
Angel helped Mimi unfold the couch to reveal Roger with imprint marks all over his face and arms. He sat up and shook his head violently. Glaring at Maureen, he said, "She folded me up in the couch!"
"Really?" Mark said sarcastically, filming Roger's escape from the couch.
"I almost died!" Roger insisted, not wanting them to make fun of him. Unfortunately this only made them laugh even more.
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NoV: Oh, man! I just can't seem to get all the stuff I need to into these chapters! I don't want to make them too long, so some of the stuff will have to wait til next time. Also, I probly won't be able to update until a while after Thanksgiving….sorry.
Next time(!): Mimi falls down, the drag contest is held, Joanne beats on something, Maureen has a fall.
