Towards the end of a long night, a gender-mixed group of seven people in my living room are engaged in a spirited discussion regarding
what to do next. Another movie?
(But what could possibly top Caddyshack?) Turn in early? A stirring round of
Kill Dr. Lucky? Hydra-like, as each proposal is met with a noise of accord two more rise to shoot it down. So
she opens her mouth and out it comes:
"Let's all have group sex!"
That's one way to get the attention of a room full of people! A silence follows that I would describe as stunned, save that I have reason to believe that each of our pauses were motivated by distinctly different considerations. I visualise the room as a stretched comic strip, portraying a frozen moment in time as the announcement is made at the left and individual thought bubble responses emerge from six potentially-reader-identifiable(-as) silhouettes to the right:
- Offended: What, I'm not enough for her?
- Calculating: Five male + two female = ... poor gender ratio for me and my tender mucous membranes.
- Strategizing: The only room in this house large enough to host such an activity, the one we are in, features a large and unblocked picture window facing out on to the street.
- Rationalizing: Ew. Ick. If only there was some way for me to buy in to this without having to see my friends naked...
- Pragmatic: That's it, I'm bringing her to liven up the next staff party!
- Skeptic: Right, this from the person who got upset when the cat started affectionately kneading her leg.
Our independent streams of thought feed into the same waterfall. The moment thaws, uneasy laughter floes tumble, twirl, and are dashed into titters on the rocks below. The conversation continues without skipping (another) beat. She does not seem overly put out by the fact that no one seems to be weighing her suggestion with the gravity with which it was pronounced. No one quashes it, for in fact no one even acknowledges it.
Ha ha, we get to go internally,
no, I didn't take it seriously for even a second. Did you? I can't wait to see what she yells in a crowded theatre!
in our last episode... | p_i-logs | and then, all of a sudden...