fandomhighdorms | Third Floor Common Room, Saturday Night

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Third Floor Common Room, Saturday Night

Maeby hadn't actually gone to the picnic -- it was outside, and there were a lot of people there, and, well, Maeby wasn't so great at participating in things.

She was, however, in a common room, which was the closest she got to attempting to be social. She had brought a pile of scripts with her, but ugh, none of these scripts were interesting.

She didn't know how she ended up watching something called -- seriously? -- Redneck Island.

"Well, I feel better about my life," she announced, to nobody in particular. At least she had all her teeth and no wasn't living on a island full of chickens. And other people with really, really bad tattoos.

(so, so open)

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Look, it was her first night in a dorm. Like Olive was just going to stay in her own room. Or on her own floor. Please.

"Oh, holy crap, what is that?" she asked, staring at the screen as she wandered in. "And where are the rest of its teeth?"

"Jersey Shore is on?" Chaz asked in response as he came into the room. He considered the room for a minute before sitting down in an arm chair.

"I'm not stalking you!" Chaz blurted out when he saw who else was in the room.

"Are you sure?" Olive asked, though not with any heat behind it.

Chaz realized he was spending half the day flailing. He had scheduled a freak out about it for later. "I think it's just a new kid thing?"

"I think this is actually zoo programming," Maeby said. "Like, look, the freaks are all here. Is this really what the South is like? Because I am never going there if it is."

"Worse," Maeby said. "These are people that the cast of Jersey Shore could look down on. Although I can't imagine anybody on either show can read."

"There's only so many of us," Olive agreed. "We're bound to run into each other. Your day go okay?"

"Reading isn't needed for reality TV. It would probably just get in the way. Without reading, they can't read what everyone online is saying about them." Chaz pointed out. "There's something worse than Jersey Shore?" He didn't want to know where he had picked up the ratings for both TV shows, though he was pleased that they seamed to be falling.

"I don't know," Olive admitted, coming in to sit with the other girl. "I'm from California. We deal exclusively in Housewives, I think."

Chaz nodded at the first party. "Uh huh, yeah, that's absolutely the reason we keep running into each other." He bit down the population numbers and density that he really wanted to add on to that. "And uh, kinda? My school assigned sibling is weird and I'm rooming with a girl."

"Join the club," Olive replied. "I mean, it's not weird for me to room with a girl, I guess, but my sibling's bizarre."

"Did he or she mention the rain of popsicles?" Chaz asked, not sounding like he believed it.

"Of the drunk and trying-too-hard-to-be-slutty variety?" Maeby asked. "That's my mom. And, like, everyone else I met in Orange County."

"I think so," Maeby said, nodding towards the TV screen. "I mean, look at this. They're shooting beer cans and they're missing most of their teeth."

She shuddered. "The gene pool would be better off without either group. I don't understand the demographics that actually watch this."

Chaz blurted out the demographics for both shows, in various regions of the United States before flushing red enough that even his end of summer skin showed it.

"I uh, read that. Somewhere."

Maeby raised an eyebrow at him. Had he nerded out about anything else, she would think he was weird. This, though ...

"Do you work with TV stuff?" she asked, clearly interested. "Because I still don't get why more channels don't diversify a little. If everyone goes to the lowest common denominator ..."

Shit. She coughed, once, and tried to seem more nonchalant.

"We end up watching Redneck Island."

"...no, she's just from 1915," Olive ventured, but um. "Rain of popsicles?"

Chaz could nerd out about a lot of things. It was a skill.

"Uh, no, not really. I just. Uh. Read a lot. And stuff stays with me. And it's like, TV stations are really big on making money and following a major trend and uh." He coughed to get himself to stop talking.

"We can change the channel, since we know better." He said with a tiny smile.

"Oh." Chaz said. "Mine said he's from 20 years ago. And yeah. Popsicles. I should have asked if he meant frozen or the candy."

"Orange County?" Olive asked, perking up. "Ventura County over here. Ojai, specifically. So yeah, we have slightly more of a pothead population, I think, but I've seen your mother's people and I'm so sorry."

Maeby picked up the remote and tossed it to him. "If you can find something else, go for it," she said. "Do you have one of those photographic memories?"

Maeby always thought those were cool, if they worked like they did in the movies, anyway, but she also figured they probably didn't work like that. So.

Chaz was going to be in permanent blush mode. "Kinda? I mean, it's not like you see on TV stuff. But I remember a lot more of pretty much everything." And get shoved in the locker for it.

"I wonder if that's where Uncle Oscar scores all his pot," Maeby asked. "Sorry, my great-uncle. Except I think he's dating Gangee now that Pop-Pop is in jail. Which ... is seriously gross."

The dating. Not the jail part. The jail part was pretty cool, except for how the charges were extremely lame.

There had to be a way to use that. It was, at least, interesting information.

"So, you'd be the world's best personal assistant," she said. "Someone could just hand over the paperwork to you and make you read it and then look good in a meeting because you'd be able to remember all of it."

"You just lapsed into a bunch of family-speak, so I'm gonna leave that alone for a second," Olive replied, "but more importantly: he probably does, or else from Mexico. Seriously, my friend's parents have offered me bong hits at home."

"Oh, man, Orange County sucks," Maeby said. "I mean, I can sneak wine from one of the bottles in the fridge, but no one offers me bong hits, ever."

She wasn't a pothead or anything. She'd just like the chance to actually try pot, like a normal fifteen-year-old, and was sort of offended that nobody was offering her any.

Olive lifted a brow, then leaned in conspiratorially. "It's overrated. I wanted to puke the one time I did one."

Sigh, Olive.

"Seriously?" Maeby said. "I don't know if I'm more disappointed, or relieved I'm not missing much."

There'd be a great movie idea there -- a bunch of friends trying to score some weed, and then finding out it wasn't that interesting an experience after all. Just edgy enough to get some controversy stirred up, and maybe one of the girls is a tomboy who's interested in the main guy? Something cliched like that.

"My mom is strictly a prescription abuser these days," she said. "I wonder if she and dad used to get high. They're all ex-hippie like that."

"Your family sounds lovely," Olive commented, nodding solemnly.

No judgey. She was just saying.

"That is, apparently, how we do it in the OC," Maeby said, deadpan. "What about you, what's your family like?"

"Weird, but awesome," Olive said thoughtfully. "And not addicted to anything except for Netflix, so...good job, Mom and Dad. I mean, don't get me wrong, they're totally ex-hippies too. They just went in the other direction."

"So, not weird in the embarrassing way?" she asked. That was more what she was used to. Exhibit A: her father. "That sounds ... kind of sweet."

After a moment, she added, "And is California just full of ex-hippies? Other than the corporate Republicans."

"Weird in a supportive way," Olive offered. "And I think it's 'cause the baby boomers took Florida. Their kids were like, 'Yeah, you can keep that, we'll go to the complete opposite coast.'"

"You might be right," Maeby mused. "Because my mom grew up in California, but she bolted for Boston during college, like, she just needed to put most of the country between her and her mother."

For the record, she understood. Gangee was scary.

"We're only back now because we're broke."

For Orange County values of broke, natch.

"I mean, I get that impulse. I love my mom but I definitely have a really extra-awesome mom," Olive told her. "But...well, hey, I came here because I wanted to put as much space as possible between me and my friends, so."

"Yeah, I guess." Chaz glanced down at his shoes. "Not exactly what I want to be doing, you know?"

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Third Floor Common Room, Saturday Night

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