Monday, May 17, 2010

Major Lulz from the Sheltered - Chapter 3

And the lulz just keep on comin'! (Chapter 1, Chapter 2)

In today's episode of Slut-Shaming for Dummies Life's Choices, our most improbably named 18-year-old mentally debates adoption and single motherhood and meets a proselytizer with a porn name in a parking lot*.

Two hours later, Leona emerged from the counseling room of the Lewis County Pregnancy Center. Mrs. Black hugged her before she headed out to her car. Sarah waved at her and called a good-bye from behind the receptionist counter and little Luke added his own version good-bye.

You mean waving goodbye? Children under the age of 1 can handle that amazing feat. Luke is supposed to be 3, I believe.

Leona smiled to herself as she got into her car. The people she had met at the Center were so cheerful and sweet...made her feel welcome and wanted. Her day felt brand new.

Christians can cleanse not only souls, but days, too!

She decided to stop by her favorite coffee shop and grab a latte. She hadn’t had one for a while and thought she needed the treat.

Because that's what liberals do, right? They drink overpriced coffee-based beverages, yeah, I think.

As Leona sipped her hot latte,

ahem. speaking as an official liberal drinker of overpriced coffee-based beverages, I can tell you that lattes are assumed to be hot unless specified otherwise. "Hot latte" is a weird phrase to someone who actually does visit coffee shops on a regular basis. (Well, mostly Dunkin' Donuts. And I don't generally get lattes, but still, the point stands.)

she thought back to her conversation with Mrs. Black. The woman made her feel as if she had known her all her life. It was so easy to talk to her...to tell her what her life was like. She was able to tell her about Jerry and how he had left her after finding out that she was pregnant. Mrs. Black seemed to really understand what Leona was feeling and sympathized with her. But even after her talk with Mrs. Black, Leona still felt that she wouldn’t be able to keep the baby. It wasn’t fair to him or her that they should grow up with just one parent - never knowing their biological father.

Full stop. Your average, normal, liberal teen would never think this. Maybe 1 in a 100 might possibly, I suppose, but no. It is assumed in this day and age that teen mothers will raise their own children, probably without the equally teen father around to help. And who thinks "biological father" like that, anyway? Why not just "father"?

When she had asked Mrs. Black for other alternatives, the older woman had given her several. Carry the baby to full-term and keep him/her or give birth to him/her and then the baby up for adoption or foster.

That's actually not several alternatives, that's two, and only one of those is an alternative to keeping the baby herself. (I really fail to see the difference between "foster" and "adoption" in this instance if Leona doesn't want to consider raising the baby without the father who has already left her.)

Leona was sure that it would never work to keep the baby. And she wasn’t sure about the whole adoption process. At least she could make sure that the baby would go to a better home. But...hadn’t she been thinking all along that the baby shouldn’t have to grow up not knowing his or her father? Why would she want to give her baby away and for it not to know both of its parents?

Well, yeah, actually. Good point. Never gets addressed.

Abortion seemed like such an easy choice. She wouldn’t have to worry about telling her parents, or about the whole adoption procedure, or even have to have a huge belly in front of her for 9 whole months! How embarrassing would that be - having to tell everyone, who asked her, that she was a single mom?

Um, is Leona an elephant? She's already 3 months pregnant, so why would she have a pregnant belly for 9 more months? 6 more months, absolute tops. Also, while everyone who sees you will forget etiquette and normal social rules and quiz you endlessly about the baby, nobody will ask you about the father. Especially not if you look young. Except for really judgmental religious types. They'll jump right in with the slut shaming.

So then some woman is careless, well, not really at all**, with her child and Leona screams at her and then realizes- gasp!- she was about to kill her own baby, so how can she complain if someone else lets their baby play in traffic! So then she runs out to her car and cries and then some nice (probably Christian) boy asks if she's okay, and we get this:

She wasn’t sure if she should roll down her window or not. He might be one of those lunatics that always wandered around large parks. But he seemed harmless enough and genuinely concerned. Besides, he didn’t look loony. His dark hair was combed neatly and he had on a nice polo shirt and slacks.

Yes, large parks (which is not where Leona is, btw) are always mobbed by the mentally ill/psychopathic killers. It's hard to even find a place for a picnic anymore, what with with all the crazies taking up the space. Nothing like insulting the mentally ill in the middle of your slut shaming.

So, the not-obviously-a-serial-killer (who is?) is Peter Gunn (a porn name if I ever heard one) who hands her a Bible. Then we learn that if two people in one day tell you about this Jesus fellow- who's that?- it must be true.

Leona tossed the Bible onto the passenger seat of her car and started the engine. She had one of those at home, but never read it. Why was God suddenly coming into her life? Sure, she had heard about Him at that Sunday school that she used to go to before she had decided to stay home from church altogether. Her parents sometimes talked about Him, but when she had told them to lay off being preachy to her, they had. They didn’t go to church anymore either.

I guess our family just sort of got bored with it, she thought to herself.
But first that DJ on the radio station and now this guy that just happened to stop at her car and hand her this Bible. This was too much.

Why was her life changing so fast?

Wow, a DJ on a religious station and some guy in a parking lot both talked about god on the same day- it's too much! Why, god, why?!



*I bet you anything this is the plot to an actual porno, and the name is something like "Parking Lot Pussy 5".

**If you haven't had children what happens might come across as extreme carelessness, but as someone who has raised a small child, I can tell you that no matter how careful you are, children get hurt. It's what they do. They also eat dust bunnies, shove pennies up their noses and trip over chalk lines. All in the 24 seconds it takes you to pee.

28 comments:

  1. Also you don't have a huge belly for the whole nine months, really just the last three.

    The next time I go to the coffee shop here, I am asking for a hot frappe.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's not a porn name. It's even better

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Gunn

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh the coffee shop here is owned by a friend of mine, a conservative fundie Pentecostal Christian friend.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Re: Peter Gunn. Oh, for crying out loud!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Atheists,

    you are going to learn even to TALK about GOD the way you do is going to cost you your lives...


    the writing on the wall...



    f*ck you very much!



    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6e/Touched_by_His_Noodly_Appendage.jpg

    see, you degenerates have last names like first names...

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

    how about I believe in WHATEVER I want - even in the FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER! - and you have nothing to say!


    let me show you the end results of this particular *ONE-DIMENSIONAL SCIENTIFIC MODE*
    of thinking that is called *CRITICAL THINKING*, which is completely divorced from
    any human objectives...

    this style has been perfected by dawkins, pz, randi and the other *NEW ATHEISTS*
    **
    THE BOOBQUAKE - 911!


    see how we take a term and convert it into its AUTHENTIC POLITICAL DIMENSION - THAT
    OF LIBERATION - not just merely harmless expression...

    visit


    http://dissidentphilosophy.lifediscussion.net/philosophy-f1/the-boobquake-911-t1310.htm

    ReplyDelete
  6. Just delete his blatherings and be done with it. Totally not worth the effort.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Just a reminder - this is the same guy as the last couple of times. You know, the human spambot?

    My current theory is that he doesn't care about what we have to say, so long as we quit insulting his friend.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Michael, he spams the slacktivist, he is just mentally ill. Delete hsi ravings and ignore.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Eh, so I can amuse myself being rude to him.

    ReplyDelete
  10. My current theory is that he doesn't care about what we have to say, so long as we quit insulting his friend.

    Ah, so you've stopped trying to actually engage him in conversation. Huzzah!

    ReplyDelete
  11. @ Beamstalk - Yes, I know; he's visited my blog, too. I was describing (my best guess at) the pattern of his insanity, not defending it as any sort of rational behavior.

    ReplyDelete
  12. @ Geds - Well, no, not quite. As I said, the psychology of this thing fascinates me... and I have gotten a couple of responses. They're just not, um, like actual people talking to each other.

    ReplyDelete
  13. The problem is this: if you delete his cut-and-paste rants, he just comes back and resubmits the same exact comment. I know because he did it seven. fricking. times. to one post of mine. It was just so, so lovely.

    I'd also like to point out how scary it is that his recent cut-and-pastes actually seem to threaten violence to atheists? I mean, that's not cool, dude.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I'd also like to point out how scary it is that his recent cut-and-pastes actually seem to threaten violence to atheists? I mean, that's not cool, dude.

    That's not new. PZed reported him to the Mounties a few months back. Word had it that they took some sort of action. Obviously it wasn't permanent.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I love, love, love your commentary on this PF! It's making my day.

    Umm in terms of DM: The "last names like first names" thing really intrigues me. What the Hell is that about?

    ReplyDelete
  16. At a guess? James Randi. Since Randy could be a first name, too. But, really, very much a guess.

    ...And I have no idea how that connects to being a degenerate.

    @ PF - "Eh, so I can amuse myself being rude to him. "

    As long as it amuses you. I doubt it'll have any effect on him, even if he does happen to read it.

    ReplyDelete
  17. (previous chapter)

    Leona dived forward, using the desk to launch herself into the air and over the barrage of bullets. Before they could react she had taken out two men at once with a mid-air split-kick and landed in the middle of them. She rammed the pen viciously into the nearest leg, and as the injured man shouted and fell she levered his other leg upwards to throw him at those surrounding her, opening up a bit of space.

    One of the men panicked and opened fire, apparently oblivious to what happens when you shoot at a fast moving target when your allies are sneaking up behind her. Leona ducked the stream of bullets and two men went down. Leaping forward she kicked the automatic weapon out of the panicking mans hand and threw the pen high into the air.

    As he stumbled back, she grabbed him by the lapels and gave him a sharp head butt, knocking his head back. Dazed, he opened his eyes just in time to see the ballpoint pen coming back down, point first.

    As the mans lifeless body collapsed, Leona pulled his sidearm out of its holster.

    Twenty seconds later, the mooks were all lying on the ground unconscious, dead, or holding their groins and whimpering. Leona ran to the window to see Mrs. Black in the parking lot, getting into a black SUV. No time to take the stairs. Aw hell...

    As Black turned the ignition and started the car, the window to the clinic exploded in a rain of falling glass. Leona rolled to her feet, brushing the shards off her as she ran at the SUV, but Black was already screeching out into the street and away into the distance.

    Damn. Leona slowed to a stop, starting to feel the pain from the glass and bullet wounds. Leaning over with her hands on her knees, she tried to catch her breath. How was she going to track them now?

    At this point, a man approached her from the side. "Hi there," he said. "My names Peter Gunn.* I was just wondering if you've considered Jesus as-"

    At this point, Leona backhanded him in the face and knee'd him fiercely in the groin. As he collapsed, she hit him over the head with a golf club.

    Leaving the boring secondary character whimpering on the ground and throwing aside the golf club, she held one of the nastier wounds closed with her hand as she mentally worked out her next move. Her only lead had gotten away; none of the mooks would know anything; if she knew how her enemies operated any valuable information in the clinic would have been remotely destroyed by now, and worst of all: they had known she was coming. How had they known?

    She couldn’t trust anybody anymore. At a time like this, there was only one thing to do.

    * * *

    The guy behind the counter at the coffee shop looked up to find an attractive young woman standing in front of him.

    "Err... yes, ma'am? Do you need something?" he said with a fake smile, which faded as his eyes took in the blood pouring from the multiple cuts and gashes, the tears and glass shards in her clothes and the heavy covering of dust. "Perhaps an ambulence?"

    "Get me a latte." Leona's eyes narrowed. "Now."

    -End of Chapter 3-
    Authors Note: Ooh, Cliffhanger! (not really, I just like saying that) Will Leona get her Latte? Who are her mysterious enemies, and which character-we-probably-haven’t-met-yet is a traitor working for them? Where the hell did that golf-club come from? Find out next time!

    * I’m calling it now: Peter Gunn is not a once-off character. He’ll be back later on in the story (Miss Raquels story, not this one), probably as a love interest to our pregnant protagonist.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Darnit, trying to do links in blogger sucks. Go again...

    (Previous Chapter)

    ReplyDelete
  19. Poor DM, even when he makes threats he's so uninventive....

    As for Leona... what can one say.

    And that **? So true it's scary.

    ReplyDelete
  20. you are not going to tell me what I believe...


    we're going to play a NEW GAME...

    FROM NOW ON:

    EVERYTHING YOU SAY I WILL DOUBLE ON YOU...

    Atheists,

    you are going to learn even to TALK about GOD the way you do is going to cost you your lives...



    Atheists,

    you are going to learn even to TALK about GOD the way you do is going to cost you your lives...


    the writing on the wall...



    f*ck you very much!



    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6e/Touched_by_His_Noodly_Appendage.jpg

    see, you degenerates have last names like first names...

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

    how about I believe in WHATEVER I want - even in the FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER! - and you have nothing to say!


    let me show you the end results of this particular *ONE-DIMENSIONAL SCIENTIFIC MODE*
    of thinking that is called *CRITICAL THINKING*, which is completely divorced from
    any human objectives...

    this style has been perfected by dawkins, pz, randi and the other *NEW ATHEISTS*
    **
    THE BOOBQUAKE - 911!


    see how we take a term and convert it into its AUTHENTIC POLITICAL DIMENSION - THAT
    OF LIBERATION - not just merely harmless expression...

    visit


    http://dissidentphilosophy.lifediscussion.net/philosophy-f1/the-boobquake-911-t1310.htm

    ReplyDelete
  21. He spams a lot of places. I delete his stuff too. Some of his stuff has been very bad (he sent a series of death threats to PZ a while back).

    Relating to the consumption of fancy coffee beverages, I realized I was really a stereotypical New England liberal when I was trying to remember what "grilled cheese" was called and said to my brother "you know, like a panini with cheese, but fewer other stuff, and more grilling." I felt pretty stupid when he said "you mean grilled-cheese?". I don't have the fancy coffee consumption habit just yet. I'm working on it.

    ReplyDelete
  22. DM.

    It would appear you really enjoy trolling, for no other purpose than to appease your own delusions and to perhaps annoy those you percieve as your 'enemies'. But can you answer me this: what is your life worth? What have you achieved, in all the years you have lived, in all the time you have spent on the internet, that makes your existence worth more than a pathetic mix of annoyance and mental degradation? What have you built, what have you experienced, what have you contributed to this world, beyond the sad, fearful rants of a delusional internet troll?

    Anything?

    Or will you be as worth as much in death as you are in life, stagnant and rotting in your own tiny little box, to be forgotten and ignored forever like the pathetic, insignificant little creature you are?

    /rant

    ReplyDelete
  23. you are not going to tell me what I believe...


    we're going to play a NEW GAME...

    FROM NOW ON:

    *******************************************

    EVERYTHING YOU SAY I WILL DOUBLE ON YOU...

    *******************************************
    Atheists,

    you are going to learn even to TALK about GOD the way you do is going to cost you your lives...


    the writing on the wall...



    f*ck you very much!


    THE BOOBQUAKE - 911!


    see how we take a term and convert it into its AUTHENTIC POLITICAL DIMENSION - THAT OF LIBERATION - not just merely harmless expression...

    visit

    http://dissidentphilosophy.lifediscussion.net/philosophy-f1/the-boobquake-911-t1310.htm

    ReplyDelete
  24. you are going to learn that ATHEISM IS A DEATH SENTENCE...

    So's everything else...

    ReplyDelete
  25. DM: why don't you tell us something about yourself? Do you have the feeling people don't understand you? I know I do sometimes.

    ReplyDelete
  26. @ Zilch - I've been trying to get an answer to that for weeks, now - and I'm far from the first to try. If you have any better luck, please let me know.

    ReplyDelete
  27. @ Michael- It's a puzzle, isn't it? Some people are hard to figure.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Why do I think that DM's "boobquake" will turn out to be an amateur porn site?

    ReplyDelete

Comments are for you guys, not for me. Say what you will. Don't feel compelled to stay on topic, I enjoy it when comments enter Tangentville or veer off into Non Sequitur Town. Just keep it polite, okay?

I am attempting to use blogger's new comment spam feature. If you don't immediately see your comment, it is being held in spam, I will get it out next time I check the filter. Unless you are Dennis Markuze, in which case you're never seeing your comment.

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Forever in Hell by Personal Failure is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at foreverinhell.blogspot.com.