9-hour drive
on March 13, 2014 at 12:01 amChapter: Premarital Hanky-Panky
Location: Danny's parents' house
And so Mary’s smile disappears, her judgmental attitude surfaces, and so suddenly we have the Mary you may recognize from Dumbing of Age. Her metamorphosis is complete.
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She has been transformed. She is now MARY! Evil hypocrite of the night.
This sure reads a lot like simple sexual jealousy. Mary’s hyper-perky and SOMEWHAT judgmental when it’s just her and Danny, but the glacier doesn’t really descend upon her until she sees that Danny and Billie have gone off alone. That’s when it really hits her, it becomes REAL, that her pluck an’ sass an’ charm isn’t going to get her what she wants. Well, fine. So being a “nice girl” makes her finish last? Lesson learned.
Something about Mary’s expressions and body language back here make me think she was angling for a threesome. It’d explain her “no, you guys totally like each other, see, put your arms around each other”, “wait what you went off alone together!?” flip-flopping!
Is it Danny or Joe holding her back? Probably Danny, because Joe would want to see a cat fight.
I was assuming Danny based on the relative skinniness of the arm, but that logic works, too.
I figure Joe would want to see them make out!
[joe]If they fight, they might accidentally kiss![/joe]
You can’t see someone running in place like that without mentally playing this sound.
Yeah, that was in my head too, just couldn’t remember what it was called.
I read DoA first, but when I got to Roomies, I didn’t actually recognize Mary. I kind of ignored her in DoA, not seeing her as important.
She really only ever was relevant for this final section of Roomies, is the thing. Her minimal appearances in Dumbing of Age are because I don’t think ANYONE really wants to see her for reasons beyond schadenfreude (Which we have enough of right now, thank you) and seeing if there’s anything at all salvageable in there (Answer: Doubtful).
She works as an interesting counterpoint to Joyce. She’s sticking to her beliefs more than following her beliefs.
Well put. There are some DoA readers (though fewer than there used to be, I think) whose attitude to Joyce is, “Oh, she’s so intolerant!” No, Joyce was raised to be intolerant. But her friendship with Dorothy, and her willingness to stand up to her parents over it, shows she isn’t intolerant at heart. Mary is intolerant at heart.
I dunno…I kinda enjoyed seeing her that time in DoA when Billie hid in her room and she still wasn’t dressed…yet was wearing wristbands. Fan service and a puzzle to ponder. Why would she be hanging about not bother putting on a shirt, yet make sure her wrists are covered? My mind boggled.
Maybe she was just changing out of her exercise clothes.
But, yeah, I’ve kind of been wondering what DoA Mary’s deal is, too. But since it still seems to have left her a judgmental B-word, much more Evil Joyce than Anti-Joyce ever was, not wondering too hard.
She pretty much always wears the wristbands. Brushing her teeth in her pajamas? Wristbands. Dressed up for church? Wristbands. The one scene where she doesn’t appear to be (when she’s hating on a 12-year-old girl for having the temerity to be related to her roommate), she’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt.
Maybe they’re symbolic of her submission to Jesus Christ. Or maybe she wears them for the same reason Sal always wears gloves.
Hm. My mind goes straight to “major scarring on her wrists,” and suddenly I’m feeling sorry for Evil DoA Mary.
And I’d guess probably self-inflicted. And that’s why I’m not wondering too hard. I don’t want to feel sorry for Mary; it’d taint the purity of my hate.
I can only picture Willis as the evil emperor, standing over Mary.
“Now, Lord Vader… Ariiiiiiiiiise….”
Her hair DOES look kinda Vader-helmety
“NOOOOooooooooooooo!”
She’s gonna say that at some point, right?
And now my lingering question, “How and when did Mary go from goody-two-shoes to self-righteous grump?”, is answered. Thanks, Willis!
“9 hours in a car with Danny”.
Her metamorphosis from a consciencepiller to a terrible judgerfly.
I’ve wanted to ask this for like forever. You had no concept of distance at that point, did you?
…god, I’m a sad man…
What do you mean? I made that drive that summer. Frankly, during this period, I was no stranger to 9-hour drives. For school breaks I’d take a 9-hour drive from my school in Chicago to the upper peninsula of Michigan to visit my friends. My truck didn’t have a clock in it and I didn’t own a watch and the cellphone hadn’t been invented yet, and so I’d keep time by playing the same song over and over on my portable CD player and mentally calculate the time passed. Often I’d leave at 4 in the morning to get home in time for my work shift that afternoon and just drive straight through, no stops except for gas. Just nothing but Wisconsin wilderness for half a day. Back in those days, you could stop inside an Indian reservation for gas for often under a buck per gallon!
So, yes, I had a concept of distance. I am unsure why you ask.
I was just asking because I’ve made the Mt. Rushmore to Chicago trip as well and it took me about 16 hours. Or was I just kinder to the speed limits?
A lot of my family lives in the UP and I grew up in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, so I know that trip really well. The only nice thing is, throughout the years, the expressway slowly continued to expand past Green Bay until finally the drive is “only” 7 hours or so these days.
Who knew not having sex could turn people evil.
Distance as in mileage or in viewpoint?
Originally posted:
August 20, 1999
Just let her go, Billie.
Imagine her getting hit by a bus on the way home.