STARTER MARRIAGE: BOBBING FOR APPLES

 

Dot and Sonny are at the Halloween party at Above The Top.

Dot: bobbing for apples is fun but it's messy. my blouse is gonna get all wet. that's what you want, huh, to see my nipples!!!

Sonny: take a look at this giant grey tin stadium-shaped horse-trough filled with dark water and always 30 red apples, never any green apples. you're not gonna see this past the '80s...

Dot: what are you supposed to be anyway? you're only wearing a black sweatshirt.

Sonny: Robert Redford as Death from that Twilight Zone episode. at least it's black clothes of a sort like a tuxedo. and what is YOUR costume? you're just wearing your regular jiggle-boob black-and-white French cocktail waitress uniform from a French mystery train. with lace. 

Dot: Clue is new. i'm going as a working actress named Gail Edwards...

Sonny: okay dollface, here's where the fun and games start. stick your hand in this blind hole here and tell me what you feel.

Dot: this is like Downtown Los Angeles when i'm with Richard Dawson. 

Sonny, smirking: feels like brains, huh.

Dot: nah, it's cold spaghetti. i work as a waitress, remember?

Sonny: this Shirley Temple is the sweetest blood i've ever tasted.

5AM: don't eat a Big Mac in the 5AM-6AM window...

Jen R: i'm going as Ann. cuffing season? nah, it's cuddle season. cuddle your soulmate.

me dancing and sing-songy: Jen is available, Jen is available, Jen is available...

Jen: both meanings. as in i'm divorced and back online...

me: Jen, keep dreaming of California till you make it out here.

Jen holding a full-size surfboard made of gingerbread: both meanings. as in physically going to the location of California and making it in California being successful with my graphite sketchbook.

Stevie Nicks: i was the first Samhain witch.

Shaggy: hey Kid Rock, what's offensive is you ruining my '70s pot cool with your stench. 

Scooby-Doo: i bit Kid Rock on the leg at his concert, remember that?

Head of the Class board game: the teacher is wearing a covid mask!!! fascinating.

Cassie from Skins: we have nothing in common.

Cassie from It's a Living: yeah we do, kid, we're both blondes who like to get naked. i had messed-up teeth when i was a teen, too.

Cassie from Skins: have you ever been a fairy?

Cassie from It's a Living: no but i've dated a few living in Los Angeles. London is the British Los Angeles.

Cassie from Skins: you're a waitress and i don't eat...

Christmas lights: it feels so good to PLUG INTO the side of a house. no outdoor outlet?, no Christmas lights for you this year. too bad so sad.

 

Nixon: nixing...

Jen R: in the '70s and '80s people were free and loose. a woman would just go up to a strange man and start tickling him all over his body, making out on his neck, to show she was interested...

Sonny: sounds humiliating.

Dot: i mean i have on THE BEST DRESS i've EVER worn on this show!!! right? my makeup perfectly shaded to match the evening sun. 

Sonny: and you have a singing voice that melts. it's a better voice than mine and i'm not too man to admit that now.

Dot: and my blind date turns out to be the boy who voices Robin. 

Scott Menville: is my voice STILL cracking?

Robin: in fairness, even as a grown man i sound like a boy...

Sonny: in the '80s there were personals in tabloids. in the '80s 87% of all marriages came from answering the personals...

Dot: it wasn't so much the humiliation, it was that this was yet another patch sewn into the forlorn fabric, the tragic tapestry of my frenetic hapless life where i never found my soulmate...

Shohei Ohtani: if this baseball thing doesn't work out i can always be Jin in that K-Pop boy band...

potato salad: you need greeny leafy vegetables, dude!!!

Cameron Crowe: when i was 15 with hippie-long hair, i decided early on i needed to be where the action was. i needed to know every musician, every actor, every dealer, but mostly every groupie.

Ginger on It's a Living: the thing is, i must have been on A Different World at some point...

sodium fart: after McDonald's.

the toilet vomits: after a particularly violent flush.

Newsom: pick up a newspaper...

Norman Fell: life sucks, kids. i'm not speaking as Mr. Roper, i'm speaking as Norman Fell. call me a crank but it's true. go ahead, call me a crotchety old bastard man, i dare ya. because The Ropers lasted a season AND A HALF, i couldn't come back to Three's Company. a half. half. half & half. i HATE half & half in my cocoa!!!

thanks in advance: it's a robocall email...

someone's niece: Jack Tripper's next date...

landlocked.

Switzerland: comforting.

Lesotho: trapped.

Instagram: it's a one-day thing...

Melissa Maker wearing a candystriper Toronto Blue Jays cap:  you know, your first marriage doesn't have to be a starter marriage, it can against all odds last. 

Sonny: like you and Chad?

Melissa: well, smart guy, we didn't do things together, like you two are doing. can you still call them monkey suits?...

Dot with a heavy external sigh: yeah, after the party Sonny and i are BOTH gonna get haircuts at the same barbershop on Halloween night. i guess.