Written by Czar Fruitcake
SUMMARY: A multifaceted THWACK in response to the episode aired on February 24, entitled “High Anxiety.”
Ruthie Camden left the chaos in the backyard, feeling as though her work was done, at least for the time being. Her THWACKing hand was feeling a bit sore from all the stupidity it had been forced to combat that day, so she decided to get some ice for it from the freezer. Entering the kitchen through the back door, she pondered why everyone on the show seemed to enter that way instead of using the front entrance.
Upon entering the kitchen, she found Simon, and Samvid staring dreamily at Cecilia, drool dripping down all their faces, and Cecilia staring back at Simon with an equally disgusting face. She picked up the twins and was greeted with a protest from one of Samvid’s heads: “Put us down, Ruthie! We want to stare at Ceceeeeeeliiiiiaaaaaa. She’s beeeeauuuutiful.”
The slightly dumber head echoed, “beeeeeeauuuuutiful.”
Ruthie rolled her eyes, tempted to THWACK, but resisted the urge. “Scram,” she told them, “you’re way too young to be staring at this dumb blonde girl with a high pitched voice who was only cast because she’s Jessica Simpson’s younger sister.”
Neither Simon nor Cecilia responded. THWACK! She smacked them each upside the head in turn, but to no avail. She sighed, THWACKed them each again, and this time Cecilia went cross-eyed and yelled, “hey!”
“Oh, quit staring at each other!” Ruthie exclaimed. “It’s not like either of you are attractive at all! Simon, I know your brain probably hurts from trying to maintain conversation with a wannabe-Barbie doll, but take your drooling out of our kitchen. Take the lisp princess to a movie or something.”
“Communication! Trust! Motivation! Understanding! LOVE!!!” Annie sang Broadway-style, tap-dancing around the room with a huge grin on her face. Ruthie THWACKed her, then wandered past the door of Eric’s study and peeked in.
“Random thought, Eric – wouldn’t it be cool if we could fly?” Morgan asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Eric replied.
“Or if we could play in a traveling jazz band?”
Eric’s eyes bugged out really big. “NO!!!” he shrieked, grabbing Morgan by the wrist and dragging him into the den where Annie and Patricia were sipping tea. They ran by so fast that they knocked Ruthie over, rendering her mildly conscious and unable to THWACK.
“What is it, Eric?” Annie asked, her eyes nearly tripling in size with concern.
“Morgan wants to run away and join a traveling jazz band as part of his midlife crisis that of course must parallel mine exactly because he and Patricia are having marital problems and are refusing to address the issues that are causing each of them to feel misunderstood by the other!”
“HUH?” Morgan and Patricia said in unison. “Eric, we…” Patricia began, but Annie cut her off.
“Dear lord!” she exclaimed, her head ballooning out to epic proportions. “Quick, we need to be the horribly-meddlesome-and-nosy-for-no-particular-reason friends we are and find some idiotic and senseless way to feel as though we are helping these dear friends of ours that we haven’t spoken to in at least two-and-a-half seasons! Lock them in the closet! Then they’ll be forced to confront their issues!”
In the whirlwind that follows, somehow Morgan and Patricia ended up locked in the hall closet. Ruthie, still lying immobilized on the ground, got trampled. “Ben!” she wailed. “I need to get out of this house! Help me!”
Ben and Ruthie went on a little trip – to the Promenade, because they realized that the Promenade was the only public center in Glen Oak.
“Hey, Ben, this is Jill,” Ruthie announced, pointing to a tall woman with dark hair. “She likes long walks in the woods and…”
“Security! Security!” Jill shrieked in terror. THWACK! Jill got smacked upside the head. “You can’t call security, you moron! I didn’t do anything to you! And just watch Ben take off his shirt; THEN you won’t be running.”
Just then, a very guilty looking Simon and Cecilia emerged from the movie theater that was, of course, right next to the outdoor café.
“What are you doing?” Ruthie asked. “Did I not just tell you to watch a movie?”
“We tried,” Simon told her. “But then they kicked us out for making out.”
“You know what, Simon?” Cecilia said, her pretty little face scrunched up as though she was deep in contemplation. “I don’t think we can see each other anymore.”
“What?! Why?” Simon exclaimed in surprise.
Ruthie rubbed her hands together and smiled. This was going to be good.
“Well, I really like you and you really like me. Last time that happened, we almost had sex. Well, I don’t want to have sex, and I’m afraid that if we see each other we might end up having sex, and I don’t want to,” Cecilia smiled sweetly, proud that she was able to string so many words together without stopping.
Ruthie THWACKed her without even saying anything. Some things just weren’t even worth trying to explain to someone like Cecilia.
“Uh, Cecilia…” Simon began. “Can’t we just see each other and decide not to have sex?”
“Ummmm…yeah, I guess that would work. Yay!” she squealed.
Ruthie sighed and decided to wander around the rest of the promenade in search of someone with a third of her intelligence and common sense. Instead she found Roxanne.
“The police force is evil! I can’t believe that they fired my father just for killing that bastard that murdered my mother!” she shrieked. “And YOU!” she yelled, turning toward Chandler. “I can’t believe that you are such a die-hard liberal that you don’t condone taking personal revenge against those who may have harmed you in the past!”
THWACK! Roxanne got hers upside the head. “Owwww!” she shrilled. “That may have messed up my hair!”
“Well, that’s just too darn bad, you dumb twit! Did it ever occur to you that the police force couldn’t possibly have fired your father? There was a witness, for crying out loud! And where did you get the impression that conservatives support personal vendettas? Allow me to impress you with my SAT vocabulary before I THWACK you again.”
She THWACKed Roxanne and then Chandler, who exclaimed, “what was THAT for? I didn’t do anything stupid!”
“Look at who you’re dating,” Ruthie called as she sauntered off to get Ben to take her home. Sadly, the entire make-believe town of Glen Oak seemed to have been bitten by the stupid bug.
As Ruthie and Ben entered the Camden backyard, they were greeted by a whole host of interesting characters, among them a hermaphrodite acrobat, a hairy hobo who was chewing his arm, and a small doggie wearing ragged clothing and a sad, abused expression.
“Um, I’ll go get my dad,” Ruthie told them, patting the doggie on the head and offering the hobo a peanut butter sandwich to chew on. Ben scowled at the sandwich.
“Dad!” she exclaimed, running into the house. “You’ve spent your entire day chasing the Hamiltons around and now your random street clients are polluting our backyard!” Ruthie stopped short in her tracks when she saw her so-called parents watching John and Patricia getting it on in the hall closet.
Ruthie’s cries alerted all the “adults,” and the Hamiltons emerged from the closet wearing huge grins.
Annie started sobbing. “I’m so happy that we were able to save your marriage!” she wept. “I was so sad when you guys were thinking about getting a divorce.
John and Patricia exchanged weary looks.
THWACK! “You didn’t get them back together!” Ruthie yelled, unsure if she could take being in this family any longer. “They were never fighting to begin with!”
Annie and Eric looked very confused, and Patricia and John smiled with satisfaction.
THWACK! Ruthie hit them upside the head as well. “That’s for disappearing for two seasons when you’re supposed to be our best friends. And do you think that your presence adds diversity to the show? Your entire family is a clone of ours with the exception that your family is black, mine is white, and I’m some random mix of Hispanic origins.”
Ruthie looked down at her hand, which was now an odd shade of purple. It was really time to get some ice and save the rest of the THWACKing for another day…