This document acknowledges that Lauren (“Talent”) has agreed to appear for a MAXIMUM of THREE (3) days and TWO (2) nights at the residence of her mother (“Venue”) during the Thanksgiving holiday, pursuant to the terms of this agreement.
ACCOMMODATIONS
Venue will provide Talent with complete, private access to her childhood bedroom (a.k.a. “the Pilates room”) for the duration of her appearance. It is additionally agreed that, during Talent’s visit, Venue’s New Husband (“VNH”) will abstain completely from the use of Talent’s bathroom. Venue is responsible for communicating this deal point to VNH and monitoring him daily after breakfast to insure that this stipulation is enforced. Furthermore, if this agreement is broken, and VNH uses Talent’s bathroom, Venue will not tell Talent that it’s “no big deal,” or laugh when VNH makes his usual joke to Talent about air fresheners. Venue is aware that Talent’s bathroom has no ventilation, and is situated right next to Talent’s bed, and that by using Talent’s bathroom VNH is effectively going to the bathroom in her bed. Venue understands that VNH’s use of Talent’s bathroom is a major violation of her space and so disrespectful that it is basically on par with assault. Venue will not gaslight Talent into thinking she is crazy for being furious that VNH has used her bathroom.
CANCELlATION POLICY
Honestly, if VNH uses Talent’s bathroom, Talent will just fly back to San Francisco. She will literally just walk right out of the house without saying goodbye to anyone and take an Uber to the airport and that will be that. There are THREE (3) other bathrooms in the house; just tell VNH to use one of the MANY OTHER BATHROOMS.
ALCOHOL
Venue shall provide Talent with unlimited, unmonitored access to a fully stocked bar for the duration of her appearance, featuring a MINIMUM of:
ONE (1) gallon-size handle of vodka.
An adequate supply of orange juice, Diet Coke, and other mixers to enable Talent to consume vodka discreetly.
FIVE (5) bottles of drinkable white wine.
Sundry beers.
Venue will not comment on the quantity of Talent’s drinking during her appearance, or monitor the “level” of vodka in the bottle. Talent will be drinking, and that’s just going to be what it is. Talent will also go outside sometimes to smoke weed, and that’s not going to be a thing, either; that’s just going to be treated as a normal thing.
RECENT LAYOFF
Talent will perform ONE (1) five-minute summary of her recent layoff from her startup, including a GENERAL description of what the startup did, and a BRIEF explanation of its failure. Talent will not answer questions about the current state of her finances, health-insurance status, or job prospects.
Venue agrees not to make reference to the article she read titled “Top Ten High-Paying Jobs That Literally Anyone Can Do with Zero Experience.” Venue will recall that she has already e-mailed and texted the article to Talent THREE (3) times. Venue is additionally aware that said article is not a real article but a clickbait advertisement generated by CareerMonkey.com, designed to trick people into buying a subscription to that site. Venue will not debate this fact by pointing at the article’s “byline” as “proof” that it’s a “real article.” Venue will accept the reality that many online ads are given bylines now, in order to make them look like real articles. If Venue insists that “this one looks real,” Talent will zoom in on the “article” and show Venue where it says “Paid Post,” and the debate will be settled. Venue will not read the words “Paid Post” out loud, in a suspicious tone of voice, and then shrug at VNH in a way that implies that there is still some ambiguity about whether it is a real article. Venue will just admit, for once in her life, that she was wrong about one thing. Jesus.
TRANSPORTATION
Venue agrees to reimburse Talent $432 for the cost of her round-trip plane ticket, but will not tell anyone that she had to do that, especially not Talent’s Perfect Doctor Brother with His Perfect Wife and Perfect Children (“TPDBHPWPC”).
KLONOPIN
On the night before TPDBHPWPC arrives, Talent will take Klonopin.
LIGHTING REQUIREMENTS
The following morning (a.k.a. “Thanksgiving”), Venue will refrain from entering Talent’s bedroom and opening Talent’s blinds in a passive-aggressive attempt to wake her up. If Venue breaks this stipulation, she will ADMIT that her intention was to wake up Talent. Venue will not make up an insane lie about wanting to “let air in.” Venue is aware that opening blinds does not let air in. Opening WINDOWS lets air in. Opening blinds just lets in bright, punishing light, right into Talent’s face.
REHEARSAL TIME
When TPDBHPWPC pulls in with his station wagon, Talent requires FIVE (5) minutes to drink some coffee and just mentally prepare for all those fucking kids and all the questions about her getting fired and the goddam dance with her perfect sister-in-law Jenn about who’s going to do the stupid pie.
MEET AND GREET
After drinking a MINIMUM of TWO (2) cups of coffee, Talent agrees to participate in a meet-and-greet session with TPDBHPWPC’s latest perfect baby and pose for a MAXIMUM of THREE (3) photographs holding said baby.
CANCELlATION POLICY
If VNH makes ANY kind of comment implying that Talent should have a baby by this point in her life, even if it is said in the most lighthearted, innocuous way (e.g., “You look pretty good holding one of those!”), it is Uber, airport, tearing through the sky to S.F. What fucking right does VNH have to say shit? He has been in the picture for a MAXIMUM of FOUR (4) years (unless he and Venue met while Dad was STILL ALIVE, which is math we’ll get into if this kind of shit keeps happening).
THANKSGIVING MEAL REQUIREMENTS
Talent shall be seated as far as possible from VNH, on the “wine side” of the table. Talent will not be required to initiate conversation during the meal. Talent agrees to politely listen to a MAXIMUM of TWO (2) dry updates about her high-school classmates’ parents who still live in town, provided they are of reasonable length and do not contain digressions about local real-estate developments. Talent will not point out each time Venue repeats a story but will internally keep track of the repetitions.
In between dinner and dessert, Talent will corner TPDBHPWPC in the kitchen and ask him his medical opinion about Venue’s fading memory. Talent will be surprised to hear from TPDBHPWPC that Venue’s senility is “age appropriate.” When Talent pushes back, TPDBHPWPC will tell Talent that Venue’s mental deterioration would be less of a shock if she had observed it more gradually, over the course of several visits, the implication being that she should visit Venue more. Talent will remind TPDBHPWPC that she works in San Francisco, and TPDBHPWPC will point out that she “doesn’t work there anymore.” Talent will be fucking devastated. Talent will catch sight of a faded family photo of a half-remembered trip to Sarasota, of Venue posing with Talent and TPDBHPWPC in some low-rent water park. Talent will try to mentally calculate Venue’s age in the picture, but be too drunk to do the math, and make TPDBHPWPC do it for her. Talent will be stunned to learn that Venue is TWO (2) years YOUNGER in the picture than Talent is now. Talent just won’t be able to believe that. It will almost be too crazy to process. Talent will be rocked by the sense that she is hurtling toward death with nothing to show for her FORTY (40) years on the planet but wasted potential. TPDBHPWPC will tell Talent that he needs to get back to the living room because his two-year-old is missing and probably making a mess. Talent will grip TPDBHPWPC’s wrist and ask him if he thinks Dad was proud of her before he died, even though she never paid him back for her ill-conceived master’s in museum studies. Talent will start to cry and not understand why she is crying. Jenn will come in to check on her pie, and quickly back out of the room. TPDBHPWPC will reiterate to Talent that he needs to search for his missing two-year-old. Talent will grip TPDBHPWPC’s wrist even harder and ask him if he thinks she’s too old to apply to law school, or business school, and if he thinks she should get back together with Dane, even though they had zero sexual connection. TPDBHPWPC will suggest that Talent drink ONE (1) glass of water.
When TPDBHPWPC is gone, Talent will stand alone in the dim kitchen for a MINIMUM of FIVE (5) minutes just completely spiralling, thinking about the darkest, most fucked-up shit. Talent will inwardly acknowledge that it was a mistake to use her loss of health insurance as an excuse to pause therapy.
Talent will feel a tug on her jeans. Talent will look down and see that TPDBHPWPC’s Missing Two-Year-Old (“M2YO”) has wandered into the kitchen at some point, because he smelled pie. M2YO will ask Talent for pie. Talent will realize that M2YO probably doesn’t know her name, or even how they’re related, because they’ve only met a MAXIMUM of THREE (3) times, and she forgot to mail him a birthday present this year because she is a worthless piece of shit. Talent will tearfully tell him that she is his Aunt Lauren, and that she is sorry for forgetting his birthday, and M2YO will shrug with absolute indifference, because he has no conception of time or genetic relatedness, and he will ask again for pie, in as loud a voice as he can muster, and all at once Talent will see herself through the eyes of M2YO, not as a failure, or a monster, or even as a human, really, just a physical barrier to pie, and she will temporarily reframe the weekend as a saga about pie, and a two-year-old’s quest to obtain it, and she’ll cut him a slice, and watch him shove it in his crusty mouth, surprised by how relieved she is to cede the stage, to give in to somebody—anybody—else’s demands, and she will laugh out loud for the first time in recent memory, feeling free and for one miraculous moment even slightly thankful.
At any moment, and without prior warning, all terms and conditions are subject to change. ♦
