Regina: Let’s say you could do anything you wanted.

Sarah: Oh, yes — let’s.

Regina: No, really. Let’s say you could do whatever you wanted and get away with it.

Sarah: Okay. Hee.

Regina: What?

Sarah: Oh, just thinking about the post office.

Regina: Okay, so if you — why the post office?

Sarah: Yeah. If I could do anything I wanted.

Regina: And your first thought is the…post office?

Sarah: Well, I was just there earlier, and it sucked, you know, like it does —

Regina: Sure.

Sarah: — and there’s a wicked long line and only three people working and they’ve got the oldies station on the PA system, right?

Regina: Is this going to be the “Soldier Boy” story again?

Sarah: What “Soldier Boy” sto — oh, fuck, FUCK! Fuck YOU!

Regina: Oh, shit — sorry, dude! I didn’t mean to —

Sarah: Now it’s going to get stuck in my HEAD again!

Regina: I’m sorry!

Sarah: You damn well SHOULD be! That goddamn song is IMPOSSIBLE to dislodge, now I’ll be singing it ALL day and it’s YOUR fault, so I get to CALL you in the MIDDLE of the NIGHT and —

Regina: Ohhhh no you don’t, forget it, the last time this happened —

Sarah: — I do SO get to call you and sing in your ear —

Regina: — I had a GUEST, you know!

Sarah: — “IIIII’LL BEEEEE TRUUUUUE TOOOO YOUUUUUUU!”

Regina: I only picked up the phone because I thought you might NEED me or something!

Sarah: I DID need you. I needed you to hear me tell you that “YOU WERE MY FIRRRRRST LOOOOOOVE, and you’ll be my LAAAAAAAST LOOOOOOVE” —

Regina: I will NOT be ANY SUCH THING.

Sarah: “IN THIS WHOOOOOOLE WORLD!”

Regina: All right, all RIGHT, I am SORRY I brought up “Soldier Boy,” could you please —

Sarah: “YOU CAN LOVE BUT OOOOONE GIRRRRL!”

Regina: Could you please please stop that?

Sarah: “LET ME BE THAT OOOOOONE GIRRRRL!”

Regina: No. Please stop that now.

Sarah: I’ll be true to you, Reg. You know?

Regina: Is it over now?

Sarah: I think so. I mean, it’s still in my head, but I’m done singing.

Regina: Okay, good.

Sarah: FOR NOW.

Regina: What were we even talking about?

Sarah: Well, now that you mention it, I believe we were talking about a young man I like to call —

Regina: Oh, please, please, PLEASE don’t.

Sarah: “SOOOOOOOOOOOOLDIER BOY!”

Regina: Just couldn’t resist, could you?

Sarah: “OH MY LITTLE SOOOOOOOLDIER BOY!”

Regina: Oh, all right.

Sarah: “IIIIII’LLL BEEEEE –”

Regina: “TRUUUUUE TOOOOOO –”

Sarah: “YOUUUUUUUUU!”

Regina: “Ba da da dee daaaah.”

Sarah: That? Was awesome.

Regina: That was scary, is what that was. What’s with you and that song, anyway?

Sarah: Seriously? I have no idea. My mom and I went through this phase where it would get stuck in my head, and then in her head, and we both hated it, so as a joke we’d sing it at each other and pass it back and forth, like, ambush-style — like, I’d be reading a book on the porch or something and she’d whip the front door open, yell out, “SOOOOOOLDIER BOY,” slam the door, and run away, and then I’d retaliate by putting it on her shopping list or something, like, wedging the words “Soldier Boy” in between “Diet Pepsi” and “bread.”

Regina: Your family? Is weird.

Sarah: Yeah, pull up a chair and tell me about it. But you know what’s really weird about the “Soldier Boy” thing?

Regina: Oh God. What?

Sarah: It’s not the only song from the Born on the Fourth of July soundtrack that gets ruthlessly stuck in my head.

Regina: Really? Wait — oh my GOD I totally know what you’re going to SAY!

Sarah: Awwww yeah.

Regina: “VEEEEEENUS!”

Sarah: “HEEEEEY VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENUS!”

Regina: OH MY GOD!

Sarah: Dude. I. KNOW!

Regina: That song is NOT RIGHT.

Sarah: For real.

Regina: “VENUS IF YOU WILL!”

Sarah: “PLEASE FIND A LITTLE GIRL FOR ME TO THRILL!” Yeah, I know.

Regina: “AND SOMETHING something –” Shit. What’s the rest?

Sarah: Uh…”AND SOMETHING something something something blah, AS LONG AS –”

Regina: “– WE BOTH SHALL LIVE, OOO EEE OOO OOO!”

Sarah: Oh, the “OOO EEE OOO.” It’s a nightmare, that part.

Regina: But the “HEEEEY VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENUS,” that’s the worst.

Sarah: I know it. I know it well.

Regina: Hey, if I can guess where your cats are right now, will you give me ten dollars?

Sarah: No, because they’re obviously under the bed.

Regina: Dammit.

Sarah: Sorry.

Regina: But I get to call you at three in the morning and go “HEEEEY VEEEEEEEEEEENUS” now, right?

Sarah: Oh, of course you do! As long as you always remember, Reg, dear friend, buddy of mine —

Regina: Oh God no NO NO NO!

Sarah: — “IIIII’LL BEEEEE TRUUUUUE TOOOO YOUUUUUUU!”

Regina: Okay, really. You absolutely MUST stop it with that RIGHT NOW.

Sarah: Okay.

Regina: Okay?

Sarah: Okay, okay!

Regina: Okay.

Sarah: So what were we saying?

Regina: Um…post office.

Sarah: Oldies station! Okay.

Regina: Wait. Oldies station? I’m so lost. How do we get on these tangents?

Sarah: I have no idea. One minute we’re talking about writing a novel and the next thing you know, it’s — what was it the other day?

Regina: Matte look versus shiny look.

Sarah: Yeah. And what did we even decide?

Regina: Matte for day, shiny for night. I think.

Sarah: Except in summer.

Regina: Right. Summer is shiny for day and shiny for night too. Or shinier for night. Or something. Something shiny.

Sarah: Dude. It’s happening again.

Regina: Okay, seriously. Focus. Let’s retrace our steps.

Sarah: Okay, my phone rang.

Regina: You picked up, we said hi, you said hold on ’cause you needed another Diet Coke.

Sarah: Got the Diet Coke, ran back to the phone.

Regina: Talked about the weekend.

Sarah: Got up through the Irish kick-boxer cop wannabe and started talking about Phillips.

Regina: We both yelled “DUDE GET THERAPY” a few times.

Sarah: Then — ohhhh. Okay, then you said let’s say you could do anything you wanted.

Regina: No, that YOU wanted.

Sarah: No, that — no, no, that’s right. “Let’s say you could do anything you wanted,” and then I laughed! That’s it, right?

Regina: Okay, yeah.

Sarah: So…okay, so I laughed because I was just standing there in the post office, totally bored and annoyed, and that David Cassidy song came on.

Regina: “I Think I Love You.” That one?

Sarah: Yeah, that one. Did he even have any other ones?

Regina: Not really. Anyway, go on.

Sarah: So I just had the sudden overwhelming urge to grab the little man next to me in line by the shoulders and sing “I THINK I LOVE YOU, SO WHAT AM I SO AFRAID OF” really earnestly to him, and then act out the rest of the song in mime for the rest of the people in line, and then take off my hat and let people put money in it, and then collapse dramatically on the floor of the post office.

Regina: What the HELL?

Sarah: I just thought it would be really funny.

Regina: Really funny.

Sarah: Yeah, to do that.

Regina: To sing “I Think I Love You.” In…the post office.

Sarah: Well. Yeah. Because it’s so boring there? And it would be, you know — they’d remember that, those people. For the rest of their lives. The crazy girl who acted out the words to “I Think I Love You” in the post office.

Regina: You can do anything you want. ANYTHING. You can put a love spell on Ron Eldard, you can rob Fort Knox, you can make a bikini out of goat cheese and take pictures of yourself and put them on the internet —

Sarah: Goat cheese? But where would the straps —

Regina: You can wear a tiara and make all your ex-boyfriends call you Queen Of New York while they fan you with palm fronds, and you choose to do an interpretive DANCE in the freakin’ POST OFFICE?

Sarah: I’m not saying that’s ALL I would do! It just popped into my mind because of earlier, that’s all.

Regina: All right, then.

Sarah: What? It’s a sad post office!

Regina: Of COURSE it’s a sad post office — IT’S A POST OFFICE.

Sarah: No, really! That one postal clerk got hit by a truck over the holidays, remember how I told you?

Regina: Ohhhh yeah, that lady.

Sarah: Yeah! So this would take everyone’s minds off it.

Regina: Yeah, I guess it would. She got hit by a truck — I still can’t believe that. Just crossing the street, right?

Sarah: Yeah. In the crosswalk, too. And even worse? It was a Boar’s Head truck.

Regina: No way.

Sarah: Way. I mean, like it’s not bad enough that it’s the holidays and she got killed?

Regina: Yeah. Killed by lunch meats.

Sarah: Not even by the lunch meats themselves. That would have a poetry to it, at least, even if it was completely perverse. No, she got killed by a truck CARRYING lunch meats.

Regina: God. Her poor husband.

Sarah: I know.

Regina: And Boar’s Head ham isn’t even that great, you know?

Sarah: I know, right? It’s always sweaty.

Regina: That’s horrible.

Sarah: That’s what I’m saying. So why did you ask?

Regina: Oh, I just thought that you’d only be singing and not, like, going on a date with Josh Hartnett also.

Sarah: No, I mean about doing anything I wanted. Why did you ask that in the first place?

Regina: Why DID I ask — oh, right. If you could do anything you wanted —

Sarah: With impunity?

Regina: Yeah, with impunity. If you could do anything you wanted, with impunity —

Sarah: Anything anything, or possible-within-natural-laws anything?

Regina: Hmm. Doesn’t matter. Anything you want is possible for you to do.

Sarah: Okay.

Regina: Would you kill someone?

Sarah: Sure! Well. No. Okay, it depends.

Regina: Okay, not any someone. A particular someone.

Sarah: Because I wanted to?

Regina: Well — more like “because you could,” but yeah, you wouldn’t just be killing some random person that you didn’t know.

Sarah: So you’re asking, if I could do anything I wanted, with impunity, and I wanted to kill someone, and I could do it, with impunity, would I kill that person.

Regina: Yes. Would you kill that person.

Sarah: Probably not.

Regina: Really.

Sarah: Well, like I said before, it depends.

Regina: Okay.

Sarah: Like, if I just really hated their personality? No.

Regina: Right. But what if they had no family to speak of, and no friends really so nobody would really miss them when they died, and they never gave blood and parked in the handicapped spot all the time and kicked cats when they had the chance?

Sarah: Hmm. No.

Regina: No? Even though they’re, like, a waste of space basically?

Sarah: Well, no, because then I’d have to live with the knowledge that I killed them. You know? And that I did it with no personal risk to myself.

Regina: That you’re the kind of person who would kill someone.

Sarah: Well…yeah, I guess that’s it. It’s like…okay. You know how every dorm bathroom always had one stealth barfer?

Regina: Oh Jaysus. Totally.

Sarah: And you all referred to this person as just “the barfer” because you didn’t know who it was? Like, you had your suspicions, and you’d walk into the bathroom on Sunday morning and find a sink full of puke but there was nobody around and you’d be all, “Great, the barfer strikes again.”

Regina: Right, and then you’d tape up a bitchy note addressed to the barfer all, “Could whoever FUCKING BARFED please act their AGE and clean that shit UP NEXT TIME?”

Sarah: Yeah, exactly! And then someone else would scribble underneath it, “God, seriously. If you can drink, you can MOP UP SOME BARF.”

Regina: And then someone ELSE would write, “Look, sometimes people just DON’T FEEL WELL, so don’t be so JUDGMENTAL.”

Sarah: Yep, yep, and THEN there’d be this note war with barfers and barfees writing all these snotty things like “if you’re so WORRIED about it, clean it up YOURSELF” and “why don’t YOU clean it up, BIIIIIIIITCH,” right?

Regina: Yes! And then some Commie would always bring up how the housekeeping staff shouldn’t “have to deal with a bunch of over-privileged lightweights,” and that would start a whole side fight about capitalism and white guilt? And meanwhile everyone is all Harriet the Spy trying to figure out who wrote the original “what if we have the FLU and can’t make it to the bathroom in time, BARF NAZI” note because that’s totally who barfed in the first place?

Sarah: EXACTLY! Well, it’s like that.

Regina: Like — what, now?

Sarah: Well, if you know nobody’s around, and you hork and you bail and you don’t clean it up, you know that as long as you stay out of the note war, nobody will ever know that it’s you who horked, bailed, and didn’t clean it up, right?

Regina: Right. Oh, I see. But you should clean it up anyway, because you don’t want to be that kind of person.

Sarah: Precisely.

Regina: Like that scene in Clerks with the change on the counter.

Sarah: Yeah. Oh God, that’s so much of a better example. I don’t know why I involved the barfer.

Regina: No, it worked — I got the gist.

Sarah: Anyway. On a lesser scale, that’s sort of what I mean. That you should do things, or not do them, because you know they’re right or wrong, not because you won’t get caught.

Regina: Right. Yeah, I agree.

Sarah: Not that it applies to every situation, obviously.

Regina: Obviously not.

Sarah: Because if I could do anything I wanted and someone left the Steve Madden store unattended and a shopping cart right outside, well…

Regina: You’re not a perfect person.

Sarah: Far from it.

Regina: It’s a victimless crime.

Sarah: Ostensibly. Hey, did you ever catch yours?

Regina: The barfer? No. I mean, we knew who it was, usually, but we couldn’t prove it. You?

Sarah: Yeah, one time. Well, kind of.

Regina: Wow, really? Because it’s pretty rare to nab the barfer.

Sarah: I know, right?

Regina: So how’d you catch her?

Sarah: Well, we didn’t exactly catch her. Like, she had a signature barf — she always barfed on the bathroom door because she couldn’t get the combo lock open in time.

Regina: Ohhhh, the door barf.

Sarah: I know.

Regina: I always got the force-field barfers.

Sarah: What’s a force-field barfer?

Regina: You know — all around the bowl instead of in it, like the toilet has a force field around it?

Sarah: Ewwww. Freshman year, the barfer did that. I never figured out the physics there. Like, put your head ALL THE WAY IN if you have to, woman.

Regina: For real. We could, like, identify pieces of food on the floor.

Sarah: Ugh, so could we!

Regina: EV-ery FUCK-ing SUN-day MOR-ning. “That looks like broccoli — that IS broccoli. WHAT THE FUCK?”

Sarah: God, totally. And it WAS always broccoli, too. What was going on there?

Regina: I don’t know. So, go on.

Sarah: Anyway, so the next year, the door barfer happens to live on the same hall as a friend of mine, who came home one night to find the bathroom door with a fresh new coat of barf on it, AND! The suspected barfer passed out cold right in front of it.

Regina: Oh, man. It’s all a circle of love. So it was the same girl?

Sarah: Same girl.

Regina: And justice lives to fight another day.

Sarah: Right on.

Regina: They should make a law about that shit, seriously.

Sarah: Amen, sister. Barf and run, two points on your license.

Regina: I’m serious!

Sarah: So am I, dude.

Regina: It’s littering, technically. You throw that food on the street BEFORE you digest it, it’s a two-hundred-dollar ticket.

Sarah: Hey, I’m with you. So who were you going to kill, anyway?

Regina: What? Oh. Phillips.

Sarah: Again?

Regina: More like “still.” But I wouldn’t really kill him in the end, I guess.

Sarah: Because you don’t want to be that kind of person.

Regina: Well, that, and you know, once he’s dead, he can’t suffer, which is no good to me.

Sarah: Okay, so, barring killing him, if you can still do anything you want…what do you do?

Regina: Oh, boy. Where to start?

Sarah: Well, how about forcing him to eat nothing but cabbage and refried beans for a week and then share a jail cell with seventeen burly gang members who take farts extremely personally because farts killed their beloved mothers.

Regina: Ooh, good one. See, I would have gone with dousing a hedgehog in bourbon, lighting it on fire, and jamming it tail-first up his —

Sarah: Reg, that’s really mean.

Regina: Hello? It’s PHILLIPS.

Sarah: Oh, not him — the hedgehog.

Regina: Oh. Good point. No hedgehog, then.

Sarah: How about something with chickens?

Regina: Chickens? I thought the idea was not to subject a living creature to Phillips’s —

Sarah: No, you don’t introduce a chicken into his anatomy. What you do is, you wait until he goes away for the weekend and then put a whole bunch of live chickens in his apartment.

Regina: I don’t get it. Are chickens the bird of vengeance where you come from?

Sarah: No, it’s just — you know. Chickens. You don’t think chickens have humor built right in?

Regina: I’ve never really thought about it.

Sarah: All the bok-bokking and the way they run around and peck stuff?

Regina: No. Not really.

Sarah: He’d come home and find a hen? Nesting on top of the microwave? That’s not funny to you?

Regina: A hen? A hen is funny? What are you, a Mennonite?

Sarah: Hee. Hens.

Regina: A hen is not funny. A turkey is mildly funny, but not a hen.

Sarah: See, I think a turkey is too obvious.

Regina: “Too obvious”? IT’S A TURKEY. If I wanted “SUBTLE,” I wouldn’t be contemplating placing a LARGE SMELLY FOWL in his TINY APARTMENT.

Sarah: I’m just trying to help.

Regina: I know. I just can’t think of anything good to fantasize about doing to him. I need, like, the Snickers of revenge fantasies. Small and unhealthy, but satisfying.

Sarah: Hmmm. Okay, let me see. Red ants? Honey? Genitals? That’s a favorite of mine.

Regina: Eh. Next.

Sarah: Giving him a thousand paper cuts and then dipping him in Ben-Gay?

Regina: Eh. Wait, does he get the paper cuts all over his body?

Sarah: Alllll over.

Regina: Hmmm. We’ll come back to that one. Next.

Sarah: Find a dog turd and incorporate it into a plate of brownies?

Regina: Don’t like handling poo. Next.

Sarah: Subscribe him to Cosmo Girl?

Regina: Did that. Next.

Sarah: Reg, it’s a revenge FANTASY. You don’t have to actually do the stuff.

Regina: I know. Next!

Sarah: Okay, okay, uh…uh…something…with mosquitoes? I’m out of ideas.

Regina: What would you do?

Sarah: I’d really have to go with the hen.

Regina: You and the hen.

Sarah: Listen, it’s quite brilliant, really. He walks in. There’s a hen. He’s like, “Oh, a hen. Hi, hen. WAAAAIT A MINUTE!” So he’s freaking out, but he can’t call Animal Control because he has no explanation for how the hen GOT there. Then he’s calling all his friends and screaming “WHAT’S UP WITH THE POULTRY, ASSHOLES” but none of them know anything about it and they think he’s batshit crazy with all the raving about this hen in his apartment. Then the hen is pecking his stuff and messing it up, so he’s yelling at the hen, “HEN, STOP THAT!” And then he’s like, “Well, I can’t keep calling it ‘Hen’ or it won’t listen to me,” so he’ll give it a name, like Henrietta or something, and then he won’t be able to give the hen away because now they’re friends because it has a name. And then he’ll become that guy who takes his hen for walks on a little hen harness.

Regina: Hee.

Sarah: See?

Regina: You should have mentioned the harness part before. The harness is funny.

Sarah: And he’ll get in fights with people while he’s walking the hen.

Regina: Hee. Yeah. “Is that a…hen?” “YES. WHAT OF IT? WHAT OF MY HEN?”

Sarah: And then he starts making little holiday-themed outfits for it.

Regina: And making it answer the door at Halloween.

Sarah: “Aw. What a great hen costume!” “THAT’S NO COSTUME! THAT’S MY HEN!”

Regina: And the kids won’t go to his house anymore.

Sarah: “MY HEN DOES TRICKS! WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE ONE?” “N-n-no thanks, mister.”

Regina: So he becomes the neighborhood creepy guy.

Sarah: He’d have to, I think. Unless there’s another, creepier guy in the same neighborhood tooling around with a sheep in a baby snuggly or something.

Regina: Okay. He’s the neighborhood freak. I can live with that.

Sarah: Feeling better?

Regina: Much.

Sarah: Chickens, man.

Regina: It’s not the chicken. It’s the harness. The harness sells it.

Sarah: Maybe. I like the “HEN, STOP THAT!” part.

Regina: We’re talking about hens.

Sarah: I know!

Regina: Hens!

Sarah: I know, it’s great, right?

Regina: NO! It is NOT “GREAT”! We are discussing what would HAPPEN if a GROWN MAN who I HATE adopted a HEN and LIVED WITH IT happily ever AFTER! It’s STUPID!

Sarah: You laughed, though!

Regina: THAT’S THE PROBLEM!

Sarah: Why is that a problem?

Regina: I wanted him DEAD, and now he’s all happy with his FLIGHTLESS LIFE PARTNER and it’s NOT A JOKE!

Sarah: Hee.

Regina: It’s NOT FUNNY!

Sarah: Hee hee.

Regina: SHUT UP!

Sarah: Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to sing a song for you.

Regina: STOP IT! SHUT UP! He’s in VERMONT getting married to his HEN! I’m HERE and I’m MISERABLE and I have no LIVESTOCK!

Sarah: It’s a little ditty about a man…and his hen.

Regina: You are NOT HELPING!

Sarah: “FRIIIIIICASSEEEEEE!”

Regina: Oh no.

Sarah: “OH MY LITTLE FRIIIIIICASSEEEEEEE!”

Regina: Oh God.

Sarah: “IIIII’LL BEEEEE TRUUUUUE TOOOO YOUUUUUUU!”

Regina: Hee.

Sarah: Hee.

Regina: You said “fricassee.”

Sarah: I sang “fricassee”! Really loud!

Regina: Yeah. Hee.

Sarah: See? Chickens. Funny.

Regina: We’re going to die alone.

Sarah: Looks that way.

Regina: We won’t even have fryers to grow old with.

Sarah: No, probably not.

Regina: Which is just as well, in the end.

Sarah: I think so.

Regina: Unless hens really do make good pets.

Sarah: Yeah. Maybe hens are really friendly.

Regina: And we wouldn’t have to go out for omelets.

Sarah: Mmm. Omelets.

Regina: But if you come over and my hen is wearing a Cosby sweater that I knitted for it, you have to kill me.

Sarah: No problem.

Regina: Promise me.

Sarah: I promise.

Regina: Hee.

Sarah: Hee hee.

Regina: A hen in a Cosby sweater.

Sarah: I told you.

Regina: Hee.

Sarah: Feeling better?

Regina: Yeah.

Sarah: Okay.

February 4, 2002

Tags:   friends   music