Family Feud I

                                       The Family Feud
  Blu-Ray Edition – Now with extended bonus content!

The story is not about being perfect people. It is about imperfect people.

Perfect people would have never tied up their husband and son, wife or daughter in the first place.

This story is a journey. Along the way, mistakes will be made. Mistakes are not the end of the journey.

Mistakes are nature’s way of providing you consequences, so that you will learn to adapt. This story is an evolution.

An evolution of an imperfect family of four people, who don't yet know how perfectly imperfect they are.

Chapter One

“Hey dumbass! Before you turn into a mini Graymalkin, re-read what I said. I said Dallas got to five rings before the Steelers. And who did Dallas get Ring #5 from?? THE STEELERS. I didn't say who was what for standings against one another in super bowls.”

Iceman5142 had just finished another scathing exchange of wit on his favorite online message board and posted about the upcoming Super bowl. He thought to himself “That will tell them!”

He didn't even know the guys he spent almost every day for the last few weeks talking to online about football and television shows. But he enjoyed dominating the board with his vast knowledge of football and other important trivia. He had become an internet flame war champion in the months he had spent unemployed while looking for work.

Iceman5142, known to his family as Bill Taylor, was in the prime of his life, well at least chronologically. He was thirty-eight years old. He had a little bit of a gut. He had begun to lose his hair. He may not have been as fast as he once was and maybe his life wasn’t turning out exactly as he had hoped. But he was happy.

You see despite the fact that Bill had lost his job, he was married to a great woman. The truth, unfortunately, is that Bill was not that upset about being unemployed. It afforded him the opportunity to sit around in his underwear and read online message boards. Jerk off a little, catch up on some things around the house (like napping) and think about some projects like cleaning out the gutters or expanding the garage that he liked to say he was going to do (but never did).

When he first met Wendy back in middle school she was all knees and elbows. In High school she was that awkward geeky chick who sat in the back of the class and laughed along with him at the stupid jokes he told. She fell for him, in part because he was a high school football star.

After graduation, Wendy went away to college. Bill stayed home to work in his dad's office. It was during her college years that Wendy blossomed. She started to gain the confidence that made her the self-assured woman she is today. Of course, some might think that the breast enhancement which resulted in a perfect pair of 36D breasts had something to do with her new self image.

Whatever the source of her new self-confidence, when she came back from college she was walking tall and looking good, Bill mused to himself.

How he lucked out and she chose to marry him was a mystery to him and even more of a mystery to her many friends. He thanked his lucky stars every day, he had decided to talk to the shy girl back in high school who eventually became his wife. He almost hadn’t, it was probably the hand of fate that led him to speak to her, and if she hadn’t gushed at his attention he probably wouldn’t have noticed her.

Maybe it was just that while she was busy focusing on her career as a software project manager she didn't have time to hunt for the right mate. Maybe she wanted the stability she thought she would find if she married him. Maybe it was just a case of inertia. They had been dating for high school and she just hadn’t had just got swept up in the relationship. Who knows maybe, maybe it really was true love. That is what Bill told himself, when he wondered why a guy who looked like him, ended up with a girl who looked like her.

“Yes,” Bill thought to himself, on one of the few occasions when he was introspective enough to give it any thought at all. “That is really it,” clearing away the self-doubt that is natural for a man married to a much more attractive and successful woman. “I am her high school sweetheart, and she loves me. Lucky thing too. Because she has a great job so I can afford to sit back and relax a little before I start looking for a new job”.

He was joking of course. The new President had promised hope. But the old President had just left office and the economy was in the tank. There weren't any jobs out there. And even if there were, the competition was just too tough for someone with Bill’s education and skill set. Bill told himself that he'd go to monster.com and start looking for a job after things “settle down”.

But that was for later. For now he may as well log into his message board and enjoy a little quality time. Someone had recently started a thread dedicated to posting pictures of women's asses. He wanted to see what Graymalkin had just added and post an appropriate comment. In his mind the regulars on his message board were waiting breathlessly for him to give his seal of approval to the latest posts. He knew his online buddies would be wondering what he thought about the latest post.

Meanwhile.....

In a high school gym just a few miles away, Bill and Wendy’s son Chris Taylor was sweating his ass off. The coach had him running laps around the gym. For a high school senior to even have to be taking phys ed was embarrassing enough. But to be so out of shape and forced to run laps by a sadistic gym teacher was truly humiliating. It might have humbled someone more self-aware. Chris was immune to that sort of put down, he had heard it so often.

“Why was life so unfair?” Chris thought to himself as he huffed and puffed his way around the gym.

Chris, the eldest child in the Taylor household was a chip off the old block. He was a lot like his dad in many ways, not the least of which was his talent for underachievement. He really should have graduated last year. Now that he was eighteen he wished that he could be off on his own. Get a job…? He wasn’t ready for that yet. Maybe high school was easier, even if he did have to put up with this humiliation. At least that is what he told himself.

Chris was a little pudgy, just like his old man. He had sandy blonde hair and most of his classmates would describe him as being a little geeky. He had the misfortune of looking and sounding a lot like “Chris” from the cartoon “Family Guy.”

Chris thought that was really an unfair comparison since he had looked like that long before the cartoon came out. But fair or not, it was he who was compared to the cartoon not the other way around.

Kids can be cruel, as Chris knew all too well. There were a couple of guys laughing at Chris's half-hearted attempt to jog-walk the two laps the coach had given him for not dressing out today. Chris gave no indication that he noticed the students who were laughing at his expense. But he was upset by it. Not upset enough to take control of his life and make some changes. That is something he planned to get around to later.

That attitude was why Chris, a senior now, was still taking Phys Ed in the first place. He hadn't bothered to dress out for gym most days when he was a Freshman or a Sophomore and he had to make up the credit as a result of being one of the very few students to actually flunk that subject.

“How is this teaching me anything?” Chris silently asked himself as he rounded another corner thinking that Phys Ed isn't really an academic anything and shouldn't even be a class.

Chris had been sort of skating through life, a procrastinator's procrastinator. He always did the barest minimum that was necessary to get by. If he had a chore around the house or an assignment from school he would invariably wait until the very last second, and then “half-ass” it. That was almost his motto. The funny thing is, Chris isn't even sure where the term “half-ass” even comes from, despite the fact that he lives by it.

By contrast, Jamie, his only sibling, could not be more different. She was his exact opposite in every way. She had inherited her mother's good looks and charm. She was tall and slender and could eat as much junk food as she wanted and keep her perfect figure.

She was active as a varsity cheerleader. But she didn't really need to exercise. Her attractive figure just seemed to come naturally to her. She was bright, but she wasn't an overachiever. She carried a nice solid 3.5 GPA. Her sunny disposition and good looks made her a natural. She was one of the most popular juniors in the school.

She wore her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. It whipped back and forth behind her as she strolled confidently into the gym. She had been allowed to leave English class a little early because her English teacher was a soft touch. She told him she needed to meet with some of the other cheerleaders to prepare for the game on Friday night.

Well, that was half-true. She did want to meet with a few girls who also happened to be cheerleaders. But just to gossip and shoot the breeze. While she talked and laughed with some of her friends, she caught sight of her sweaty older brother. She hoped no one would say anything. She was tired of being embarrassed by him in front of her friends.

Her best friend Veronica noticed him, though, and apparently couldn’t resist making a disparaging comment. She said “Ah, there goes tubby.”

Her friends all giggled and Jamie joined in. She had long since gotten past the point where she felt the need to defend her pathetic loser of an older brother, even though she still loved him.

Flash forward to after school....

“Mom wants to meet me alone. I wonder what this could be about?” Jamie thought to herself as she climbed out of Veronica's car and headed into the Panera Bread bristling with upscale clientele eating their paninis and checking their iPhones and laptops.

Wendy was just sitting down with a latte as her daughter entered the restaurant. She smiled when she spotted her daughter. She was so proud of her. She watched Jamie enter and thought, “Gosh she is growing up so fast! She is every bit the self-confident, empowered, modern woman I always wished I could be at that age; perfect complexion, graceful, smart, funny, and with her whole future in front of her. I am almost envious,” she smiled. “Almost.”

Wendy had just closed a big deal at her office and was feeling very good about herself. She was feeling more than a little ‘empowered’ herself. She spent long hours at work jockeying for political position and her recent business success would significantly improve her own chances of scratching her way a little farther up the ladder. “Women can be such bitches,” she thought. In her office all the successful women had become the managers (the communicators), while the men were the developers and analysts (the workers).

In this day and age, that may not seem all that surprising. Women were natural communicators while men seemed to gravitate towards 'fixing things' and 'working.'

Well, maybe not the lazy Taylor men, she mused. However, if you had told the average male office worker from the early 1960s that this is how things would be in the early twenty-first century they would have thought you were talking about the topsy turvy world of the Planet of the Apes. In their day girls were good for two things and only one of those things was typing.

Looking up from her latte she saw her daughter standing impatiently. She was making it abundantly clear that there were places she would rather be than joining her mother for a cup of coffee.

Wendy smiled and said, “Ah, Jamie…sit down. What I've got to tell you is something I have been thinking about for a long time. I really need you to be strong and in total solidarity with me on this.”

As soon as Jamie was seated, Wendy began the recitation she had been practicing in her head. Wendy was fed up with the situation at home. When she came home from a hard day at work she inevitably found herself cleaning her house before she could even get around to starting dinner. Each day she bit her tongue and picked up after her husband and her son and her frustration had begun to grow exponentially.

And why?! Why did a successful, hardworking woman like her have to perform these same menial tasks every evening?! Bill had been home all day. And what was he doing? Looking at porn probably. He hadn't had a single job interview in the weeks since he lost his job. As far as she could tell, he had not made a single phone call or sent out a single resume in his nonexistent job search.

It wasn’t just her husband, either. Her eldest son Chris wasn't exactly as popular as Jamie. His less than active social schedule certainly left him time to log out of Everquest or whatever he was doing on his computer and pick up around the house.

But it wasn't just that the men never did anything around the house to help. Wendy ran down her checklist of shortcomings. There was the fact that both males were becoming increasingly hygienically challenged. They didn't trim their toe nails, tuck in their shirts or shave. And since her husband had lost his job, and as a result of his unemployment he seldom left the house now, he had been known to go far too long without bathing. She had been forced to cajole him into showering on more than one occasion. And neither her husband nor her son seemed capable of dressing themselves to present a good image in public. They were both rapidly turning into pathetic slobs.

Jamie just laughed. She knew it was all true. Both men were a source of embarrassment and frustration to her, too. But she enjoyed gossiping about it with her mother. It was fun to take inventory of the shortcomings her father and brother were both exhibiting.

Wendy smiled at her daughter. She knew that Jamie was just as aware of the problem as she was. Her daughter was forced to do more than her fair share around the house because of it, too. Her husband and son both seemed to have bought into the archaic argument that housework was “women’s work” and beneath their dignity. Or, they were just lazy and didn’t care.

Wendy continued, “Let's talk about physical fitness. Lately, the only time your dad’s heart beats faster is if we are in the drive thru at Wendy’s and I get him a biggy fry instead of a medium. And I caught Chris watching aerobics in the living room on the couch eating Cheetos a few days ago. I asked him, ‘Chris, are you interested in doing aerobics?’ He just got embarrassed and changed the channel. He must think I didn't know he was really just checking out the girl.”

“Oh, mom” Jamie rolled her eyes.

“Look, the truth is that the men in our household, and I use that term loosely, need to shape up or ship out!” Wendy said. Her exasperation was evident. This was a conclusion she had reached a week earlier. But that was before she had fleshed out her plan and was ready to tell Jamie about it.

“Ship out?” Jamie asked skeptically.

“Okay. I know that sounds brutal. Heaven knows I love your father. But our relationship has grown increasingly platonic over the last few months. Granted, I am not home a lot lately. So your father is not totally to blame for that. But I have to admit that I am not as interested in him since he has started to let himself go. So yes, I do see where this could end up with us getting a divorce. Or worse, him having a heart attack because of all the Big Bacon Deluxes he eats. And as for your brother, he is my son and I love him. But he is as bad or perhaps even worse than your father and he has become increasingly intolerable. He should have moved out already. He is three years older than you and you are quickly catching up to him in school. He is becoming a slug!”

Jamie had been a little embarrassed at the references to her parent’s sex life, or lack thereof. But this blatant misrepresentation of her age was what finally prodded her to speak. “Mom, I am going to be sixteen in just two months!” Jamie exclaimed. She was a little exasperated herself. Her mother seemed to be having a hard time acknowledging that her baby girl was growing up.

Wendy sighed and replied, “Right, don't remind me...I know! Okay, he is ALMOST three years older than you. Is that better?”

Jamie just let out a long suffering sigh. But then the two laughed. They seemed to connect that way. They shared the same sense of humor.

Jamie asked, “So what is your plan, mom?”

It took the better part of the next hour for Wendy to reveal her plan to Jamie over a couple Mocha-Cappuccino half-caffs. They both laughed frequently and as they talked it over they modified the plan slightly until it was time for Wendy to leave for her aerobic step-class. The two parted, vowing to deliver their ultimatum to the males of the family later that evening.

The Taylor Women's Bill of Rights....

Iceman5142 was just finishing up a long day of posting on the internet and was cracking open a Pepsi when his wife asked him to join her in the living room.

“Oh is “Heroes” on? I’m not so sure about the new season. I liked that show when they first started out. But they have gotten really weird,” he said as he walked into the room.

Chris was sitting on the couch with his head buried in a paper he was reading. Jamie was standing off to the side waiting expectantly with one of those ‘cat that just swallowed the canary’ looks on her pretty face. She really didn’t think that this idea of her mother’s was going to work. But she was sure that it was going to be amusing.

“Why is the TV off?” Bill seemed alarmed when he asked the question. The only reason he spent time in the living room was to catch up on his favorite television shows. The concept of actually communicating with his family was totally beyond his ability to comprehend.

“Bill, we aren't going to watch television tonight.” Wendy’s expression was stern and her voice was cold. “I have something here that you need to read. I suggest you sit down. I want you to read the entire thing. It’s very important. Just read it to the end and when you and Chris are both finished we'll talk.”

“What the hell? This better be a joke!” Bill exclaimed. He was blindsided by this. They hadn't “talked” in a long time. And lately when they talked, Bill always seemed to feel like he was in trouble for something he had, or had not, done. But then, that was usually the case.

It didn’t do the predicament he was about to find himself in any good when he asked, “Is this about me not doing the laundry? I forgot...”

“Bill...Bill...hush,” Wendy demanded. “Just read it. When you have both finished, Jamie and I will be back in to discuss it.”

She spoke to him as if she were addressing a talkative child who won't listen to reason and it made him feel very uncomfortable.

The paper was entitled, “The Taylor Women's Bill of Rights” and Bill mockingly joked, “Wait! I AM Bill”

The girls weren't amused. They were already walking out of the room, Wendy first then Jamie, walking every bit as tall and proud as her mother. As they left the room one of them, he wasn't sure which, said simply “Read it.”

The Bill of Rights presented to the Taylor men read as follows:

Whereas the Taylor men have devolved into lazy, inconsiderate, cowardly, and out of shape specimens of manhood, totally lacking in motivation; we, the Taylor women, declare that from this day forward, it having become necessary in the course of our daily lives for this family to dissolve the traditional roles which have connected us with one another and for the women to assume the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and this nation entitle them, hereby demand that a decent amount of respect be paid them. In as much as the male members of this union have abdicated their responsibilities of protecting and providing for their family and are guilty of failing to fulfill their duties through gross negligence, it is hereby affirmed that the Taylor women have no choice but to seize control of the household until such time as the men have demonstrated their worthiness to once more assume their intended role.

We hereby put the Taylor men on notice and assert the following in our Declaration of Changes:

Article 1 - From this point forward, the Taylor women, Wendy and Jamie, shall assume head of household status and shall make decisions jointly and equally as they concern the state of the household and the finances of said household.

Article 2 - The Taylor men, Bill and Chris, who only exist as a drain on our financial status, shall waive their right to participate in such decisions and discussions until such time as they contribute to and provide for the family.

Article 3 - The Taylor men, Bill and Chris, shall do all house work and yard work. Said housework shall include, but not be limited to: picking up after themselves and the Taylor women; doing the laundry, to include ironing and putting away clean clothes; preparing all meals; cleaning the house correctly, to include dusting and vacuuming; cleaning the pool, and trimming and cutting the grass and shrubbery as appropriate. The women of the house shall inspect their work daily and determine corrective measures deemed appropriate to correct for lazy behavior.

Article 4 - The Taylor men, Bill and Chris, shall immediately be put on a diet and begin an exercise regimen. They shall be prohibited from partaking of unhealthy snacks and shall find their portions restricted. They shall log every morsel they consume in a journal on the refrigerator daily. Failure to comply with this provision shall result in corrective measures for gluttonous behavior.

Article 5 - Bill Taylor will get a job. Until such time as he is gainfully employed he is barred from accessing the internet. Unauthorized access to the internet will result in corrective measures.

Article 6 - Chris Taylor shall attain a GPA of at least 2.0 and maintain said average until graduation. In addition, he will get a part time job of up to twenty hours per week. Until such time as those conditions are met he is he is barred from accessing the internet.

Article 7 - The Taylor men, Bill and Chris, shall shower daily. Furthermore, they shall begin grooming in the manner set forth by the Taylor women. Bill Taylor will be required to sleep on the couch if he is not groomed to his wife's specifications. Wendy Taylor hereby avers and affirms that she will no longer sleep with sweaty, smelly, spongy, gas passing oafs.

Article 8 - The Taylor men, Bill and Chris, shall have their clothing chosen for them each day by Wendy or Jamie. They shall not deviate from their assigned outfits under any circumstances. In as much as they have demonstrated a complete disregard for their appearance and in as much as said disregard reflects poorly upon the entire household, failure to comply will result in corrective measures.

Article 9 - The Taylor men, Bill and Chris, shall henceforth refer to both Wendy and Jamie Taylor as “Ma'am” in as much as given names are for equals and the Taylor men have not proven themselves to be the equals of the Taylor women in any respect. The only exception to the aforementioned Article 9 is that Chris may continue to use address his mother, Wendy, as mom. Failure to comply will result in corrective measures.

We hereby demand the rights set forth in this Bill of Rights as two unsatisfied Taylor women who feel that with our assistance the Taylor Men can once more assume their rightful place in society, hold their heads up high along with other men, take their place as equals in the world at large and be a source of pride to the Taylor women.

Signed:

Wendy Taylor

Jamie Taylor

Bill read the entire document, waiting with growing impatience for the punch line he was sure was coming. When he had read to the end and realized that this was not a joke he raised his eyebrows and yelled angrily, “What the fuck is this shit?!”

He stared at the door that the two girls had gone through minutes earlier. But there was no response from the women.

He looked at Chris who was still reading, his lips moving as he laboriously sounded out the words in order to try and understand their meaning.

“Chris? What the hell! You were reading that when I came in! You aren't done yet?”

Chris looked up. He finally focused on his father and asked, “What, dad?”

“Chris, have you read that paper the girls gave us?”

“No. Why?”

“You've had your head down the whole time looking at it!”

“Oh, yeah. But it was too long and they used too many big words. What does it say?”

“Jeezus boy! It basically says that we have to do everything the girls say, or else!”

“Or else what?”

“I dunno. They just say corrective actions.”

“You mean like spank us?” he asked, half joking. He laughed nervously though. He really hadn’t a clue what this was all about.

But Bill took his son seriously for a moment. Bill yelled furiously at the closed door his wife had walked out of five minutes ago, “Yeah! What the fuck are they going to do? Spank a grown man?!”

In truth, the two women were sitting on the other side of the door and laughing while Chris and Bill discussed the note. They were listening to every word the two men said. They were just making the two of them sweat it out by not responding. Wendy wasn't sure what reaction she'd get from her wakeup call to the two men. She desperately wanted Bill and Chris to act like the men she thought that they should be. She was growing increasingly tired of the fact that they acted more like irresponsible young boys.

Wendy whispered to Jamie, “You know that's not a bad idea! We’ll spank them! You'd be willing to spank Chris wouldn't you?”

Jamie rolled her eyes and exclaimed, “Gross!” She shivered in disgust at the prospect of having to get that close to her loser brother. But since she didn’t think this plan was going to work anyway she said, “Look, it's obvious these two aren't going to agree to our demands. Chris can't even read it! Let's try a different approach.”

Wendy smiled “Well, I guess I was kind of harsh. It was intended to be slightly tongue in cheek. But I thought that they should understand that we are declaring our independence and stepping up to assume the responsibilities of the men in this family until they shape up. But I guess they just don’t get it. Maybe you’re right. We should go talk to them like responsible adults and just tell them what they are doing, and not doing, that we have a problem with and see if they will take ownership of their faults and address them. Maybe this was a crazy ploy...c'mon.”

As they were about to turn the doorknob and walk back into the room they heard a loud crash in the living room. Apparently Bill was throwing a temper tantrum. “Tell me I am not a man, in my own house! Well I’ll show you!” Crash—Smash “Tell me, I am too fat and stinky to sleep with! Well hell! I didn't want to sleep with you anyway! I've got friggin hotties online who want to sleep with me!”

That's when Wendy turned the doorknob with fire in her eyes and her playful disposition turned to anger. “What the hell do you think you two are doing?!”

Like two dogs who had been caught chewing up the toilet paper when you were out of the house they stopped their rage induced destruction and surveyed the room in sudden embarrassment. Well, to be fair, Chris was still seated on the couch staring at his father in shock. All four of the Taylors now looked around the room to survey the damage. Family portraits were knocked off the wall. Wendy's Grandmother's China set had been knocked off the mantle where it had been displayed since they moved into this house. Chris's XBOX 360 games had been scattered all over the place when the DVD cabinet they were in fell over. The two men were caught flat-footed without anything to say.

“You have been going online talking to women, Bill?” she accused, seething with anger.

“Um...well...I…” he started to backpedal, suddenly realizing his poor judgment.

“This is the example you want to set for Chris? The kind of man who gets angry because he is told he is lazy and not providing for his family and so he tears up the house?”

“W-well, n-n-no. B-but you h-have to um...admit that...” Bill was stuttering, the way he always did when he got nervous. His domineering mother often used to make him stutter that way when he was a kid. But he hadn't felt like that since he was Chris's age. “O-okay, b-but like it's alright for y-you to um be gone a lot and then...”

“Yeah Bill, I am gone a lot,” she replied sarcastically. “It's called working. You should try it some time.”

She looked around until she spotted the Bill of Rights she had prepared. She pointed to it and asked, “Have you two signed it yet?”

“Signed it?” they asked.

“Yeah, signed the Bill of Rights. I don't have all night. We need to resolve this and you two aren't going to get any dinner until this room is cleaned up.”

Even Jamie was confused. She thought they were just about to give up on this plan and have an intelligent discussion about their grievances. But she kind of got it. She realized that her father was being immature and it had made Wendy furious. And she had to admit she wasn't too proud of Bill and Chris right now, not that she really ever had been.

So Jamie said the only thing that came to her mind to show her solidarity with her mom. “And if it's not done by the time we return, there WILL be spankings!”

When she spoke, all eyes in the room turned to her. Actually, she and her mom hadn't talked about what would happen if the men didn't meet their new obligations. They were hoping the threat of 'corrective actions' was enough that they wouldn’t be required.

The only reason she even thought of spankings really was because her mom had mentioned it to her. And she knew that the only reason her mom had joked about it was that she heard Chris and Bill guessing what the corrective action could be.

But it was out there now, hanging. A heavy moment of silence filled the room as the four stood there. Bill and Chris, and even Wendy to some extent, were dumb-founded by her sudden dire promise of spankings. Had she just crossed a line? Would her father ground her for speaking to him, an adult as if he was a little child?

Apparently not! Instead he just grumbled “Fine! We'll clean up our mess! But what’s for dinner?” he negotiated. He was hungry and since this was his mess and he had planned to clean it up anyway. Chris was a little less enthusiastic since he hadn’t contributed to the present mess that resulted from his father’s temper tantrum.

Wendy instantly took advantage of her husband’s apparent surrender. “For you? Some lean cuisine frozen dinners. As for us, we are going to Panera. If anything is touched in the fridge before we get back, there WILL be spankings!” Wendy had quickly decided to back up her daughter and stand united on the threat of punishment.

The two women strode out of the house with their heads up and their shoulders back. But when they got in their car, they both exploded in uncontrollable laughter.

Wendy finally caught her breath and exclaimed, “Spanking? Oh My God!! Are you serious??”

Jamie chuckled and responded, “I know.” Then she shrugged and said, “But it was their idea. And besides, I was just backing you up.”

Wendy shook her head and asked her daughter, “Do you think they bought it?”

Jamie was more than a little surprised herself at how quickly her father had seemed to give in to her mother’s demands. She shrugged again and said, “I dunno.”

But she was pretty excited by the possibilities. In her mind she was already phrasing her message to her best friend as she thought, “I have got to text veronica and tell her about this!”