Page 61 of Flirtasaurus
“Friendson in the background?”
“You bet it is.”
“Which episode?”
“‘The One with Unagi.’”
“A classic. You know what I was going to say yesterday, before you cut me off with your impressive monologue on the inherent problems inFriends, was that I’ve noticed science geeks like ourselves often relate to Ross. Even aspire to be more like him in some respects.”
“Whaaat? Ross is a total basket case!”
“True, but he does get the girlandget it on with her in a planetarium. I don’t know if you’ve noticed… but I, myself, have access to a planetarium.”
“Ralph! I am shocked! Are you insinuating that you’d like to do things with me in your planetarium?”
He laughs.
“Nah.” I can almost hear him blush. “I’m just being… Nah. Anyway, what are you writing?”
“Secret.”
“What you’re writing is a secret?”
“Yup!”
“Why?”
“If I told you, I’d be letting you in on the secret.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with what I spotted in your notebook last night, does it?”
“You really don’t understand what the word secret means, do you?”
“Alright. You keep your secret. I think it’s cute.”
“Ugh. Cute.” I scoff.
“What? You got a beef with the word cute?”
“I’m surprised a vegan would use the word beef so casually as you just did, but okay. Yes, cute is the absolute worst! So insulting. I had this high school teacher who forbade us from using the word. Banned it and told us to correct anyone who used it to describe us. Know what cute actually means?”
“Uh… I guess I don’t, no.”
“Attractive in a pretty or endearing way. Clever or cunning, especially in a self-seeking or superficial way. Fuck cute.”
“Oh yeah, fuck it indeed. That right there is some bullshit.”
“Thank you, Ralph. Yeah, I remember when my first ever article was published in theIntelligencerwhen I was seventeen and—”
“You write a lot, huh?”
“Sort of? Not really. I come from a family of writers. Or would-be writers. Whatever, that’s a whole other story. As I was saying… when my first article was published in the local newspaper, my chemist uncle, who’s always seemed to have some weird competitive thing with me, said, ‘Read your article about the Cretaceous period. It was cute.’ I wanted to pop him.”
“Was that your impression of your uncle?”
“Yup, he’s a bit of a doofus.”
“Well done then. Hey, as long as we’re being sticklers for vocabulary, the word is pronounced for-bad.”
