"Miss, are you all right?" "Miss?" "Oh, Eric, I'm so sorry I'm running late." "I had a household emergency." "Oh, our refrigerator suddenly broke." "What do you mean I should chill?" "I'm perfectly relaxed!" "Oh, refrigerator!" "Chill!" "Oh, I agree." "There's nothing funny about food poisoning." "Unless someone else gets it." "Then it's frivolity city." "Did I tell you Tom's going away for a week?" "To "the cove"?" "How'd you know?" "That's the only place his family ever goes." "I think they're training a secret militia up there." "I wish." "That's so much more exciting than them just being too damn cheap to go anywhere interesting." "Hey, how do you think old money gets old?" "Anyway, he'll be up there for a family wedding, so more time for you and me to hang out." "Haven't we had this conversation before?" "Only I said what you're saying and you said what I'm saying?" "Attention, Lawndale High students." "It has come to my attention that during our all-important Trail Mix Fund Drive Week, some individuals have been flaunting outside snacks from non-school-affiliated sources." "Now, students... the Booster" "Club, Leadership Club, Chess Club, Dominoes Club, football, basketball, lacrosse and marbles teams, as well as the Fraternal Brotherhood of Future Marketing and" "Promotion Executives, need your help." "I'm afraid we going to have to institute snack spot checks!" "I'm sorry, young people, but you have abused your privileges!" "I hate this place." "That reminds me." "I need some chocolate." "Unauthorized chocolate." "Daria!" "Hello!" "I want to ask you something." "I'm not surrendering my pudding snack." "What?" "What did you want to ask me?" "It's about the freshman tours." "You know, the tours we give students who'll be entering school next year." "Forget it." "We're looking for bright, articulate and empathetic students to lead groups of..." "Forget it?" ""Empathetic"?" "Well, yes, Daria." "With your vivid storyteller's imagination, you can really put yourself in the shoes of these young people entering high school for the first time." "I don't think I can bring myself to say anything encouraging about a place that strip-searches for Cheez-Its." "Darn it, Daria, this is an opportunity to polish up those people skills." "I promised myself I'd get you to do this." "Why?" "Because I care." "Then you need to work on your callousness skills." "They gave her a good-bye party at 65... miles per second! "Retirement by rocket,"" "next on Sick, Sad World." "So I asked my parents and it's cool with them if you want to come up for a couple of days." "I can't stand to go to my family's weddings." "What makes you think I could ever go to yours?" "Come up after the wedding." "Oh, sure, so I can get there just as the marriage starts to disintegrate." "Look, I appreciate the offer, but you know... too many people, not enough evacuation routes." "I'll see you when you get back." "I'm worried." "I don't think you can really do without me for a week." "No, you should worry that once I remember what it's like not to have you cramping my style, I'll want to make it permanent." "Romantic." "This says the different vegetable bins have individual thermostats." "That means I can have celery stalks at one temperature for their optimum crispness, and carrot sticks at another for theirs!" "Just make sure they never touch, or kablooey!" "Ha." "What do you think of the new refrigerator, Daria?" "I think..." "I think they left the box." "Oh, isn't that ridiculous?" "They carted off that heavy, old refrigerator and left the cardboard box." "Well, it's light." "You and your sister can move it out to the curb for the trash collectors." "Isn't that sort of brute donkey work the reason they made fathers?" "Daria, I'm surprised at you being so traditional." "I'm not being traditional." "I'm being lazy." "Well, your father heard about a last-minute opening at some marketing conference and ran off, so I guess you girls will have to do it." "A last-minute trip?" "He didn't say anything about that." "Well, no, Daria." "That's because it was last minute." "Oh." "Okay." "Did we have one of those when I was a kid?" "One of what?" "A refrigerator box." "I seem to remember spending a lot of time playing in one when I was a kid" "Oh, I doubt that, Daria." "I don't remember you doing much playing at all." "Do you remember us having one of these when we were kids?" "Daria, I'm doing manual labor here?" "I'm not in the mood for a stroll down memory road." "You were probably too young anyway." "I think I was around five or six..." "Daria!" "I'm near the perspiring point!" "Oh, come on, this thing isn't heavy." "I could drag it myself..." "Okay." "Bye." "Wait!" "What?" "Why do you think Dad really went away?" "Daria, why are you so weird?" "Hi, Mrs. Sloane, it's Daria." "Um, is Tom there?" "Oh... okay." "No, just that I called." "Thanks." "Dammit, Helen, that's it!" "How much am I supposed to take?" "Jake, she's a child, she doesn't know any better!" "That's what she wants you to believe!" "Eric?" "I'm running a little late." "No, it's nothing to do with the refrigerator." "Oh, I should chill." "That's funny." "Okay, bye." "Huh." "Quinn, I thought I asked you and Daria to move that box out to the curb." "What?" "We did." "Maybe you dreamt that you did." "I want you to go out there and move it right now." "But, Mom, I swear..." "I don't have time to play games, Quinn." "I'm late!" "Bring the box out to the curb or I won't be responsible for what happens to your carrot sticks!" "Stupid freakin' carton... hard freakin' labor..." "I'm only freakin' human!" "How much can one freakin' girl take?" "Even an enormously freakin' popular one..." "Now, the next stop on our tour is the lunchroom." "Who here knows what people do in the lunchroom?" "Oh, Daria!" "I wanted to ask you if you've given any more thought to helping out with the freshman tours." "If nominated, I will not run." "If elected, I will not serve." "But Jodie's doing it." "Jodie does everything." "Maybe you and Jane want to give some tours together!" "I'd do it." "Hey, if I'm giving a tour then I can't be in class." "Simple physics." "I told you." "I'd feel like a complete hypocrite telling impressionable youngsters what a great place this is when I don't believe it myself." "But you don't have to tell them what a great place it is!" "I want them to see that Lawndale High is the sort of school that embraces all kinds of students." "What's that supposed to mean?" "Well, Jodie and the others are sort of joiner types, and you..." "Are sort of a non-joiner type?" "An outcast, an oddball, a fifth wheel?" "And you want me to tell other oddballs that life at Lawndale High will be just peachy?" "Daria!" "Is everything all right?" "No!" "Why do I have to be pegged as the misfit all the time?" "I can get along with people!" "Of course you can, Daria, that's my point!" "So you'll think about it?" "!" "Kids." "Daria, why is that refrigerator box in the backyard again?" "Why do you refuse to acknowledge that we had a box like that when I was a kid?" "What?" "What are you talking about?" "Where's Dad?" "I told you, he's at a conference." "He'll be home tomorrow." "Call him if you want to speak to him!" "Why?" "So he can lie to me, too?" "Where is he really?" "Daria, are you feeling okay?" "Did you and Dad have a huge fight about me when I was little?" "What?" "!" "No!" "You're lying." "So when are you coming home?" "Next week, like I said." "Can you get back any sooner?" "I wish I could." "Wait, are you kidding?" "Do you have to make fun of me?" "I'm not making fun of you." "But what happened to "I don't care if you're here or not"?" "It's changed." "Listen, do you still want me to come up there?" "Well, you could, but it's even duller than I thought." "I mean, it would be great for me if you came up, but I think you'd have a horrible time." "So you lied to me, too." "What are you talking about?" "You said you wanted me to come up." "Now you say you don't." "That's not what I said at all!" "Come on up, I want you to, it'll be great." "No, thanks." "Call me tomorrow, okay?" "Daria, seriously, is something wrong?" "Call me tomorrow, all right?" "Bye." "But we can talk right now..." "Well, you spoke the truth." "It's a box, all right." "It's more than a box." "Um, from here it looks like exactly a box." "I mean, that box is trying to tell me something." "If you say so." "All I hear is the rustle of a gentle breeze wafting through cardboard." "Quite soothing, really." "You're right, it is soothing." "I was kidding." "No, there's something about it..." "Um, Daria?" "What are you doing?" "Yes." "This is right." "Daria?" "Dammit, Helen, that's it!" "How much am I supposed to take?" "Jake, this isn't about you." "It's about her, having a little trouble fitting in." "She doesn't want to fit in, damn it!" "Why can't you admit that?" "!" "Jake, she's a child, she doesn't know any better!" "That's what she wants you to believe!" "Where are you going?" "!" "Daria?" "Come on, the neighbors are starting to talk." "Um... good." "Soon they'll progress to cave drawings and civilization will be on its way." "Daria!" "I remembered!" "You were right!" "I remembered I was three or four and it was nighttime and I woke up because Mom and Dad were fighting, and then Dad was yelling and a door slammed and then I heard a car start up and he drove away." "Thank you." "I knew I wasn't imagining it." "Do you remember what they were fighting about?" "Um... yeah... they were fighting about you." "Now, Daria..." "I want you to tell me what you see when you look at the picture." "What do you mean?" "That's not a picture." "Well, not the kind of picture we're used to seeing." "This picture lets you make up what it's about." "Then why don't I just draw my own picture?" "For instance... one little boy or girl might look at it and see a fire truck or a house." "Another might see a herd of beautiful wild ponies running free across the plains." "It's just a black splotch." "Daria, what's your favorite game to play at recess?" "I don't like games." "I like to read." "Don't you enjoy playing with the other children?" "Not really." "They never understand what I'm talking about and then they make fun of me." "I like to read." "I'm just saying, Daria." "If you give the other boys and girls a chance, you might find someone you like." "It takes all kinds." "I like lots of kids!" "They call me egghead." "Sweetie, it's a little hard for your father and me to keep taking time off from work to talk to the counselor." "Why don't you meet us halfway and try talking to the other kids?" "They don't say anything that interests me." "I talk a lot to the other kids, and they talk back!" "Daria, how do you know they don't interest you?" "I'm tired." "I'm not tired!" "Well, I don't know what to do." "I'm at my wits' end." "Dammit, Helen, that's it!" "I go in there every day to face a psychotic boss, a job that makes me feel like a freakin' slave, then I have to come home and deal with this?" "How much am I supposed to take?" "Jake, this isn't about you." "It's about her, having a little trouble fitting in." "She doesn't want to fit in, damn it!" "Why can't you admit that?" "!" "Jake, she's a child, she doesn't know any better!" "That's what she wants you to believe!" "Where are you going?" "!" "Oh!" "Hey, kiddo!" "Um, Daria?" "But what's she doing in there?" "I don't know." "She's been acting so strangely." "I'd have called you, but by the time I got home and saw her, you were already in the air." "Oh, hi, Dad." "How was the band-aid conference?" "Branding." "It was a branding conference." "Branding?" "Oh no, those poor cows!" "Quinn, do you have any idea why your sister is outside sitting in that ridiculous box?" "Is she still out there?" "Um, it's about that fight you two had." "Fight?" "What fight?" "We didn't have any fight." "Back when we were kids, in the old house." "You know, you had a big fight about" "Daria and then Dad stormed out?" "It was very traumatic." "The scars are with me to this day." "Do we have any diet soda?" "Come on, Daria." "Come out of the box." "We want to talk to you." "Yeah, come on, kiddo." "We'll all have a nice talk." "No." "Daria, you can't spend the rest of your life in there." "I can once they put in my high-speed Internet connection." "Daria... please come out?" "All right, but you have to promise to be completely honest with me." "Um... uh... okay." "Helen, is that such a good idea?" "Jake!" "Honest it is!" "When I was six years old, did you have a big fight about me?" "No!" "Yes." "Yes." "I'd forgotten all about it." "Quinn reminded us." "Why were you fighting?" "Daria, you have to understand." "We kept getting calls from the school." "You wouldn't talk to the other children." "You wouldn't play with the other children." "We knew how smart you were - talking to you was like talking to a miniature adult - but you wouldn't engage with the other kids." "They didn't interest me." "That's what you said." "Your father was in a job he hated, with a really sadistic boss." "Lousy mini-Mussolini..." "Jake!" "Tense, Daria." "I was very tense." "I was trying to resume a full-time workload and still raise two young girls." "We were all tense." "Your problems at school were sort of the straw that broke the camel's back." "We had an argument, your father stormed off, spent the night in a motel..." "A crappy motel." "... and the next day, we made up and carried on." "So I caused a big marital rift." "Not a rift, Daria." "We had a fight one night." "You happened to be the topic, not the cause." "Daria?" "Hello?" "Mrs. Sloane?" "Is Tom there?" "Well, would it be okay if I took you up on your offer to visit?" "Yeah." "I can be there in about four hours." "Thanks very much, Mrs. Sloane." "Miss, are you all right?" "Miss!" "Miss!" "Yeah." "Yeah, I'm okay." "I'm not quite getting this." "You ran off because of a fight your parents had 11 years ago?" "It's not the fight." "It's the sudden realization that all these years, when I thought they were torturing me, in reality I was the one torturing them." "First of all, I don't think it's either-or." "From where I'm sitting, you and your folks have done a great job of torturing each other." "And second of all, you mean to tell me you don't know when you're busting them?" "Yes, I know when I'm busting them." "What I didn't realize is what a pain I've been when I thought I was just being me." "Huh?" "At age six, I decide I don't need to talk to other kids ever again; my parents are the ones who get called into school." "At 12, I decide to try out some" "Shakespearean insults on my teachers; my parents are the ones who get called into school." "At 15, I start writing violent revenge fantasies just to get a reaction..." "Your parents, et cetera, et cetera." "Gotcha." "But I never got the idea that they minded that much." "Yeah." "Which just makes it even worse." "You really need to discuss this with them." "I know, but first I had to talk to someone I could trust." "Yeah, I'm sorry you didn't make it to the cove." "I'm not." "It would have been good to see Tom, but this way, I got to talk to the person I trust most." "Oh, thank God!" "But Daria, why did you have to run away when you heard that story about getting called in to school?" "Yeah, we used to get called in to school all the time!" "Jake!" "I mean... we were used to it!" "Jake!" "I mean..." "Jake!" "It was part of the deal." "It was the other side to you being so smart and perceptive." "Oh." "What do you mean?" "Daria, you can't have a child with your kind of intelligence and expect her to fit in easily with other kids." "We weren't happy to be called into school because we knew it meant you weren't happy." "But we were never unhappy with you." "Oh." "Well, that's good." "Um... do you think I'm a misfit?" "Daria, you make your choices." "We understand that." "Yeah!" "We do?" "Choices?" "Yes." "Like deciding not to visit Tom while he was away, or to give those student tours." "You choose not to interact and we understand." "It doesn't make you a misfit." "It just makes me antisocial." "That student tour thing is a matter of principle." "You know, if I could interject here..." "Um, I'm gonna go to bed." "Good night." "Good night, kiddo." "I just want to say... it occurs to me that maybe I wasn't the easiest child in the world to raise, and, um... perhaps I'm quite lucky to have you for parents." "Thank you for knowing when not to speak." "I think you broke my toe." ""Didn't know if you'd need this, but just in case." "Quinn."" "Anyway, sorry I wasn't home when you called, and I'm real sorry you never made it up there, although I think that last checkers game between me and my uncle is still going on." "Hey, you had no way of knowing I was gonna want to drive up." "I mean, if I'd had any idea that you'd end up in a horrific multi-car crackup, whispering my name over and over in a desperate bid not to slip into a coma..." "Horrific crackup?" "I spun out on the shoulder." "You tell it your way, I'll tell it mine." "Now, over here is the lunchroom." "As middle school veterans, you already know that this is the center for spitballs, laughing milk up through your nose, and food poisoning of every variety." "Who here wants to slip me a twenty to point out the popular table so you can start fighting for a seat now?" "Okay." "Let's move on to Hell and Purgatory, also known as the gym and locker rooms." "Where, for twenty bucks, I'll show you which showers haven't been peed in... to my knowledge." "My friend is just kidding you, of course." "They've all been peed in." "Now, as we head for the gym, take special note of the fine industrial grade lockers, which make the perfect noise when you bang your head against them..." "Synchro by Janez"