SANTA FE SPRINGS, CA – Before a yawning audience of three fellow pool-party goers, Tamara Bennington, 36, continues to drone on about some forgettable experience she recently had at an indoor bounce house facility, while her husband, Dave, 35, keeps interjecting with meaningless, momentum-killing corrections that makes this story feel like it’s never going to end. “…so for a change of scenery we took the kids to the indoor park in La Mirada for the first time, and let me tell you, Sundays are apparently the wrong day to go.”
“Saturday. We went on Saturday,” said Dave – who should just shut the fuck up so we can get back to swimming.
“Right. Saturday. Because Sunday we went to the mall. Where I got this coverup on sale at Nordstrom–”
“You got the coverup at Macy’s.”
“It was Macy’s,” Tamara continued, not realizing we’ve already tuned her out.
Tamara went into detail about how the snack bar at the place in Downey is better but the place in La Mirada has open play on the weekends. What took us a single sentence to convey took a minimum of three minutes for Tamara to get out thanks to Dave’s non-stop interrupting.
“I was on one of those jumpy things with the kids–”
“They’re called a bounce house. Or I guess you could say moon bounce,” Dave corrected, reminding us all what hell must be like.
“I don’t think anyone calls it a moon bounce, Dave. Anyways–”
Her audience, trapped only by waning politeness, are each individually planning their escape. “I have no idea where this story is going. I don’t even remember where or why it started,” whispered neighbor Melody Tremaine. “All I know is, 30 more seconds of this, and I’m gonna need to fake an important call.”
“Tyler! Get off your sister’s back! Don’t make me tell you again!” yelled Scott Kizer, staring at the pool, not even pretending to pay attention anymore.
Tamara has gone on a tangent, complaining about the parenting style of some lady none of us will ever meet who apparently let her kid in the bounce house with a bag of Doritos.
“It was Chex mix.”
“Jesus Christ, Dave! Nobody gives a shit!” we all want to scream. In a case of perfect timing, the audience has been stirred from their coma as Ms. Tremaine notices one of the Rodriguez boys floating face down in the deep end. “Oh my god! Nathan!,” she screams with half horror, half relief as the mind-numbing story comes to an abrupt end.
UPDATE: Nathan is fine. He was just playing a game. Either way, his parents say he will be getting a Slurpee on the way home as a reward for saving them from that god awful story.
The Nuclear Unit 