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Over
OR
Do
You Feel a Draft?
©2010 The Angst Guy (theangstguy@yahoo.com)
Daria and associated characters
are ©2010 MTV Networks
Feedback (good, bad, indifferent, just want to bother me, whatever)
is appreciated. Please write to: theangstguy@yahoo.com
Synopsis: In the wake of a bizarre medical disaster, the military
draft is reinstated—but it’s for women as well as men. And Daria has a problem
with that.
Author's Notes: Losdia began a rotating PPMB Iron
Chef called "Angst Lord Time-Trials Redux" in June 2009, and one of Doggieboy’s
challenges was this: "Because of a new law, young women have to register
for the draft. As a matter of principle, Daria Morgendorffer refuses to
register. As a result, she is turned down by more than 90 percent of the
colleges and universities in this country, and cannot get financial aid for the
ones she would be accepted at... except certain religious/pacifist-type colleges.”
And here’s the result.
Special typography note: This story makes use of a free type
font for the title, for aesthetic value. The font is Denmark Regular, which resembles
the type used for the Viagra logo. The author feels it improves the look of the
tale. The font can be downloaded (again, for free) at AbstractFonts.com.
Acknowledgements: Thank you, Doggieboy!
*
“I must say I'm honored you've chosen to spend your
valuable Saturday night with me,” said Jane as she walked up to the table and
took a seat across from her dour friend. “What happened, amiga? Did you get a night off from nursing duty?”
Daria looked up for a moment before looking into her soda
again. “Mom’s moved her home office into the bedroom to be near Dad,” she said.
“She has so much work since she made partner she can’t keep all the records in
her office downtown. As a bonus for babysitting Dad all week while she worked
late, she gave the unpaid nursing assistants the night off. Quinn and I almost
killed each other trying to get out the front door at the same time. I guess we
both craved a bit of sisterhood, just not with each other. She’s with the
Fashion Club, helping with the recruiting drive at the high school. They’re
probably still there.”
Jane’s eyebrows went up. “You’re kidding. The Fashion Club
wants to become the Fight Club?”
Daria shook her head. “It’s a little more complicated than
that. They’re trying to trick—I mean, trying to encourage seniors to sign up
with Selective Service or actually join one of the armed forces by acting like
they’ll exclusively date anyone who will. I’d bet that—wait.” She paused to
flag down a waitress to get a drink for Jane and take their pizza order.
“Thanks,” said Jane. “My treat tonight, by the way. I sold
two poster designs and some artwork to LysiStrategy.”
Daria looked up from her drink with a puzzled expression.
“Is that the same group that—”
“The Lysistratas, yeah. They voted to change their name
this morning, just haven’t told everyone yet. They’re going national on Monday.
Funny to think that a college group in
“How did they do that?”
“They talked four other Chesapeake-area anti-draft groups
into joining forces with them. I think the
It was Daria’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Jane smirked. “They need an art director for their
propaganda wing. I put in a bid for the job.”
Daria began to smile in spite of herself. “Do they know
you’re still in high school?”
“Shhh! Loose lips sink ships,
Morgendorffer.” Jane took a sip of her own Ultra-Cola, freshly delivered by the
waitress, then pointed at her companion. “How about you? How are those college applications coming
along?”
When Daria’s face fell, Jane winced. “Sorry, amiga.”
“I’m not an actor,” Daria said, looking into her drink
again. “I can’t pull off the
“I could give you insider advice. The mouth full of fake
blood tipped the scales in my case.”
Daria sat back in her seat. “You know what it is? I don’t
want to play the game. I used to write all this violent revenge stuff with secret
agents who kill without thinking about it, but the truth is that I don’t want
to have anything to do with the military. I don’t want to have anything to do
with killing people, no matter how much I fantasize about it. If someone, male
or female, wants to volunteer to fight a war, fine, go for it, be my guest. But
just because a few million guys wanted a foot-long hot dog to share with their
girlfriends and wound up with bad hearts instead is not enough reason for me to
support the draft, especially if they want me to fill in for some bozo who
can’t drive his tank anymore because he wasn’t happy with his wiener.”
Jane laughed and promptly choked on her soda.
“I mean, look,” Daria continued after the tabletop was
wiped off. “What happened to my dad was one thing. Mom told me—” She reddened
as she spoke “—that Dad had been having ‘problems’ because of his heart
medication, and they both agreed to give that damn Essence a try. It wasn’t
like—it wasn’t like he was trying to be a ‘playa’ or anything, like certain
people we know. He was just—oh, the hell with it, he had E.D. and sex is such a
big thing with them, they just wanted to keep it going. The point is, he didn’t
go out and force other people to do his job because he couldn’t leave the house
to work any longer. He started a new consulting business online, and he’s
managed to get a little work. No one has to see him shuffle around in a
bathrobe and bunny slippers pulling an oxygen tank behind him. It isn’t much,
but he’s still in there trying to make it. Do you see what I mean?”
Jane nodded solemnly. “Don’t you think a lot of other guys
who took 2m-Essence were in the same situation,
though? Older guys especially get E.D. for all sorts of reasons. Not that I
know anything about it personally, but my brother Wind complains about
everything to anyone and he won’t shut up.”
“I’m not criticizing that,” said Daria. “I also know a lot
of guys took 2m-Essence because they thought it would turn them into sex
stallions, like Mister QB. Whatever the reason, their problem is not my
problem.”
“You don’t approve of the draft because you don’t have a
wiener,” interrupted Jane with a grin. “At least none that
I’ve noticed while showering with you after gym.”
“And I don’t have some natural urge for aggression, except
against certain football players and occasionally you. The fact that a
pharmaceuticals company came out with a drug that was supposed to make men
bigger where they thought it counted, and instead produced a drug that caused
irreversible heart damage and left a huge number of guys in this country and
elsewhere either bedridden or partly so, that’s not reason enough for me to
start doing stupid things like fighting in stupid wars just because men can’t
do so many stupid things now.”
“I take it you still haven’t registered with Selective
Service.”
“No. On the good side, Mom and Dad are behind me all the
way.” Daria bit her lower lip. “That was kind of weird. We talked about it, and
they don’t think I should register, either, no matter what. It must have
brought out their inner student radical. I almost thought about registering
just because they agreed with me, to restore the cosmic balance.”
“Are you still getting letters from the SS?”
“Every week, reminding me of all the benefits of
registration, plus the joy of patriotism from serving my country.”
“Which brings us back to college.”
Daria fell silent again. The pizza arrived at that time,
which allowed the two of them to fill the quiet spaces with chomping and
munching and slurping noises. Daria paused after the first two slices, glumly
poking at a third piece with a finger.
“Selective Service keeps emphasizing that draft
registration opens the door to getting federal student loans,” she said. “If
the College Access Bill passes next week, my applications won’t even be looked
at by any university that gets state or federal funds. That’s about ninety
percent of all colleges worth attending, not counting military schools. Mom and
Dad said they can get me through the first year using their savings, but even
with Mom’s promotion and Dad’s medical expenses being taken care of by the
class-action bailout, the home budget is still pretty bad. I had another talk
with them about that last night. I told them not to bullshit me, just tell me
exactly what they could afford, and to my surprise they did. The money flows
out almost as soon as it flows in. They can’t save a thing.”
“You could work your way through school.”
“Yeah, but as I said, admissions offices won’t even look
at me if I haven’t registered.”
“So what are your options?”
“I’ve got only one: not going to college.”
For a moment Jane stared at Daria with huge eyes, frozen
in the act of biting into a pizza slice. She then carefully withdrew the slice
from her mouth and put it back on her plate. “I’m sorry,
the acoustics in here are bad. It sounded like—”
“I’m not going to college.”
Jane’s stunned silence prompted Daria to continue. “It
isn’t worth it. The only universities left are either private ones that get no
outside funding, which cost over a bazillion dollars a semester to attend, or
the pacifist-religious ones that churn out naïve dopes. I couldn’t stomach
going to school with thousands of future Mr. O’Neills.”
“I never saw you as a conscientious objector-type anyway.”
“I’m not. I can see that some wars, awful as they are,
have to be fought. Most don’t, but some do. That’s not my point. I’m not a
Buddhist or Quaker or peace-signing neo-flower child. I just completely resent
it that because the manpower pool went down the drain over a thing like erectile
dysfunction, I have to throw out my own dreams and risk being made into cannon
fodder. It’s not fair, I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.”
“Were you the one I heard yelling that line about eleven
o’clock last—”
“That was me. I screamed it out my bedroom window after
talking with Mom and Dad about college.”
“Hey,” said Jane, gesturing at Daria with her Ultra-Cola,
“I’m not going to college either. Wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t go to
college in the same town? We could meet like we are now to eat pizza and
complain.”
Daria picked up her third piece of pizza. “You’re not
going, either?”
“Everything you said applies to me, too. Mom and Dad left
enough money for me to go to school, but now that I’m the only one living at
home, someone has to stick around and take care of the place. And I like the
idea of making money more than I like the idea of not making money. That
LysiStrategy job is not a volunteer thing. They're going to pay pretty well.”
“Speaking of being home alone,
how’s
“He likes it a lot. He called this morning and said the
music scene was great, and the ‘ethereal transference was electric,’ or
something to that effect. He and Jesse are going to start a new band.”
“The Mystik Draft Dodgers?”
“That’s funny, because he said something just like that.
The Mystik Resisters, that was his idea for a new band name.”
Daria snorted. “Maybe the Canadians will have a deeper
appreciation of their music than the Americans did.”
“I doubt that. Canadians have ears, too. Oh, I was going
to tell you, Kevin Thompson’s out of the hospital.”
Daria rolled her eyes. “Not that I care, but how is he?”
“He didn’t take as much 2m-Essence as some people did, but
I heard he picked up a heart murmur from it.”
“So he’ll be stuck in
Jane sighed. “Hadn’t thought of that.
Damn. We may have to move.”
“I can’t.”
“What?”
Daria took a deep breath. “Mom can’t take care of Dad by
herself. She’s making real money now.” She made a face. “Quinn and I talked
about it. We’re both going to stay home and help out. The only difference is
that she doesn’t mind registering for the draft because she plans to be married
and pregnant as soon as she can find someone she can stand to mate with. She’s
also thinking about going to
Jane blinked in astonishment. “Quinn, in
college? What’s she going to major in, Cosmetics?”
“Business, marketing, sales,
something like that. She’s a people person.”
They sat in silence for a while, staring at the uneaten
remains of their dinner.
“Weird how this all turned out,” said Jane. “Someone makes
a drug to compete with Viagra, captures the market,
and it totally blows up in everyone’s crotches and destroys all claims of male
superiority. The Schrecters get heart disease so your
mom makes partner, half the football team goes into intensive care so now
girls’ athletics dominate the sports pages, Gore becomes president, and all the
guys who were healthy or self-assured enough not to take 2m-Essence have run
off to Canada. It’s a sick, sad world we live in, Morgendorffer. And speaking
of sick, sad, and
“He wants you to join him in exile?”
“No, he’s got a new girlfriend. It figured he would. He
just wanted to touch base with the ex-g.f., see how I
was doing, brag about how good the weather is up north—I know he’s lying
there—and he asked how you were.”
Daria groaned. “I hope you told him I was dead.”
“I think he likes you. You were a lot more his type than I
was.”
“He and I aren’t even the same species.”
“I thought it was Kevin who was a different species.”
“Kevin’s from a different kingdom, but I can’t tell if
it’s vegetable or mineral.”
“Too bad we aren’t lesbians. That would solve everything.”
Daria made a yuk face. “Jane, eww! Not while I’m trying
to eat, okay?”
“You’re no fun.”
“I hate fun.”
“You’d be perfect for a job with LysiStrategy, then.
They’re no fun, either. You could write ad copy.”
“That would mean I’d have to take sides and be a joiner.”
“Oh, right.”
Daria hesitated. She appeared to be in deep thought. “They
really need someone to write ad copy?”
Jane tried not to grin. “They’re go-getters, but they’re
not terribly clever. You could write rings around their whole media wing.”
“Hmmm.” Daria ate another slice of pizza.
“Mom and I were talking the other day, in the three minutes of parental bonding
time she had, and we figured out there were four kinds of women today.”
“I would have said one, but I got a C in biology.”
Daria raised a hand and began ticking off fingers. “There
are the Lysistratas, who won’t register for the draft and don’t want anyone else
to register, not even the men. Then there are the Amazons, who are skipping the
registration part to join the Armed Forces directly and replace the men who
can’t, um, perform any longer—”
“Like
“Right, and there are the Nightengales,
who don’t mind registering but intend to apply for non-combat and support
positions with the military, usually in medical or admin—”
“Jodie.”
“Bingo, and last but not least there are the Rosies, after Rosie the Riveter, who want the government to
force industry to turn over all its good men to the military so women can take
their jobs. Rosies don’t want women to register, they want men to register and women to shore up
the home front in case we get into a bigger mess than in
“Ah, now I get their devious plan. Very,
very devious indeed.”
“Mmm.” Daria looked at the few slices
left and sighed. “I’m not hungry. You can take the rest home.”
“Thanks.
"He can have the last garlic breadstick, too."
“So, tell me, amiga,”
said Jane, crossing her arms as she sat with her elbows on the table. “Who are
we going to date with all the eligible men either gone north or in nursing
homes? And don’t say Upchuck, I’m not finished eating yet.”
Daria cleared her throat. “Well, uh... there’s, um... Mack
Mackenzie.”
“Uh-huh. Jodie says she has a gun and isn’t afraid to use
it.”
“She can’t be everywhere at once.”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.”
“And on that note,” said Daria as she got to her feet, “let’s call it a night.”
After stuffing one last slice in her mouth, Jane got the
bill, paid it, packed up the leftovers, and left a tip. They walked out the
door of
“The
“You really need to
drop by LysiStrategy. I’m telling you, they’re going to freak when they see
your copy.”
“I... I might do that. Maybe. I
don’t know.”
“Monday after school, four p.m.,
“Damn it.”
Jane grinned. “That’s my amiga.”
Original: 06/22/09, 11/02/09, 03/27/10, 05/10/10
FINIS
