Transcript - BSFC #19: Claudia and the Bad Joke
Brooke Suchomel: 0:18
Welcome to the Baby-sitters Fight Club, where the first rule is, you don't talk about Fight Club. Instead, you talk about the battles fought and the lessons learned in the Baby-sitters Club series of books by Ann M. Martin. I'm Brooke Suchomel, an editor who's revisiting these books after 30 years.
Kaykay Brady: 0:35
And I'm Kaykay Brady, I'm a therapist and I am a brand new visitor to the Baby-sitters Club books.
Brooke Suchomel: 0:44
You are a resident of Stoneybrook now, I think. You're not a visitor.
Kaykay Brady: 0:47
I just moved in.
Brooke Suchomel: 0:48
It's like you are a child of divorced parents, and you come to visit your other parent in Stoneybrook on weekends.
Kaykay Brady: 0:56
Yeah, exactly.
Brooke Suchomel: 0:58
This episode, we are discussing book 19, Claudia and the Bad Joke, which was published in December 1988. So, as we always do, we'll start by putting this book into historical context with a little pop culture history from that month, December of '88. On the music charts, we had three number ones that month. The first one was the "Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird" medley.
Kaykay Brady: 1:23
Wait, what? I mean, I know each of those songs separately, obviously.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:30
So there was a band called Will To Power that did kind of like a synth infused, soulful, male female duet version. If I played it, you would remember it, because it was everywhere.
Kaykay Brady: 1:46
I'm seeing like a roller rink in my head. This would be like, you know, grab a partner skate.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:52
Yes, this definitely was a partner skate. And then that was followed by Chicago, the band Chicago had like their late 80s burst again, and their song "Look Away."
Kaykay Brady: 2:02
Oh, shit. Yeah, I remember that song very, very well.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:06
It's a classic representation of an 80s power ballad. But like, if you listen to it, would you think it was Chicago?
Kaykay Brady: 2:13
No. In fact, until you said it, I didn't know. I had no idea.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:16
You think it's some generic 80s dad band, but it's Chicago. And it sounds nothing like original recipe Chicago.
Kaykay Brady: 2:24
I mean, my mind is as blown as when I learned that Jefferson Airplane became Jefferson Starship.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:30
Right, and then Starship. It kept morphing and got very far away from its original mission. Kind of the same thing happened to Chicago.
Kaykay Brady: 2:37
What was that German thing that like was filled with hydrogen?
Brooke Suchomel: 2:39
The Hindenberg?
Kaykay Brady: 2:40
Yeah. What was that called? The type of thing?
Brooke Suchomel: 2:43
The blimp.
Kaykay Brady: 2:44
Yeah. So it became Jefferson Blimp, and then it hit a mountain.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:48
Right. And then the next thing you know, it's like writing the theme song to Mannequin. A little different from the Summer of Love vibe that it had going in psychedelic drug infused everything in the 60s. Yeah, Chicago dumped its horns and went power ballad in the late 80s. And that was booted off the charts by "Every Rose Has Its Thorn."
Kaykay Brady: 3:08
Another classic power ballad!
Brooke Suchomel: 3:12
Yeah, this was a power ballad month for sure.
Kaykay Brady: 3:15
And what was going on for us in the 80s? We were just getting broke up with a lot?
Brooke Suchomel: 3:21
You know, the Reagan years weren't good years, as much as people in sort of revisionist history have tried to paint them as such. It was a lot of hot garbage.
Kaykay Brady: 3:30
Yeah. Also, depending on who you were, right? Like, try to be gay in the Reagan years. Not great for you.
Brooke Suchomel: 3:37
Oh, it sucked hard. But even if you were like the prototypical coke snorting Wall Street executive, '88 was not great for you either. It was kind of shit all around, so I guess people had to find comfort in their soulful power ballads. The movies, you're going to be very excited. Okay. So I'll start with the number one movies of the month, which I don't expect are the ones that you're going to be really excited about. Although maybe, maybe you will. So, The Naked Gun.
Kaykay Brady: 4:10
I enjoyed it.
Brooke Suchomel: 4:11
And then Twins.
Kaykay Brady: 4:13
Danny DeVito, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Brooke Suchomel: 4:15
And then Rain Man.
Kaykay Brady: 4:16
All right.
Brooke Suchomel: 4:17
Those were the big number ones, but then also released that month, I don't know if you've seen this one. This was a classic for me, because I don't remember it being an HBO special. I remember it being a TBS special, and I had TBS. We did not have HBO, but we did have TBS. My Stepmother Is an Alien. Did you ever see that one?
Kaykay Brady: 4:36
I don't think I saw it. And it may have been on HBO, but for some reason it wasn't on my radar. I don't even know, well, do I know the plot? Maybe I know the plot just by the title.
Brooke Suchomel: 4:45
The plot is in the title, and it stars Kim Basinger as said stepmother and alien, who marries Dan Ackroyd, whose daughter, the narrator of the title "my stepmother," the possessive owner of the stepmother, is Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Kaykay Brady: 5:07
Alyson Hannigan?
Brooke Suchomel: 5:08
Yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 5:10
Geez, how did I miss this movie?
Brooke Suchomel: 5:13
It's garbage. It's so bad and so great. It is made for, like, "Oh, is there a bored 10 year old who doesn't have premium cable that's looking for something stupid to watch on TV and she's a latchkey kid? This is the movie for her." I still remember a scene where she takes cookies out of the oven with her bare hands. And I think of it every time I take cookies out of the oven.
Kaykay Brady: 5:40
You're like, I wish I was an alien. I wish I was Kim Basinger.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:43
Every time! I'm like, the benefits of being an alien...
Kaykay Brady: 5:45
That's a lot. You make a lot of cookies.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:47
I do bake a lot of cookies. And each time I have to reach in with my damn potholders, because I'm not an alien, and it's something that I lament on a weekly basis. The other two movies are not ones that were staples of my repertoire, but I see them as being staples of your repertoire.
Kaykay Brady: 6:04
Oh, I can't wait.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:05
Beaches.
Kaykay Brady: 6:07
Yeah, okay. I think my sister was more into it, but it was definitely on a lot.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:13
Yeah, cuz you had "Wind Beneath My Wings." That hadn't hit the charts yet, but was fucking everywhere. When we get to the month when "Wind Beneath My Wings" becomes big, I'm gonna have a hard time, because I hate that fucking song. But I know that Beaches is like a camp classic.
Kaykay Brady: 6:33
Yeah, also like, queer classic.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:35
Yeah, and also suburban mom classic. So it's a classic for many segments of the population.
Kaykay Brady: 6:42
Right. So what do you hate so much about "Wind Beneath My Wings?"
Brooke Suchomel: 6:44
I just hate the song.
Kaykay Brady: 6:47
Just its overall craftsmanship?
Brooke Suchomel: 6:49
Well, I hate anything in that oeuvre. You know?
Kaykay Brady: 6:53
What, tear jerking?
Brooke Suchomel: 6:54
Yeah, or just like, I don't believe you. You're wailing, but I don't believe you. Do you know what I mean?
Kaykay Brady: 7:02
I'm not really the wind beneath your wings?
Brooke Suchomel: 7:03
It just feels like you're intentionally playing with my emotions. You don't actually have anything to say, you just want to make me cry. It feels manipulative. And it's also just not an interesting arrangement, that style of singing is not my thing. This is just me shitting all over "Wind Beneath My Wings," because it's in my top five most hated songs.
Kaykay Brady: 7:21
You go. This is the Geraldo of this episode.
Brooke Suchomel: 7:24
I hate "Wind Beneath My Wings" almost as much as I hate Geraldo. But I will say, if I saw a drag queen perform it?
Kaykay Brady: 7:30
You'd probably love it.
Brooke Suchomel: 7:31
Like, as a bird. You know what I mean? Just like take it and just make it super ridiculous. I would love the shit out of that. Then I think I'd actually love the song.
Kaykay Brady: 7:41
Well shit, it's like season 12, who did "I'm Like a Bird?"
Brooke Suchomel: 7:45
Crystal Methyd.
Kaykay Brady: 7:47
So Crystal Methyd could do this as a bird, and you would be like, "This is the best thing I've ever seen."
Brooke Suchomel: 7:52
Then I would love it, if it was a bird who played it completely straight. So I want to see a drag queen play this as a bird, acting like they're Bette Midler in the actual movie. Then I would probably love it. Manifesting that into the world.
Kaykay Brady: 8:10
They should do like 80s ballads slash tear jerkers on Drag Race.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:14
They need a whole season of that. Yeah, I'm into that. And then the next one I know is 100% your jam, because this is when Working Girl came out.
Kaykay Brady: 8:24
Oh, yeah. [sings melody of Working Girl theme] Get on the Staten Island Ferry! That movie's like 50% the Staten Island Ferry. Like every other shot is the Staten Island ferry.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:37
It's just an ad for the Staten Island Ferry.
Kaykay Brady: 8:39
Basically, it's just the Staten Island Ferry and that song, is most of the movie.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:44
So here's where I'm going to make a little confession, and I hope we're still friends. I've never seen Working Girl.
Kaykay Brady: 8:49
I mean, it doesn't make me sad because it presents an opportunity.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:53
Yes, you can educate me as you educated me on The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas. How many times have you watched Working Girl?
Kaykay Brady: 9:02
As an adult? Probably over 10, I would say. Maybe more. As a kid, maybe 50 times. Because it was on HBO all the time.
Brooke Suchomel: 9:10
Like, on in the background, and you're just living your life and it's just there. That was me with My Stepmother Is an Alien.
Kaykay Brady: 9:16
So you're saying My Stepmother Is an Alien is the TBS Working Girl?
Brooke Suchomel: 9:20
Exactly. That's exactly what I'm saying. On TV, since it's December, we've got Christmas specials. And the two new Christmas specials that came out that year, which I got really excited about, one was A Very Brady Christmas.
Kaykay Brady: 9:37
I remember it.
Brooke Suchomel: 9:38
So this piece of shit, which I say with affection, because it is a real piece of shit and I love it. I wouldn't change a thing about it. It's on Hulu. If you haven't seen it, watch it.
Kaykay Brady: 9:51
I really should. I might wait for Christmas, but...
Brooke Suchomel: 9:54
Yeah, I watched it this past Christmas. And I'll just leave you with a note that there is a very, of course there is a very special scene. There's always going to be a very special scene. But the very special scene involves Carol Brady leading an entire crowd of onlookers who have come to see if Mike Brady can get out of the collapsed building that he's trapped in at the worksite on Christmas.
Kaykay Brady: 10:24
Oh shit.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:25
They lead him out by singing "Oh, Come All Ye Faithful." So I've just given you a spoiler. Mike Brady doesn't die in A Very Brady Christmas, in case you were worried that he died in the building. He doesn't.
Kaykay Brady: 10:39
Now that you're describing it, I don't remember it. I thought I knew it. But that sounds like trash.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:44
It's real trash. And then, most importantly, this is when Christmas at Pee Wee's Playhouse came out.
Kaykay Brady: 10:51
Yeah! Grace Jones! k.d. lang! I just gonna say the people who are on it.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:57
Oh my god, Joan Rivers. Cher! Fucking Cher, okay?
Kaykay Brady: 11:02
Its unreal.
Brooke Suchomel: 11:03
Starts off with a men's chorus. I mean, it is truly, as I mentioned, I believe it was back in Episode Two of this podcast, it's the gayest thing that's ever been on television. It's beautiful. I love it. Go watch it. I'll link again, there is this great YouTuber named Matt Baume, I think I'm pronouncing his name correctly. He looks into queer analysis of different things in pop culture and history and TV shows.
Kaykay Brady: 11:33
Pee Wee's Playhouse, lobbed that one over the plate.
Brooke Suchomel: 11:35
Specifically the Christmas at Pee Wee's Playhouse, and how queer this episode is. And it is so wonderful. I mean, did you mention Little Richard? Little Richard is in it. It's just so camp, and so beautiful and wonderful, and that came out in December of 1988. And so this is the world in which the 19th book in the core Baby-sitters Club series, Claudia and the Bad Joke, was released. So it's time for some back cover copy. And I quote, "Claudia isn't worried when she hears her newest baby-sitting charge, Betsy Sobak, is a great practical joker. After all, how much harm can one little girl do? Plenty. Claudia breaks her leg as a result of one of Betsy's mean jokes, and now she's talking about quitting the club. 'Baby-sitting,' she says, 'is just too dangerous.' Kristy thinks Betsy needs to be taught a lesson. She also thinks the baby-sitters are just the ones to do it. Watch out, Betsy Sobak...the joke war is on!" End quote.
Kaykay Brady: 12:39
Snap!
Brooke Suchomel: 12:40
Snaps, Betsy Sobak! Watch your fucking back, Betsy Sobak! Your baby-sitters are coming for your ass!
Kaykay Brady: 12:47
Involve a parent? Hell no! We're just gonna engage in warfare. Talk to your mom? No!
Brooke Suchomel: 12:54
No, we're gonna break your leg! See how you like it!
Kaykay Brady: 13:01
Horse head in your bed!
Brooke Suchomel: 13:04
Normally I ask, you know, anything else that we've overlooked in the back cover copy?
Kaykay Brady: 13:09
It's pretty good. I mean, pretty good, except for Kristy's food fetish that shows up.
Brooke Suchomel: 13:15
Okay, are we gonna get right into it? Let's get into it!
Kaykay Brady: 13:22
You're dancing! I wish everyone could see. You're dancing, your dog is waking up in the background like, "What the fuck is wrong with mom?" He's back asleep.
Brooke Suchomel: 13:30
Oh my god. Okay. I will hand it over to you. Let's talk about the food fetish.
Kaykay Brady: 13:33
No. Absolutely not. After that dance? You go.
Brooke Suchomel: 13:39
I have probably 15 to 20 tabs in this book. 10 of them are in the first chapter, where you get into...Kristy wants a cream pie to the face. And she doesn't shut up about how much she wants to pie to her face.
Kaykay Brady: 13:57
She wants a lot of things! She wants a pie to her face. She wants to wear food on her body, which...Lady Gaga. She's the original Lady Gaga, basically.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:06
It's very queer. Like, it's very queering. Queering not in like any sort of sexual connotation of the word, moreso than "queering" is applied to sexual orientation, just in the case of saying like, we're going to take something, we're going to flip it. Whatever your normal social constructions are about what this thing is and what it should do, we're going to show you that there isn't just one way to be. And so that sort of definition of queering, she does it. So I'm not just saying that in a sexual context, but then also, the constant focus on a pie in her face.
Kaykay Brady: 14:46
I was also happy to see it was never a fruit pie that she was imagining. It was coconut.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:51
Coconut cream pie.
Kaykay Brady: 14:51
I believe it was Boston cream.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:53
Chocolate cream pie.
Kaykay Brady: 14:54
Oh, okay, chocolate cream. I totally can get behind this.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:58
She's up for diversity of pies.
Kaykay Brady: 15:00
And you know I hate fruit pies, so I was like, "Yeah, my girl! I can support all the pies that she wants to the face."
Brooke Suchomel: 15:07
Yes, except Dawn is the one that, she's down for an all natural sugar free fruit pie to the face.
Kaykay Brady: 15:12
Dawn would love the bullshit that we got at private school which were like these hideous berry crisps. Fuck that.
Brooke Suchomel: 15:21
Yeah. So like, the first thing that I wrote down in my notes is just, "The intro scene is queer as fuck." And it's so interesting because it just starts off, so the context is all of the babysitters have gone to the public library for a free slapstick comedy festival. It seems like, you know, they're showing a bunch of Three Stooges shorts, maybe Marx Brothers, whatever. It's clearly of that ilk.
Kaykay Brady: 15:46
Maybe Gallagher shows up.
Brooke Suchomel: 15:49
Gallagher shows up with a giant watermelon and a mallet. Yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 15:53
Kristy would be so excited!
Brooke Suchomel: 15:53
Kristy would be so into that. Like, she's like not even wearing the poncho in the front. So I feel like we might need to explain this for younger listeners. This is how jank the 80s were. This is what passed as comedy in the 80s. One of the most popular quote unquote "comedians" was a guy named Gallagher who wore a striped shirt and a weird kind of like floppy hat.
Kaykay Brady: 16:17
Sort of like a French beret, no?
Brooke Suchomel: 16:18
Like a beret, but then had like kind of wild hair and a big mustache. And his whole shtick is that he would just take a watermelon and a giant mallet and smash it. Like that was his thing. That's what people would pay money to go see. And so the people that would sit in the front row of the audience would literally have like a tarp, they would wear plastic ponchos and cover themselves with a tarp when he would smash. And this would be like, on TV. So this would be filmed, and it was like a big comedy special to just watch a strange little man smash fruit. And it was funny for some reason? To other people. It wasn't funny to me, it was like a thing that I would watch because I was like, okay, this is a thing. Trying to understand it. He's doing something that seems like it would be fun, to smash a watermelon, but like fun to watch someone smash a watermelon in the past on television?
Kaykay Brady: 17:21
It doesn't make a lot of sense.
Brooke Suchomel: 17:22
The only person having fun in that scenario is Gallagher. It was very, very odd. So that was really popular. I didn't even make that Gallagher connection. That would have been a big thing in 88 for sure. So Kristy was probably all about the Gallagher experience.
Kaykay Brady: 17:37
Yeah, just the just the right timeframe.
Brooke Suchomel: 17:39
So she's watching the slapstick comedy festival. Ann M. Martin describes how she's like entranced, and she's just got this gleeful look on her face. She can't stop talking to her friends about that's her dream. Somebody gets hit with a coconut cream pie in the face, and she's like, "This is my DREAM!"
Kaykay Brady: 17:59
Yeah. It was so weird.
Brooke Suchomel: 18:02
It's kind of like Chekhov's Film Festival, I guess, because you have no context. It's just, they're there. But then later on when this girl, Betsy, goes on her little sadism spree. She cites that film festival as like, that got her excited again, gave her more ideas and all of that. Very sort of "Do video games cause violence?" Does The Three Stooges cause you to torture your babysitters and break their legs? But in the first scene, there's a lot of discussion and they go around to all of the babysitters like, would they like to be hit in the face with a pie?
Kaykay Brady: 18:44
I know.
Brooke Suchomel: 18:47
So I catalogued it, and you if you take getting hit in the face with a pie, pie face, with the queer read that connotes, I think that the characters, what they say matches up.
Kaykay Brady: 19:05
Oh, genius.
Brooke Suchomel: 19:07
So Kristy, desperate to be hit in the face. It's all she can talk about. It's what she dreams about, it's what she thinks about at night, pie in the face.
Kaykay Brady: 19:14
On the spectrum, she's about a 99 percenter.
Brooke Suchomel: 19:17
Yes. On the Kinsey spectrum of pie face, she's like 100%.
Kaykay Brady: 19:22
That's what the kids are calling it.
Brooke Suchomel: 19:24
Exactly.
Kaykay Brady: 19:24
"Ah, she's a bit of a pie face."
Brooke Suchomel: 19:26
She's 100%. Jessi is just like straight up "no." Okay!
Kaykay Brady: 19:30
Hey, more power to ya.
Brooke Suchomel: 19:32
She's on the other end of that spectrum. Mallory's open to consideration. Depends on the kind of pie, but she'd consider it. Logan cannot conceive of wanting a pie in your face. What did I say in previous episodes?
Kaykay Brady: 19:44
But actually, Logan is currently getting pies to the face.
Brooke Suchomel: 19:48
But I don't think he's getting pies to the face.
Kaykay Brady: 19:51
He was cruising, remember?
Brooke Suchomel: 19:53
No, no, but I'm reading a pie as specifically interested in females.
Kaykay Brady: 19:57
Ah, I see, I see.
Brooke Suchomel: 20:00
The slang use of the word pie.
Kaykay Brady: 20:03
I gotcha. Like the song, "she's my cherry pie."
Brooke Suchomel: 20:05
Yeah. Logan? Fuck no. Wants nothing to do with pie. Can't conceive of why anybody would want anything to do with pie. Checks out.
Kaykay Brady: 20:11
He's like, "Get that pie out of the house. I won't enter a house with pie."
Brooke Suchomel: 20:14
There are no pies in the Stoneybrook cemetery at midnight. Mary Anne can't even discuss it, she just gets nauseated. Mary Anne cannot address her feelings about pies to the face. It's too much for Mary Anne.
Kaykay Brady: 20:25
Well, it's kind of like what we were talking about last time about when you are gay, you're often the most homophobic.
Brooke Suchomel: 20:30
Yes. So she gets green in the face. She says, like, "Nope, I can't do this." Dawn is like a solid yes, as long as the pie is sugar free and all natural. So Dawn is not even pie curious. She's like, yes, pie to the face.
Kaykay Brady: 20:48
Pro pie.
Brooke Suchomel: 20:49
She's pro pie, so long as it's a specific kind of healthy pie, which again, tracks with Dawn. And then Claudia says she's down for any kind of pie. So Claudia is just like, "I'm down for whatever," you know, so it totally tracks.
Kaykay Brady: 21:03
Claudia's like, "Let's party."
Brooke Suchomel: 21:04
Yeah, it tracks.
Kaykay Brady: 21:05
It's perfect. I love it.
Brooke Suchomel: 21:07
I was happy about that. But this book was about more than pies to the face.
Kaykay Brady: 21:11
Tragically, yes.
Brooke Suchomel: 21:12
But it is, did you notice that it's bookended with pies?
Kaykay Brady: 21:15
Wait, what happens in the end with the pies?
Brooke Suchomel: 21:17
It starts with the pie to the face, and then it ends by talking about pies to the face. Literally, the second to the last line of the book is Kristy just out of the blue saying, "I still wouldn't mind getting hit in the face with a pie!" And then, "Claudia sighed happily. Everything was back to normal." "Normal" is Kristy talking about how much she wants a pie in her face.
Kaykay Brady: 21:44
You go, Kristy. I fully support Kristy's...
Brooke Suchomel: 21:47
Passion for the pie.
Kaykay Brady: 21:49
Passion for the pie. I see a T shirt Kristy's face and it just says "passion for the pie." It's code. Yeah, so there was stuff going on besides pies, sadly.
Brooke Suchomel: 22:03
I mean, the pie is kind of the all consuming circle that all other plots are housed within. It's the outer, like, if there's a Venn diagram, it's the edges of the paper. It's all about the pies.
Kaykay Brady: 22:15
Exactly. I mean, I think this one has a very clear central plot, which is babysitting for Betsy and how she's playing practical jokes, and all the babysitters are trying to figure out how to stop Betsy from playing practical jokes. And one of the practical jokes lands Claudia in the hospital with a broken leg. And then Claudia decides, "Well, maybe I don't want to babysit anymore. This is too dangerous." And so it's, again, all the baby-sitters coming together, figuring out, "How do we convince Claudia to stay?" So it felt pretty centralized. What did you have?
Brooke Suchomel: 22:48
For my A plot, I had, "A sadistic eight year old leaves Claudia with a broken leg and serious emotional trauma."
Kaykay Brady: 22:54
I'm so glad you're saying "sadistic," because I was like, this child might have antisocial personality disorder.
Brooke Suchomel: 23:00
Oh, she's incredibly disturbed.
Kaykay Brady: 23:01
And then when she's sort of acting very guilty and feeling bad about it, I'm like, that could be a ruse!
Brooke Suchomel: 23:08
Yeah, she does that. She does ruses throughout, where she's like, "No, I'm not going to trick you. I'm going to be really good," and then stuff that she does is fucked.
Kaykay Brady: 23:18
Totally fucked.
Brooke Suchomel: 23:18
Like, it's creepy. This isn't just a light hearted fun, it's fun to play pranks every once in a while. It's her entire personality. And Ann M. Martin writes about how she looks excitedly, like when Claudia breaks her leg, because Betsy tells her specifically, after playing several jokes on her in the house and Claudia making it clear she's not into the jokes, let's do something other than play jokes. She's like, "Okay, let's go outside. Let's go on the swings." And she's like, "You sit in that swing," the specific swing that she knows is broken. And Claudia notes how she's looking at her excitedly, anticipation waiting for this chain to break, and it does. And Claudia goes flying and breaks her leg and ends up in hospital for a week, you know, is out of school for like a month. And this little girl is just like, she's like Firestarter.
Kaykay Brady: 24:16
Yeah, I was getting super Firestarter vibes. I was wondering if Firestarter came out around this time.
Brooke Suchomel: 24:21
It would have come out before, so...yeah. And she talks about how she has a smile creeping over her face when Claudia sits down on the swing. Like, she's so excited to see Claudia get hurt. And they later tried to play it off like, "Oh, well, she didn't mean to." Uh-uh.
Kaykay Brady: 24:37
I mean, she does, the author talks about her looking guilty and feeling guilty. But again, that could easily be a ruse.
Brooke Suchomel: 24:44
Yeah. It's like, how do you know that she's feeling guilty? She continues in this behavior. She has more, so like three other members of the Baby-sitters Club come and sit for her, and she does the same shit with all of them. I mean, there's one that's really fucked up with Mallory. While Mallory is watching her, while Mallory is cleaning up, so she knows that like Mallory is probably expecting her to do something with the food because she's done that before. And so she's careful not to do stuff with the food with Mallory. But then when Mallory goes to clean up afterwards, while her back is turned, this little eight year old girl goes, rings the doorbell, starts talking as if she's talking to somebody, and then closes the door loudly and then goes and hides in the closet by standing in boots and then wrapping the coat around her.
Kaykay Brady: 25:37
I know. It's next level shit.
Brooke Suchomel: 25:39
She is planning this. She's anticipating what the others will do, so she's playing some serious mind games. I mean, that's "fun" to be like, "Okay, I'm gonna make her think that I just got kidnapped?" That's funny?
Kaykay Brady: 25:52
Oh, it's super fucked. And how old is she supposed to be?
Brooke Suchomel: 25:54
Eight!
Kaykay Brady: 25:55
Right. That's so young.
Brooke Suchomel: 25:56
Yeah. And then she does a thing with trick gum, and she makes sure that she swaps the wrappers. So she knows one of the wrappers is going to look like it's trick gum, and the babysitter is going to expect that that's the trick gum wrapper. So she swaps the wrappers so that they intentionally pick the one she knows that they're going to think that it is. So she's fucking with their heads and then gets them that way. Like, she's devious and scary, and the parents clearly don't give a shit!
Kaykay Brady: 26:23
Yeah. The mom is very aloof and not doesn't seem very engaged, doesn't give a fuck.
Brooke Suchomel: 26:30
Doesn't give a fuck. Keeps on having these people babysit when she knows that Claudia is in the hospital with a fucking broken leg. And so she has Betsy write an apology card to her, but that's it, and still continue to babysit. And not only that, but she has Kristy babysit her, and then deducts the cost of the movie that she's taking them to from the amount that she pays Kristy to watch her. Did you notice that?
Kaykay Brady: 26:57
I missed that. That is some horseshit.
Brooke Suchomel: 26:59
That is some horseshit. So she's like, "Oh, yeah, there's a movie playing that Betsy wants to go to. I'll pay for your ticket and the refreshments and then a small fee, since you're getting a free movie ticket out of it." Fuck that! No. Absolutely not.
Kaykay Brady: 27:15
No, no, no, no. This is why I don't understand why they just don't hold a boundary and not babysit for this kid.
Brooke Suchomel: 27:23
You don't babysit her.
Kaykay Brady: 27:24
You definitely don't.
Brooke Suchomel: 27:25
And that's why they're contacting the Baby-sitters Club, because everybody else in the neighborhood refuses to watch this kid. Looking at this from your therapeutic perspective, if you had a Betsy, what would be your approach to dealing with a child who was demonstrating this sort of behavior that is displayed in this book?
Kaykay Brady: 27:49
Well, so I said first, antisocial personality disorder, which actually you can't diagnose until 18. But the earlier version of it is called conduct disorder. And the big sort of red flag that there's conduct disorder is sort of like, harming people or property, and also showing no guilt about it. So she supposedly shows guilt, but I don't know I didn't buy it. Because also, kids with conduct disorder and adults with antisocial personality disorder, they're actually really good at mimicking emotions.
Brooke Suchomel: 28:21
"What will the other person want me to do, so I can get out of this situation and not have to face consequences?"
Kaykay Brady: 28:26
Yeah. And unfortunately, conduct disorder is the hardest to treat. Not that it's untreatable, but definitely the younger, the better, right? So like, if somebody that has conduct disorder doesn't get therapy until they're like 30, forget it. It's like full blown antisocial personality disorder, and this is like the one diagnosis in mental health that there's no treatment for and you can't change.
Brooke Suchomel: 28:48
Yeah, you just elect them to Congress.
Kaykay Brady: 28:52
Yeah. But like, this is like, you know, serial killers. Psychopathy is not a diagnosis in the DSM. It's called antisocial personality disorder. And basically what they tell a therapist is like, "This is going to be an impossible client to sit with. And in fact, therapy makes them worse, because they learn."
Brooke Suchomel: 29:11
"So...good luck!"
Kaykay Brady: 29:11
So I have no answers!
Brooke Suchomel: 29:15
So what do you do if therapy makes somebody worse? As a therapist, what do you do? Do you just like play video games?
Kaykay Brady: 29:24
Well, you know, a lot of therapists won't work with antisocial personality disorder, because there's just so little you can do and you're much more likely to make it worse. So there's just not an answer for this one.
Brooke Suchomel: 29:36
That's scary.
Kaykay Brady: 29:36
And frankly, a lot of folks, not all, but a lot of folks with antisocial personality disorder will eventually be in prison. Usually I'm so hopeful and filled with plans, but this one's a tough one.
Brooke Suchomel: 29:52
This one's not one of them.
Kaykay Brady: 29:53
Yeah. So you know, part of the reason why they don't diagnose it until 18 is because it's not a surefire "it's gonna happen." So like, Betsy could be okay. It could be like a phase, right? Especially if that guilt is genuine. If that guilt is genuine, that would be sort of like the biggest sigh of relief for everybody involved. She'd probably be fine. The real troublesome thing is just the complete lack of empathy, and that is like biological in nature.
Brooke Suchomel: 30:21
Yeah. I mean, she says she didn't mean that to happen, but "I thought you would fall on the grass and not on the concrete."
Kaykay Brady: 30:28
"I thought you'd just hurt your leg."
Brooke Suchomel: 30:30
Yeah. So she meant Claudia to fall, and at minimum, be humiliated. It seems like that's kind of what she's going for. She's looking to humiliate people.
Kaykay Brady: 30:40
The interesting thing, and the hopeful thing, too, is if she's being genuine, the experience they have at the movie theater where Kristy turns the tables and humiliates Betsy, so basically, Kristy scares Betsy with a fake bloody finger in her popcorn. And there's kids in the movie theater that already don't like Betsy, because Betsy has already been torturing these kids. So Betsy starts yelling, and all the kids start making fun of her. So she humiliates Betsy, Kristy does. And then Betsy all of a sudden understands, like, "Oh, this is humiliating, this is what I'm doing to you." That's what she says. Now, if that is true, then she doesn't have conduct disorder, and she's unlikely to have antisocial personality disorder, and she's probably going to be fine. If she's mimicking that, then that's very bad. Because not only does she not feel the empathy, but she is sort of advanced enough in the manipulation to be able to pretend. And eight is really young. An eight year old has only just developed theory of mind. And theory of mind is like the idea of what you were saying, that you have to understand, little kids don't understand that what's in their mind is not what's in everybody's mind. That is a developmental period that they have to get to.
Brooke Suchomel: 31:55
I think there are full blown adults that don't understand that. A lot of full blown adults actually, unfortunately.
Kaykay Brady: 32:01
Yeah. Right. So she's really strong in this area at eight. That's incredibly strong for eight. I think they don't develop it until like six or seven, would be when you really start to develop theory of mind. So not only has she developed it, but it's developed enough that she can manipulate and outsmart kids way older than her.
Brooke Suchomel: 32:20
Yeah. No, she's very manipulative. What did you think about Kristy's approach?
Kaykay Brady: 32:26
Oh man.
Brooke Suchomel: 32:28
"I'm deliberately going to sit next to kids that I can tell hate her so that she is humiliated by these other children." What did you think about that?
Kaykay Brady: 32:38
I mean, the whole fire with fire approach is very unlikely to work in real life. So I was like, "Bad news, Kristy." But of course, the book has it sort of work out.
Brooke Suchomel: 32:48
Yeah, as it always does, right?
Kaykay Brady: 32:49
But personally it's not an intervention we would ever suggest. What did you think of it?
Brooke Suchomel: 32:55
I was like, "Okay, I see where you're going here. This does seem like a decision that a 13 year old child would make." Again, you see that they don't often turn to adults to help solve their problems. That's a pretty rare thing. When they do, it's usually, and we see it here in this book, it's like Mimi. There are specific adults, but most of them they see are not helpful.
Kaykay Brady: 33:19
Right. Well, Mimi is the adult that is really thoughtful and doesn't react, you know, she's not reactive at all. Non judgmental, exactly. You know, she'll listen
Brooke Suchomel: 33:24
Yes. Non judgmental. and doesn't sort of make anything worse for them. But like, today, that kid would be seriously assessed. You broke your babysitter's leg?! You would hope that there would be people diving in, as opposed to Betsy's parents who are like, "We're going to continue to keep going to regular golfing tournaments." I mean, that's what they do, and her mom Cookie, so we had Cokie in a previous book, now we have Cookie. Cookie Sobak, who says "ta ta" on her way to meetings at the Women's Club and when she goes golfing.
Kaykay Brady: 34:00
Oh yeah, Women's Club! I was like, what is this? I want to be part of this.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:03
There's no "y" in the spelling of "women," so I don't think it's necessarily fun.
Kaykay Brady: 34:07
It's probably the opposite of what I'm looking for.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:09
Yeah, they say unironic "ta ta"s. I don't think it's your thing.
Kaykay Brady: 34:13
Damn.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:14
So you see, she's acting out. Her parents are just too busy golfing to pay any fucking attention to her. And she mentions, when she's first introduced, that her older sister is 23 and she just had a baby. So you know, it sounds like there might be something there. She's not the baby of the family anymore, she doesn't get much attention. Is she just doing some really extreme attention seeking? But it's matched with a personality where she is perhaps too smart and too manipulative for her own good or the good of those around her, and it's not being channeled in a productive fashion because there's no adults around who care enough about her to bother to help her. Which is perhaps the most 80s moment in this book, right? That's very 80s.
Kaykay Brady: 35:04
Yeah. No adults, and the attention seeking behavior which actually never gets resolved. You know, she's not looking to have the baby-sitters just humiliate her. If it's attention seeking behavior, she's looking for the attention of, you know, caregivers. But not in this world. You can break legs and you still don't get your parents attention.
Brooke Suchomel: 35:24
No. And to the point that you're mentioning about, you know, what is she seeking and how she might be lacking empathy, seeking attention while lacking empathy seems to me to be a quite dangerous combination for anybody. There actually is quite a bit explicitly referenced about empathy in this book, where even in the description of the notebook at the very beginning, where they go through the whole spiel about, let's say this is the very first Baby-sitters Club book you've picked up, we're going to give you the need to know information so that you can keep up with what happens in this book. It mentions how the notebook is an empathetic device. It says, “It's surprising what we can learn by reading about our friends' sitting experiences." So not just practical, but also emotional sort of things that they learn about the people, both that are writing and that they're sitting for. Which I thought called back to discussions that we've had in previous episodes about how the act of reading, and particularly reading through the lens of multiple experiences in the same setting and same timeframe, can really help foster empathy.
Kaykay Brady: 36:37
Yeah, different perspectives.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:41
Yeah. It seems like Betsy perhaps needs something like that. She needs more experiences. It seems like the only sort of interactions and lessons that she has from dealing with other people is just in her jokes, like, quote unquote "jokes," because a lot of them, they're not funny. You know? It's just cruelty. It's just, "Can I scare this person?"
Kaykay Brady: 37:05
Yeah. And it has sort of a flavor of power, having power over another person and control over another person, too. Which again is leaning towards the whole antisocial spectrum, the control over others. But it's really interesting, because that sort of really strong theory of mind ability can be used for empathy, or can be used for manipulation. And you're really only seeing her use it for manipulation. Although at the end, supposedly there's a breakthrough there, where now she's actually able to use it with empathy, understanding herself getting humiliated, it must feel that way to the people she's playing jokes on.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:46
Yeah, like, Claudia mentions, when a joke is played on her, this is a direct quote from the book, "Somehow a practical joke seemed funnier in the movies than in real life." So like, the concept of a thing, when it's not happening to you, is not the same thing as the direct experience of something happening to you, and how that can change your perspective on things. Hopefully, if your neurons are firing properly, and you have the proper brain chemistry and training, you know, and life experiences. If not, oof.
Kaykay Brady: 38:17
Yeah. I mean, it's like all things, it's bio, psycho, and social. So even if someone is born without a lot of ability to empathize, that can be overcome with a really good upbringing, a lot of teaching, a lot of patience, and a lot of kindness. But if you biologically have that inclination, and then you're in an abusive situation, for example, and you're socialized in an antisocial way, then that's when you get antisocial personality disorder. You kind of have to have all three firing.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:50
Right. And it definitely doesn't seem like she's getting the proper support that she would need.
Kaykay Brady: 38:55
Yeah, it's definitely the benign neglect we've been talking about.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:59
Yeah, get a bunch of 13 year old kids with bones that haven't been fully formed yet to take care of this burgeoning psychopath.
Kaykay Brady: 39:08
I was gonna ask you, have you ever broken a bone?
Brooke Suchomel: 39:10
I haven't.
Kaykay Brady: 39:11
Me neither! What the fuck?
Brooke Suchomel: 39:13
Nice! I know, I feel very unusual when I say that.
Kaykay Brady: 39:16
Me too! And I've done some hardcore shit. I've been hit by two cars. I've been hit by two cars, and I fell out of, well, I jumped out of a 30 foot tree.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:27
Who doesn't?
Kaykay Brady: 39:29
My friends dared me and I was like, I'll do it. I got the wind knocked out of me, but no bones.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:32
You landed on all fours like a cat.
Kaykay Brady: 39:35
I landed on my back, and the wind was knocked out to me for like 10 minutes, and I was like, "I'm dying," but I wasn't.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:40
Then you were just fine?
Kaykay Brady: 39:41
Then I was absolutely fine.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:44
Okay, wait, how are you hit by two cars and you don't even...there had to be like, at least a hairline fracture involved there, right?
Kaykay Brady: 39:52
No! No. Like, some bruising on my butt, cuz I went up over the windshield. I hit the ground on my butt. So I had bruises on my butt, but absolutely nothing else wrong with me.
Brooke Suchomel: 40:03
How are you not a stunt woman?
Kaykay Brady: 40:06
I should be a stunt woman!
Brooke Suchomel: 40:08
I mean, for real. This is your audio resume for your next career.
Kaykay Brady: 40:13
Here's the thing, given my body type, I'm only appropriate for Melissa McCarthy, which would be really lucrative and fun.
Brooke Suchomel: 40:20
You would love that so much. You would...why is this not happening right now? Should we end this conversation right now so that you can go make some contacts? Because this feels urgent.
Kaykay Brady: 40:34
It is so funny we're talking about this, because I was watching a new movie on Netflix, Thunder Force, and obviously she has a stunt double that's doing all of these incredible stunts. And I was like, "Who is that woman? Why is it not me?"
Brooke Suchomel: 40:49
So wait, what was the context of you being hit by, I think I knew you were hit by a car. I didn't realize you we're hit by two cars. This was not at the same time, right? You weren't hit by two cars in succession.
Kaykay Brady: 41:00
Boom! Bam! No, two separate incidents. I think one, I was like 13 or 14, and one, I was in college. And 13 or 14, I'm sure I ran into the road and was doing something crazy. And then in college, I'm sure I was on drugs. Simple answers!
Brooke Suchomel: 41:17
Well, I'm so glad that you've lived to tell the tale here on this podcast.
Kaykay Brady: 41:21
And I love that we're in the no broken bones club.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:24
Yeah, I can't say that this has been a controlled experiment, because I've never been in those situations. I've never even climbed a tree, let alone fallen out of one.
Kaykay Brady: 41:34
What?!
Brooke Suchomel: 41:35
I've driven a car, but I haven't been hit by one. I need to knock on something.
Kaykay Brady: 41:38
You're not living!
Brooke Suchomel: 41:39
Right. What have I done wrong? I haven't tested the strength of my bones, I'll put it that way. Yours have been, clearly.
Kaykay Brady: 41:46
They've been tested and they have passed.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:47
They are genetically superior.
Kaykay Brady: 41:49
Well I will say that I did 23andme, and I'm 99th percentile for Neanderthal.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:53
There you go.
Kaykay Brady: 41:54
So I think it's probably that.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:55
There was a lot of falling out of trees happening back then.
Kaykay Brady: 41:57
Well, you know, they just had thicker bones. We know that they had thicker bones, so...
Brooke Suchomel: 42:01
Good for you.
Kaykay Brady: 42:02
Good for me!
Brooke Suchomel: 42:03
What did you have for what they were fighting?
Kaykay Brady: 42:05
I thought this was very cool. Because I felt like they were fighting, lack of control, chaos and mortality. You know, Mimi was really the character that brought this together, because basically, you have Claudia saying, "I don't want to babysit anymore. because I can't control this. It feels very out of control, it feels dangerous." And Mimi saying, "Yeah, life is scary. You could have a stroke any time, you know, something could come down on you. And you know, we need to keep living." So I thought that was really cool as a concept, because what an important concept for a human being to grapple with, and how few things talk about this. Most mass media, most culture, most movies, it's like, everything's gonna distract you from your vulnerability and from the chaos of the world that could make you anxious and afraid. Our whole culture is built around "let's just distract you from it." And so it's so cool to see a book, especially a book for kids, that's dealing with it directly and saying, "No, this is the tension of being a cognizant human being, alive, and you can't stop living." So I thought it was very deep.
Brooke Suchomel: 43:19
Yeah. And especially at that time. I mean, that whole myth of the self made individual who, you know, if you're struggling with something in your life, you just haven't figured out how to fix it yet, that's on you. Like, that's something that is still super pertinent today, but at least today, there are voices saying, "Hey, maybe that's not the way the world actually works." I cannot think of any voices saying that in the 80s. It was very much, "Your problems are your problems, you need to fix it. You do have control over everything." This myth that is so fundamental to American society and capitalism was just so pervasive, and to have it spelled out in this book so explicitly, I thought was really beautiful. So on page 75, this is after Claudia has talked to Mimi about how she's scared about babysitting, specifically because she thinks about, well, she broke her leg, and that's kept her from walking around and being mobile. But what if she broke her arm? What if she was never able to use her arm again for some reason? And since she's an artist, and she sees that as such a huge part of her identity, she's really going through sort of an identity crisis. And she's seeing babysitting and art as sort of binaries. Babysitting as something that could cause her to get physically harmed in a way that could prevent her from doing her art, and so it calls back to that same struggle that she had in Claudia and the New Girl. Where it's the introduction of Ashley Wyeth, who tries to get her to drop out of the Baby-sitters Club to focus all of her time on art.
Kaykay Brady: 44:56
Another pro pie human being.
Brooke Suchomel: 44:58
Yeah, for sure. For sure. She's all about the pies. So Ashley comes up again in this book, I believe it might be the first significant reappearance of Ashley, and Ashley is trying to talk to her about, "I think it's a good idea for you to leave the Baby-sitters Club, so that you can just focus on your art." And Claudia is conflicted because she wants to do both, but she's afraid that if she babysits again, something will break and put that in jeopardy. And so she says to Mimi, straight up, "I'm scared to babysit again." And the response is, "Mimi looked thoughtful." This is on page 75. "'What is really scary,' she told me, 'is to think we do not have control. Cannot keep accident from happening or stroke from happening.'" Claudia, "'Well, I know one way to have a little control. I won't babysit, then I won't be exposed to kids and their toys and tricks.' 'Is that what you really want?' asked Mimi. I shook my head. 'I don't know.' 'You must think over,' said Mimi, solemnly. 'Very important. If you have any ideas, you need any help, you come to me, my Claudia.'" And Claudia says, "'I know. I know I can do that, thanks.'" So Claudia is really fortunate to have this adult, experienced voice that is open, that is helping her get the perspective that is often missing, you know, that we all miss. Mimi is kind of like the Baby-sitters Club's therapist.
Kaykay Brady: 46:22
That's just what I was gonna say.
Brooke Suchomel: 46:24
She explicitly says, "I am not, what's the word? Like, head doctor." This is in Mimi's post stroke speech, you know, she's trying to think of the word and just like, "Oh, yeah, I'm not a therapist," but she gives the sort of coaching that you would get from a therapist.
Kaykay Brady: 46:40
Yeah. And also, we have a phrase in mental health called unconditional positive regard, and that is sort of like the state you are always aspiring to with your clients. It doesn't mean that everything they do, you agree with, but just as a person, you're always holding them with this sort of unconditional acceptance and support. And you're working very hard to never let like your own biases and thoughts get in the way of holding them. And Mimi is perfect at that. That's what she is, she's just a nonreactive adult filled with unconditional positive regard. And you see how the characters then trust her and they bloom. Because it's very safe conditions for them to bloom and feel supported.
Brooke Suchomel: 47:24
Absolutely. Yeah, so that's what I had, I had that they were, and the "they" was specifically Claudia, that she's fighting her fear, her anxiety of putting herself into a situation where she could not be in control, and that not being in control could cause her to lose something that she loves. I mean, there's a lot of trauma in this. You know, you see a lot of her emotional trauma, even on the cover. The cover is so, this is Misery.
Kaykay Brady: 47:54
Oh, what is it? I see Claudia sitting with her cast. I haven't seen this cover.
Brooke Suchomel: 47:57
Yeah, so I'm looking at the original cover from 1988. Claudia's in her hospital room, and she has her leg up in her cast, kind of up in a sling. There are two young children around her, and we know in the book, Betsy doesn't come and visit her, but I think this is perhaps meant to imply that this is Betsy, who is sort of looking at Claudia with this, like, "heeeeeyyyyy..." kind of look. And Claudia's facial expression is abject terror.
Kaykay Brady: 48:32
She's like, "Get me out of here." She's got a nervous smile on her face.
Brooke Suchomel: 48:36
Just the most nervous smile, but it is like, ultimate cringe. The eyes are not smiling in any way. And Misery came out in June 1987. I looked it up. The book did. The book did, the movie came out in 1990, but...
Kaykay Brady: 48:50
I also could have been a body double for Kathy Bates. I also could have done those stunts.
Brooke Suchomel: 48:56
I wanna see you be the body double for Kathy Bates in Titanic. I want to see you jump into a lifeboat.
Kaykay Brady: 49:01
Unsinkable Molly Brown, fuck yeah!
Brooke Suchomel: 49:03
That would be perfect. So, Claudia is really scared. She's really traumatized in this.
Kaykay Brady: 49:11
That's the thing, it's like, this is an unusual circumstance, an unusual kid. The right approach is like, maybe you need to work some process into the vetting of clients to vet out clients with conduct disorder.
Brooke Suchomel: 49:25
Yes, exactly. An assessment that every parent has to complete before they take them.
Kaykay Brady: 49:32
Shit, I used to walk dogs, I had an hour long assessment before I would take a fucking dog!
Brooke Suchomel: 49:37
Yeah, totally. But Claudia decides that she will stay ultimately stay in the Baby-sitters Club, as one of her conditions is she is not sitting for that hell child anymore.
Kaykay Brady: 49:47
No one should.
Brooke Suchomel: 49:48
None of them should. Maybe the parents need to actually pay attention to their child and work that shit out.
Kaykay Brady: 49:54
Yeah, and she might need outpatient treatment.
Brooke Suchomel: 49:56
Yeah, for sure.
Kaykay Brady: 49:57
Or inpatient treatment.
Brooke Suchomel: 49:58
Yeah, ultimately the thing that helps Claudia worked through her fear is talking through her concerns with loved ones, being honest with herself about her actual feelings. At the very end, she brings up, it's not just that she was scared, she was also really embarrassed. She said she was embarrassed, and she doesn't want to be embarrassed like that again. Setting proper boundaries, and then she just commits to living the life that she wants to live. So it's like, okay, here's what is important to me. What sort of barriers do I need to put up to make sure that I'm able to do what's important to me, and I'm not going to just give in to the fear. I can figure out how I can remove some of the things that are causing me to have this fear, but I'm still going to do what's important to me in my life. So I thought that was really good.
Kaykay Brady: 50:41
Yeah, and you also point out something important, which is identifying the deeper emotion, which most adults can't do. You know what I mean? Most adults are sort of functioning on, they think they're functioning just on a cognitive level. And there's actually lots of feelings going on. And they may be really deep existential terrors. But they're just not dealing with them, talking about them, and so, again, a really cool thing in this book to demonstrate the importance of that. Really knowing what's the primary feeling, because once you see the primary feeling, then you can express it, and it can, you know, dissipate or change.
Brooke Suchomel: 51:18
Yeah. And that is also said, I don't know if you noticed this, on page 130, that was spelled out explicitly. I was really surprised when I read this, because I'm like, this book was written 33 years ago. And I feel like only now some of what she was saying in this book is starting to become a part of the discussion. Where she said, ultimately, it was the realization that it was the embarrassment that was holding her back, even more than the loss of control. When Betsy said that she was embarrassed by the trick that Kristy played on her, and Kristy mentioned that to Claudia, that clicked in Claudia, and she said, quote, "Well, I started thinking. I was embarrassed. Humiliated too, I guess, but I didn't want to admit it. So I started, what's the word? Oh, yeah, I started focusing on all the other stuff. But the plain truth is, I was embarrassed, and that's no reason to quit the club." And then goes on to talk about how, you know, Mimi also mentioned control, you can't control everything in your lives. She could get hit by a car while she's walking down the street or fall out of a 30 foot tree. But that basically, you know, that loss of control was an important realization for her too, but ultimately was realizing that the core underlying thing that was holding her back was that feeling of shame and embarrassment. And that, in and of itself, is not enough reason to not do what you want to do. I thought that was really lovely. Maybe that's why Kristy was able to come back around and reinforce her desire for a pie in the face. She's not embarrassed about it. She's just gonna live her goddamn life.
Kaykay Brady: 53:01
Her primary emotion is wanting a pie to the face.
Brooke Suchomel: 53:04
Right, that's her primary state of being. That is her defining personality trait. Kristy, pie to the face.
Kaykay Brady: 53:12
Ah. What were your favorite 80s moments?
Brooke Suchomel: 53:16
So I definitely had some of the stuff that we've discussed, like dismissing your child's sadism as being, quote, "high spirited." I thought that was pretty 80s. But then I also had the fact that four year olds can just aimlessly wander the halls of a hospital. Jamie comes to visit Claudia and then just ends up in an appendectomy patient's room. And then the elaborate quote autographs that they do. It's a lot of, write on my cast, but you're not just signing. It wasn't like, "this is my name," or it wasn't like, "this is a personal message." It was...I don't know if you ever had this. I had a book of like, if you ever have to write an autograph, here's something that you can write. And it's like rhyming and poetry. So did you notice in this where Mary Anne is like, "I auto" and like, draws like a little car. It's like, "I auto cry. I auto laugh. Because you want my auto graph." It makes no sense. Like, that's not an autograph. That's just a weird poem that apparently you're writing either in somebody's book or on their cast. So yeah, it was just that whole concept of like, writing a fucking poem instead of your name. I had a little book in the 80s that was like, here's what you do if you have to sign someone's cast, and none of it had anything to do with personalization.
Kaykay Brady: 54:44
That's unbelievable. I had no idea.
Brooke Suchomel: 54:45
Yeah, it was weird.
Kaykay Brady: 54:45
I remember people always trying to be clever in casts, but I didn't know there was a cheat sheet book.
Brooke Suchomel: 54:50
And it's so big, like, you would have two people that would be able to do that, and then you'd be done. You would just take up all of the space, because you're writing like T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land," you know?
Kaykay Brady: 55:03
I wish somebody would write T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" on the cast I never had.
Brooke Suchomel: 55:06
You're like, "You're not going anywhere."
Kaykay Brady: 55:07
That's worth breaking a leg!
Brooke Suchomel: 55:09
"You sit here while I write for hours on your leg."
Kaykay Brady: 55:14
"I want some Chekhov." I had Ring Dings and Gilligan's Island. Which, I think we've talked about Gilligan's Island before. But also, I loved Ring Dings in the 80s.
Brooke Suchomel: 55:28
They're still around.
Kaykay Brady: 55:29
Yeah, I was looking for some gluten free ones. I actually already looked, because this book made me very hungry for Ring Dings. And I did find some very upscale Ring Dings, but they were so expensive. I was like, "Am I really doing this? I don't think so." Someday I'll be in a gluten free bakery, and then I'll have a Ring Ding, but I'm not gonna send off for this.
Brooke Suchomel: 55:48
Living your Ring Ding dream.
Kaykay Brady: 55:50
Ring Ding dreams.
Brooke Suchomel: 55:51
Gilligan's Island. So that's when Claudia and Mimi are just on the couch in the middle of the day, watching serialized television after their Wheel of Fortune.
Kaykay Brady: 56:02
Reminds me of sitting with my grandmother and watching Barnaby Jones. That was her jam.
Brooke Suchomel: 56:08
That's lovely. There was a lot of that in the 80s where you would get old sitcoms that would just be on TV in the middle of the day.
Kaykay Brady: 56:15
Yeah, like Bewitched, Gilligan's Island.
Brooke Suchomel: 56:17
Yeah, there just wasn't as much TV programming happening from the networks, and so they would just re air old stuff in their archives, which led to Nick at Nite, which led to the nostalgia that we're indulging in at this very moment, I think, which is lovely.
Kaykay Brady: 56:32
That's a virtuous circle.
Brooke Suchomel: 56:33
So we talked a lot about Kristy, and her desire for pies to the face, and the queerness that is oozing from her pores in this particular book. And we get more of that in the next book...
Kaykay Brady: 56:49
Oh, what? Is it Kristy's Krushers?!
Brooke Suchomel: 56:51
Yeah. When I mentioned Kristy's Krushers, so...
Kaykay Brady: 56:54
Oh, I never forgot it. I think about it once a day.
Brooke Suchomel: 56:57
You're like, I have a vision board up right now that just says Kristy's Krushers. There's nothing else on it. It's just Kristy's Krushers. So we will get the introduction of Kristy's Krushers in the next book, which is Kristy and the Walking Disaster.
Kaykay Brady: 57:14
Oh!
Brooke Suchomel: 57:15
I'm so excited to see if it lives up to your expectations.
Kaykay Brady: 57:18
It can't possibly.
Brooke Suchomel: 57:20
How closely it approximates...
Kaykay Brady: 57:22
It's been my pie to the face. It's been my own personal pie to the face.
Brooke Suchomel: 57:27
Oh my god, I don't remember this book as much, but I'm just picturing now, if Kristy, if they like win the championship or something. And as part of the celebration, instead of being doused with Gatorade, she gets her dream pie to the face. How wonderful that would be for her to celebrate a softball championship with a pie to the face. Let's keep hope alive that that happens in this book. And if it does, you know the next episode is gonna be fucking lit.
Kaykay Brady: 58:02
So lit.
Brooke Suchomel: 58:03
Either way, it's gonna be fucking lit. But, I mean, softball pie to the face?
Kaykay Brady: 58:08
I mean, and even if the books are not lit, we figure out a way to make them lit. Like I'm thinking of the Disney special. We still made that lit.
Brooke Suchomel: 58:16
Yeah, we're here to make it lit for you. And I'm looking forward to seeing how we do that with Kristy and the Walking Disaster next time.
Kaykay Brady: 58:23
Me too.
Brooke Suchomel: 58:24
But until then...
Kaykay Brady: 58:26
Just keep sittin'. [theme song] (melody to Working Girl theme)
