Ida Scott
from Unseen Character
(An older woman paces the floor of the living room. She holds the phone in one hand and the receiver up to her ear.)
But I don’t think it’s anything like Gone with the Wind.
(She covers the mouth of the phone. She speaks to her sister.)
She says it’s like Gone with the Wind.
(Back to AMANDA.)
Gone with the Wind was a page turner. Bessie Mae Harper is no page turner. I turn the page and then I yawn. And even if I do end up turning the page, sometimes you gotta treat a boring book like a sick, old dog. Sometimes you just gotta know when to put it down. Knowing when to put it down takes everybody out of his misery.
I read her last installment of . . . what was that thing called? Beach Paradise? And I was nearly finished with the whole episode when I suddenly realized, “I have no idea what I have just read. Twenty-five minutes of reading and I have no idea!” I daydreamed the whole time I was reading her words. It’s as if her words were some arbitrary backdrop to the thoughts and images I was daydreaming about. My thoughts and images had nothing to do with her words. Her words are like white noise to me. You know what white noise is? Like when you put your ear up to a seashell. Some say it sounds like the ocean. But I say it sounds like white noise.
She’s definitely not any reason for me to keep up The Homemaker’s Companion. And neither are the silly recipes they publish lately. I wanted to make some peach ice cream from a recipe I saw in the summer issue. I had my heart set on making some “Homemade Peach Ice Cream.” I glanced at the recipe, read the ingredients I needed, shopped for the ingredients and hurried home to make a batch of “Homemade Peach Ice Cream.” Now imagine my horror when the very first ingredient of “Homemade Peach Ice Cream” was a pint of store-bought vanilla ice cream.
Basically, she’s just telling you to take ice cream and add some canned peaches and cinnamon powder.
I know how to do that! That don’t call for the need of a recipe.
I have some snickerdoodles in the oven right now. But I like to put more cinnamon than sugar. About three-fifths cinnamon powder, two-fifths Hawaiian sugar.
I better focus on the snickerdoodles. I should have taken them out a few minutes ago.
I’m burning . . . the cookies are burning. Hmm—okay. Hold on for a moment, I got to check in on the cookies.
(She hangs up the phone and speaks directly to her sister.)
Oh, I can’t stand talking to that woman. There is such loss and hunger in her little sales campaign. Such quiet desperation. 