ME: (Tries to work)

MY BRAIN: You know, if Elsa’s parents weren’t such dickweeds, Frozen would have been a much shorter movie.

ME: Mmm-hmm.

MY BRAIN: Here’s an idea: how about leaving her with the trolls so she can learn to control her powers, instead of having the head troll scare the crap out of her and then hand her back to Mr. and Mrs. La-La-La-I-Can’t-Hear-You of 1841.

ME: You’re right.

MY BRAIN: But then there would have been no movie.

ME: It’s sad, isn’t it. (Tries to work)

MY BRAIN: So! Are we in a movie? Is that why bad things happen? Are we entertainment?

ME: ?

MY BRAIN: (I take that back. This is probably a TV show. Looking at you, and this desk, I can’t imagine there’s any budget to speak of.)

ME: What have I told you about getting metaphysical when I’m doing spreadsheets?

MY BRAIN: No, this is important. Because if this is a TV show, then we are stock characters, and you’re the wacky neighbor.

ME: I am not the wacky neighbor. I wave very politely when I see our neighbors. I don’t do the can-can or anything.

MY BRAIN: No, you’re the wacky neighbor of everybody’s life. You amble around being foolish and getting laughs, and nothing really great
happens because it would disrupt your humor patina –

ME: (“Humor patina?”)

MY BRAIN: And you’re never going to be a star, or get fan mail.

ME: There is such a thing as overextending a metaphor.

MY BRAIN: And you’ll never get a spinoff, or if you do it’ll be cancelled. All the stock characters you could have been and you had to choose
wacky neighbor.

ME: Oh, it could be worse.

MY BRAIN: It could not possibly be worse.

ME: Yes it could. I could be the wacky neighbor who goes and checks herself in somewhere because her brain won’t put a sock in it when she’s trying to get her work done.

MY BRAIN: …

ME: (Tries to work)

MY BRAIN: … I am totally calling you Rhoda from now on.

ME: That’s fine.

MY BRAIN: Don’t wear that scarf thing, though.

ME: Wouldn’t dream of it.