Daria in Wonderland
Scene 1: the Morgendorffer house, 6:00 PM. The family sans Helen (She's getting the food) are all sitting down to dinner.
Quinn: You mean, we're not having lasagna?
Daria: Stouffer's called. We're single-handedly boosting their share prices, but the local supermarkets are sold out. We're under a cease-and-desist court order.
Jake (Looking at the newspaper): Whose stocks went up now?
(Helen walks in with a huge pot and four bowls. She plunks the pot in the middle of the table.)
Daria: Wow. Cement a l'orange.
Helen: Don't be silly, Daria. It's my new Ten Alarm Chili A La Helen!
Quinn: Chili? Are you kidding me? I'm on a diet!
Helen: A diet? Honey, you're perfect the way you are!
Quinn (Crosses her arms): You don't understand! Chili has _protein!_ If I have too much protein, I'll explode!
Daria: Let me guess- a diagnosis from the Hollywood Upstairs Medical Studio.
Quinn: It's not your business about how I eat! Besides, I don't think it's any of your concern... after all, you're the one who always wears that _jacket._
Daria: Then again, Ms. Size Five...
Quinn: I'm a size three! I just need to take a size five sometimes, that's all!
Helen: Come on, you two. Let's remember- we're a family and we love each other.
Daria: At least until I move out. That's three years, six months...
Helen (Doles out massive bowls of very reddish chili): Don't wait up!
(Nobody touches it.)
Helen: Well, someone at least try it!
(Quinn slowly edges back, Daria pushes the bowl away. Jake looks for an opening.)
Helen: Honey, I could use some back-up here!
Jake: Why me? What did I do to...
Helen: Just eat it!
(Jake takes a few pieces of meat in the spoon, opens his mouth, holds his breath, and chews.)
Jake: It's not really that bad... maybe a little backbite...
Helen: There you go!
(They all start eating. All of a sudden, a fire starts burning in their mouths, and they rush for their respective glasses of water.)
Jake: Oh my God! Aaaahhhh! (His eye suddenly erupts into countless burst vessels.)
Helen: Oh my! Maybe I shouldn't have mixed in those Habanero pepper seeds...
Quinn (Throws her hands over her mouth): Oh my God! My teeth!
Daria (Keeling over): So much for the hopes of an intact intestinal system.
Scene 2- 11:00 PM. Daria is on the phone with Jane.
Jane: Habanero peppers?
Daria: Yeah. I've seen them before in those junk catalogs. They're supposed to be the hottest peppers known to man. There's the spice back in her marriage.
Jane: How many did she put in the pot?
Daria: The recipe called for only one.
Jane: But how many did she put in?
Daria: Well, Quinn thought that one wouldn't give enough flavor, so she put in twenty.
Jane: Twenty Habanero peppers? I'm surprised you're still alive.
Daria: You're not the only one. Ever hear that song, "Ghetto Defendant?" Where they're talking about slam-dancing Cosmopolous?
Jane: By The Clash? Yeah.
Daria: That's my mouth right now.
(There is a knock on the door.)
Helen (From behind the door): Sweetie, shouldn't you be getting to bed?
Daria: I don't know, should I?
(The door opens, and Helen walks in on her hands.)
Daria: Uh... Mom, are you feeling okay?
Helen: Fine just, sweetie. Nightgood.
(Helen hand-walks out. Daria's room starts to get wavy.)
Daria: Jane, I'll have to call you back.
(The phone turns into a milk bottle all of a sudden.)
Milk bottle: Quack!
Daria: I think that twenty peppers was more than a little bit over the edge.
(A nearby bush hops over to Daria.)
Bush (Who sounds much like John Cleese): I can assure you that the midpoint of a hypotenuse is equidistant to the vertices of a triangle.
Daria: What the hell are you supposed to be?
Bush: Geome-tree.
(The bush hops off and starts talking to Daria's wedge of cheese model.)
Daria: I gotta get out of here.
(She opens up the door and recoils in amazement. The upstairs hallway has turned into some sort of rainbow desert. Large Jell-O molds are falling from the sky and donuts are popping out of trees.)
Deep voice in background: Starved... in Metropolis.
(The trees are getting up and running away from the donuts, which sprout legs and attach themselves to the tree barks. There is a chomping noise, and the trees become small grenades, which throw themselves up into the air and explode like fireworks.)
Deep voice in background: Hooked... on Necropolis.
Daria: What's happening to me?
(Two sets of legs that share a torso walk up. One set farts. They flip over and slide off.)
Daria: Okay, I'm just going to go back to my room, and...
(Daria turns around, but her door has become a giant poster with some tiny words on it. The tiny words read "If you can read this, then you're going to skip a page.")
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.(Daria shrugs off the momentary loss of time perception and ventures into Quinn's room.)
Daria: It can't get any weirder than it is now.
Deep voice in background: Enlighten the Populace...
(Quinn's room has turned into a room not at all unlike that used in the _Virtual Insanity video. A hawk flies overhead and the furniture slides around.)
Jay Kay (Singing in tune and sliding around without walking): Future's- made of, virtual insanity now, always seems to be governed by this love we have for useless twisting, of a new technology, oh now, there is no sound, for we all live under ground, well...
Daria: Okay. I've seen it all now.
(She exits and is back into the tree-exploding, Jell-O raining, donut-dropping rainbow desert.)
Daria: What's happened to Mom and Dad's room?
(She enters the next door down. There are people everywhere throwing pies at each other. Trent, Jesse, and Kevin are singing/rapping to the Beastie Boys' "Fight for your Right to Party".)
Trent: Graduated school and there's nowhere to go!
(Dum dum dum dum, dum dum dum dum,)
Jesse: Livin' over a garage cuz the parents said so!
(More chords.)
Kevin: Brit's parents out of town and we're rocking the Neck!
(Chords again.)
Trent: Inviting the football team will rock-
Jesse: Like-
Kevin: Beck!
(Chords.)
Trent, Jesse & Kevin: We're at a chick's (Two riffs) big house... (Riffs again) paaaaaaaaarty!
(The pies fly again and Daria gets beaned.)
Daria: Dammit! (Picks up a pie and throws it at the source while beating a hasty retreat. She gets out of there.)
Deep voice in background: Methadone Kitty...
Daria: All right, that's it! If the kitchen isn't normal, I'm going to slam myself into a wall.
(She ventures down the stairs into the kitchen, which has turned into a giant buffet. Upon entering, Daria's traditional outfit immediately turns into a shimmery silver evening gown with pearl trim.)
Daria: What the hell!
(She shakes her fist at the ceiling.)
Daria: Fashion bastards! (She looks over the buffet hall. Everything looks fresh and delicious.) Don't mind if I do...
Deep voice in background (Which now sounds like Joe Strummer, lead singer of The Clash): I wouldn't do that if I were you.
Daria: Who the hell are you?
Deep voice in background: Joe Strummer of The Clash. Didn't you see the notation?
Daria: Huh? (Looks up a few lines) Oh, yeah. Hey, Author! Why didn't you make that more clear!
Author: Hey, I'm working on it!
Daria: Working on it? This is typed text! It doesn't take an idiot to change these things around!
Author: Listen, I have to get this in before the contest ends, so just ignore that last part, OK?
Daria: Can't you just do it?
Author: All right, that's it!
(Daria stretches as if she was rubber, twists, turns, contorts, etc. After a few seconds, she returns to normal.)
Deep voice: Never get into an argument with the author.
Author: Yeah!
Daria: Fine, fine, forget it. Hey, Clash-boy, where are you?
(Joe Strummer materializes out of nowhere.)
Daria: That's better. Now, why can't I eat this food?
Joe: You're in your alternate mentality.
Daria: Alternate mentality?
Joe: This is the opposite of what you think about actively, Daria. Remember your door?
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.Daria: Oh, yeah! Wait a sec... hey!
Joe: You'd never think of something as pointless as losing tons of space at one time.
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.Daria: Will you _please_ stop that?
Joe: This is the opposite of everyday you. In order to go back to your everyday life, you need to conquer your greatest fear without upsetting anything else.
Daria: No... you mean?
Joe: Yes. To get back, you have to conquer...
(Dum dum dummmmmmmmmmmmmm!)
Daria: Listen, Author, the special effect stuff is really getting annoying, OK?
Author: Sor-ry!
Joe: Anyway, you must...
(Dum dum dummmmmmmmmmmmmm!)
Joe: Look, don't do that anymore, okay? Anyway, you gotta eat the...
(Dum dum...)
Joe: Eat the...
(Dummmmmmmmmmmmmmm!)
Joe: Chili! Jesus...
(Joe fades out.)
Joe's voice: Every time I try to make a comeback, something gets screwed up!
Daria: Okay. Find the chili. Find the chili. Gotta find the chili.
(She overturns numerous dishes and plates. She is so desperate to get out that stuff starts to fly. No, really. The shrimp gets up and runs away, the salad sprouts wings and flies to safety, and the salmon flops about.)
Daria: Get out here, you damn chili!
(A white bowl and spoon sprout legs and rush over, bouncing off a swan ice sculpture.)
Daria: Okay. You want me? Come and get me! (Daria takes a fighting stance. The chili and spoon laugh like elves.)
Daria: Forget you! (She takes the bowl and spoon and starts wolfing down the chili.)
Daria: Ooohhh... maybe I shouldn't listen to The Clash anymore.
Joe: Hey!
(Daria's dress shimmers back into her regular clothes, she doubles over, and collapses.)
Daria: Now... is the winter... of our discontent... go gently, into that, good night...
(The buffet turns back into the Morgendorffer kitchen.)
Daria: What the hell...
(Helen rushes in, wearing a nightgown.)
Helen: Daria! What happened?
Daria: Mom... never, ever, ever make chili again.
(Quinn waltzes in, with the glitter-berry look on her face.)
Quinn: Mr. Strummer, how am I supposed to shake off the grasp of this evil shimmery thingy?
(Jake waltzes in, also glitter-berried.)
Jake: Oh, great lords of chili-dom! Free me from your grasp!
Quinn: Hey... did anyone else see the sign on Daria's door?
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.Daria: Oh, no...
THE END...
...?