from The Lottery and Other Stories, by Shirley Jackson
Ok, Jackson, is your whole point just to make the reader angry? If so, you succeeded. I'm mad at... Marcia (had to look up the names because names in short stories seem so inconsequential that I rarely remember them)... because she's taking advantage of David. Yet I'm mad at David for letting her take advantage of him. Stand up for yourself, man! Grr. People!
Random Thoughts:
-- I am not a "pie person". Maybe because my mother's not, so we practically never had pies, when I was growing up. When we had desserts, they were usually ice cream, cookies, brownies/blondies, cakes, cobblers, donuts or danish-type things... oh, or salty snacks. Of course, we all know, deep down, that pie is fundamentally inferior to cake:
-- David is clearly both a better housekeeper and cook than I am (though in my defense, maintaining a whole house and large outdoor space is different from a very small apartment). I'm tempted to (nastily) say that David will make someone a very nice little housewife, someday. But seriously, while I sympathize with his pride in his home and his wish to keep things nice, it does seem that he could've done with a little less domesticity and a little more force in his nature. (Poor guy.)
-- This is the second of these stories, so far, to mention a "studio couch". The concept's not foreign, but the term is... or was.
