The Broom of the System - By David Foster Wallace Page 0,3

different anywhere else, Lenore,” says Clarice. “I don’t think it is. You get used to it. It’s really just common sense.”

“Still, though.”

“There is of course the issue of the party,” says Mindy Metalman from the bunk, pretty obviously changing the subject. The noise is still loud from underneath their room.

What’s going on is that the dorm is giving a really big party, here, tonight, downstairs, with a bitching band called Spiro Agnew and the Armpits and dancing and men and beer with ID’s. It’s all really cute and clever, and at dinner downstairs Lenore saw them putting up plastic palm trees and strings of flowers, and some of the girls had plastic grass skirts, because tonight’s was a theme party, with the theme being Hawaiian: the name of the party on a big lipstick banner on a sheet out in front of Rumpus said it was the “Comonawannaleiya” party, which Lenore thought was really funny and clever, and they were going to give out leis, ha, to all the men who came from other schools and could get in with ID’s. They had a whole room full of leis, Lenore had seen after dinner.

“There is that,” says Clarice.

“Thus.”

“So.”

“Not me,” says Sue Shaw. “Nawmeboy, never again, I said it and I meant it. Pas moi.”

Clarice laughs and reaches over for the Jetsons glass.

“The issue, however,” says Mindy from the bed, her sweatshirt slipped all down at the shoulder and about ready to fall off, it looks like, “the issue is the fact that there is ... food, food down in the dining room, spread under the laughing fingers of the plastic palms, that we all helped buy.”

“This is true,” Clarice sighs, hitting the repeat on the stereo. Her eyes are so blue they look hot, to Lenore.

“And all we’ve got is just those far too scrumptious mashed potatoes in the fridge,” Mindy says, which is true, just a clear Tup perware dish full of salty Play-Doh Rumpus mashed potatoes, which was all they could steal at dinner, seeing as how the kitchen ran out of cookies, then the bread ...

“But you guys said no way you’d go down,” says Lenore. “ ‘Member you guys kept telling me how gross it was, these parties, mixers, and like a meat market, and how you could get sucked in, ’as it were,‘ you said, and how you just had to avoid going down at all costs, and how I shouldn’t, you know ...” She looks around, she wants to go down, she loves to dance, she has a killer new dress she got at Tempo in East Corinth for just such a—

“She wants to go, Clarice,” Mindy says, throwing her legs over the side of the bunk and sitting up with a bounce, “and she is our guest, and there is the Dorito factor, and if we stayed for like six quick minutes ...”

“So I see.” Clarice looks all droopy-lidded at Lenore and sees her eagerness and has to smile. Sue Shaw is at her desk with her back turned, her butt is really pretty fat and wide in the chair, pooching over the sides, Lenore sees.

Clarice sighs. “The thing is Lenore you just don’t know. These things are so unbelievably tiresome, unpleasant, we went all first semester and you just really literally get nauseated, physically ill after a while, ninety-nine point nine percent of the men who come are just lizards, reptiles, and it’s clear awfully fast that the whole thing is really just nothing more than a depressing ritual, a rite that we’re expected by God knows who to act out, over and over. You can’t even have conversations. It’s really repulsive.” And she drinks water out of the Jetsons glass. Sue Shaw is nodding her head at her desk.

“I say what we do,” Mindy Metalman hits the floor and claps her hands, “is Lenore goes and puts on that fabulous violet dress I saw you hang up, and we three stay and attend to the rest of this joint, for a second, and then we all just scamper down really quick, and Lenore gets a condensed liberal arts education and one or two dances while we steal about seven tons of food, then we come right back up, David Letterman’s on in less than an hour.”

“No,” says Sue Shaw.

“Well then you can stay here, nipplehead, we’ll get over it, if one semi-bad experience is going to make you hide away like a—”

“Fine, look, let’s just do that.” Clarice looks less than