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(LONG STARE WITHOUT BLINKING)
FLAUNT: What happened last night when you drank the rum?
INTERN: (silence)
(Flaunt sees that the intern is withholding information, then grabs the intern the way an angry cop might grab a stubborn suspect during interrogation, and shakes the intern)
FLAUNT: You'd better get your story straight, intern, and tell us exactly what happened last night with Stolen Rum! There's a G** D*** blog that depends on it! It's your ass . . .
INTERN: (quivering) Ok! I drank the rum! And, and, I liked it.
FLAUNT: What do you mean, "liked it"?
INTERN: It made me feel like, I don't know, weathered.
FLAUNT: Explain yourself, intern, you're sounding foolish.
INTERN: Like, you know how when you're watching a movie, and men sit around an old wooden table and shoot booze all night with cigarettes and just grumble to themselves?
FLAUNT: Yeah . . .
INTERN: It was like that . . . I felt . . . grizzly. Like I wanted to be an alcoholic, but the good-natured non-violent kind.
FLAUNT: Fascinating. What did you do?
INTERN: Well, I started with a couple of friends. We each had a drink. I thought it would be fun to go to a club or something after a prefunk.
FLAUNT: That's embarassing, but please proceed . . .
INTERN: But after the first drink, I felt . . . different. Like I didn't want to go to the club anymore.
FLAUNT: So you came to your senses. Go on . . .
INTERN: I suppose. I told my friends to go without me and poured the remaining booze into a styrofoam coffee cup I found in the cupboard.
FLAUNT: Intersting. Almost like a hobo.
INTERN: Yeah, kind of. But more indignant. It got really weird when I found myself at the corner store buying rolling tobacco, the cheap stuff, not the hipster stuff.
FLAUNT: Are you a smoker?
INTERN: No, that's the weird thing. It's like I was posessed by someone older and dirtier than me. I stood on the corner and smoked cigarettes drinking from that cup all night. It sounds boring, but it was exciting. I shouted at people as they walked past and made friends with some local deadbeats. When I finished the cup I walked across the street to a place that offers 24-hour thai massages and tried to bargain with them; I only had fourteen dollars.
FLAUNT: Did it work?
INTERN: No, not at all. They almost called the police. Then I went home.
FLAUNT: How do you feel today?
INTERN: Insightful. Wise.
FLAUNT: Interesting. Very interesting. Would you drink it again?
INTERN: I will cross that bridge when I come to it. Can I go home now?
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