The one part of the drabble's intent that didn't come across to me was the duration; it seemed like the guy's frustration occured after only about 10 minutes ever of trivia game, not repeated assaults.

Hee. Four days of repeated assaults. Now that I think of it, I could have worked that into the first paragraph. That would have built up the tension better. Ah, well, live and learn.

I loved Gar's. I got Sail's, and I loved ita's, too. And I enjoyed the discussion on dialog. I think it's what my first novel (the one that's in the box in the back of the closet) taught me--how to write dialog. Well, actually, how *not* to write dialog.

I heard ita's coming out of Monica Lewinski's POV. How scary is *that*?

And Raq, yep - note shiny new tagline, attributed to both.

I heard ita's coming out of Monica Lewinski's POV. How scary is *that*?

Oh, my gracious. Deb, I can always count on you for a POV I hadn't considered. Thank you for that.

Interesting that you look for something to mitigate the harshness. Do you think that comes from a gender neutral viewpoint?

I don't really know. It might be just from reading it too casually the first time.

On first read, I came away thinking "Yeah, false modesty or salt in the wound, annoying either way," and puzzling over what the connection to an "in crowd" might be. Never occurred to me that someone would apologize for success and be sincere.

Your comment to Steph gave me the "in crowd" connection I had missed, and on re-read it occurred to me that if I imagined the characters as opposite sex the last line came across much more harshly than if I imagined them the same sex.

Shows my biases.

Well, and that's why 100 words either sometimes isn't enough (for my writing) or the drabble just doesn't work as I hoped. I confess to being a tad less than sober when I wrote it and with very hurt feelings, so as the insider writing it, I thought it was clear as a bell. However, a number of readers (both male and female) couldn't see it so, meh. Didn't work as well as I hoped, but did purge some of the hurt so it accomplished it's purpose, at the least. Plus, provoked some very interesting dialog over gender perceptions.

Yeah, no problem perceiving that the apologizers is a woman, but could not tell that the guy was angry at the demonstrated skill/intelligence rather than the apologizing.

The In Crowd

Another year, another school; this time I’m eating lunch with the In Crowd. Why they deigned me worthy doesn’t matter, I’ll enjoy it while it lasts. Who knows what the next school will think of me.

Mid-school year, Kristy arrived, looking lost and nervous. She was kind and intelligent so I dragged her over to eat lunch with my “friends”. Rachel took one look at Kristy and said, “No.”

I made a choice that day to leave the In Crowd rather than make Kristy a complete outcast. Too bad she was the only one that moved away the following year.

Never occurred to me that someone would apologize for success and be sincere.

Good heavens, yes. Women are trained to do that in American society; be humble, be modest, have great aspirations but for heavens sake don't say what you think too loudly or you'll risk never getting a boyfriend. I was only vaguely aware of that in my own teens, since I got to the US at age 9, but I raised a daughter and became aware of it then. It's pervasive in this society.

Nicole, I loved that.