Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Pregnant cause
By Daniel | Season 9 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.03.2004
So Ruthie gathers up this gosling-looking bird and carries it back into the kitchen, and Annie gets all squealy about the cute bird, unlike my mom, who would have been shrieking and yelling at me to get the damn bird out of her kitchen. And incidentally, Annie doesn't even look like hell. Of course, the episodes I "guest"-recapped last year were towards the end of the season, so maybe the gruesome reality of working on this show naturally wears her down over the season. Anyway, she tells Ruthie to take the bird outside and find its nest. Ruthie says she has homework to do, which raises the question of why she was heading outside then. "So the bird dies because you have something better to do?" says an incredulous Annie, like I can't imagine my mom placing more importance on some dying rat-with-wings' well-being than on me doing my homework. Of course, in my household, there weren't all these potential life lessons lying around waiting to be learned, and nothing that possibly was meant to represent Jesus. Well, except for the crucifix. And the rosary. And that statue of Jesus.
The phone rings, and Annie, while throwing a knowing smile in the direction of Ruthie's annoying head, answers it. It's Harry. This is Aaron Carter? Aren't teen idols traditionally, you know, cute? Oh, wow. Place another case history in the Teen Heartthrob, Puberty Unkind To file. So Harry asks for Ruthie, and Annie offers to take a message, and Harry asks her to tell Ruthie that he's found another girlfriend. Annie, quite surprised, says she won't pass along such a message and Harry should tell Ruthie himself. I think Aaron Carter was going for "heartbroken" with his performance. Unfortunately, he took a major wrong turn and wound up at "bitchy drama queen."
Who knows? Maybe RevCam's mad faces were warranted, as the "work" Lucy's doing for her class appears to consist of ordering, on her cell phone, bumpers for her impending spawn's crib. However, she's not so loud that he needs to stick his knuckle in his ear while he speaks on the phone at his desk. Then he hangs up, and passive-aggressively sighs in her direction, and doesn't even have the balls to tell her to put a cork in it when she says "what?" And he packs up his stuff while she natters on about gingham and fairies and unicorns and stripes being "too masculine" whatever that means, and then as RevCam goes to leave, she actually asks him if she's too loud, and he lies and says she's not, but that it's a little distracting, so he's going to go work from his office at home -- which it suddenly occurs to him to offer to her. She declines, saying she has teenagers coming.
On his way out, he runs into Harry, who wants the RevCam to dump Ruthie for him. "Been there, done that," says RevCam, like way to joke about your daughter getting dumped, and he also tells Harry that that's a conversation he needs to have with Ruthie. Harry explains that there's other orphan girl his age at social services, and since no one's going to adopt them at this age, they're going to get married. For real? Straight up. RevCam asks if that's such a good idea, and Harry asks if staying in social services is any better. RevCam has no answer to that, not even, "If you're old enough to get married, you're already too old for social services, dimwit." Harry says, "I want a family. If I have to start one of my own, fine. If I can't have a mom and dad, I'll take a wife." "Take" a wife? Why settle for the orphan matchstick girl? Why, the fishmonger two villages over has a daughter of marrying age, and she comes with two cows! With Harry's job as apprentice at the blacksmithery, they'll be all set! "Which means I can't be Ruthie's boyfriend." Again, RevCam says nothing, not even, "You can't be Ruthie's boyfriend anyway because you are a mental case." Harry asks RevCam to tell Ruthie, since Harry doesn't have the "experience" or something like that, something that doesn't make any more sense than anything else this episode. Hey, maybe Harry can marry Leanne!