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“No, I don’t believe I would like your nuts, actually. Either sort.”
Claudia freezes on the B&B’s stairs. Part of her is sure she doesn’t want to ask under any circumstances, but the rest of her suspects it’d be a bad idea if anyone else found HG ranting at nothing – especially if she’s ended up in the living room unsupervised. Artie’s acting like enough of a five-year-old without encouragement.
So, even though it’s three in the morning and she really needs the sleep, she changes course and heads for the living room. HG’s sprawled on a couch; it’s only when Claudia gets into the room that she notices the TV is on, and that explains a lot.
“There a reason you’re up watching infomercials?”
HG turns and smiles. “Oh, hello, Claudia. I couldn’t get to sleep and thought perhaps the television would help, but I have yet to figure out the point of most of these devices.”
Claudia shrugs. “To get people to spend money, I think.”
“At least an overgrown vegetable chopper makes more sense than the last one did.”
“Do I want to ask?”
“Some sort of diet pill.” HG rolls her eyes. “As though it’s ever worked without people putting a bit of effort into the enterprise as well – oh, do sit down, darling – but I will say, chemicals are a step up from tapeworms.”
“...Tapeworms?” Claudia’s so going to regret asking. But now she’s too awake to make excuses and go to bed, so she might as well have a seat and see this through.
“Used to be all the rage. And to be fair, you don’t gain weight, but on the other hand you have a bloody tapeworm. Never could sort out what the appeal was.”
“You also couldn’t figure out the appeal of not being allowed to vote or publish in your own right. I think you’re a little biased.”
“Perhaps. In a way, it’s comforting to know that people are still doing stupid things thinking it’ll make them healthier. I mean, honestly, they used to say that if you had any sort of interesting breakfast food, you’d start masturbating. I can’t think why you’d want to stop.”
Claudia’s eyes go wide. “Aaaand you have even less filter than you usually do, when you’re sleep-deprived. Good to know.”
“And concurrently, they were inventing vibrators to spare doctors having to diddle their female patients in order to cure their hysteria,” HG plows on, like she didn’t hear Claudia. “No, thank you. I’ve always been quite capable of taking care of myself.”
“Duly noted,” Claudia manages, suddenly very glad Pete’s not the one who found HG. “I’m. Happy for you. But maybe it’s time to let the land of infomercials see to itself and go the hell to bed.”
“Perhaps you’re right, but these things are just so fascinating.”
The nut-chopper commercial ends; before the station has a chance to move on to a penis vacuum or something, Claudia grabs the remote and turns off the TV. “They’re also probably all on Youtube, if you really want to make a study of them.”
And then, hopefully, she won’t have to hear anything else about them, or the Victorian equivalents, ever again.