Q: How many pulp fiction writers does it take to change a lightbulb? A: The history of the lightbulb is a long and interesting tale, beginning in the quiet town of Menlo Park, NJ, and continuing on to the present day.
Hahaha okay, so let me tell you about the time I watched Pulp Fiction.
One of my best friends at school had a somewhat notorious older brother, and another girl in our small, competitive English class was dating him.
This was awkward as f*ck for my friend (and for the rest of us by proxy), and matters weren’t helped by the girl’s tendency to do non-constructive things like waltzing down the stairs at my friend’s house in the morning pyjama-clad and with the shirtless brother on her arm. Once she took the cereal bar my friend had been saving for breakfast and ate it. And then they had to take the tube into school together. Awks.
All the same, this girl and I got on well, and I was very friendly with a close friend of hers.
At this time, the boy who would later become my boyfriend had given me this little list of must-see films to watch, because he judged it unacceptable that of IMDB’s top 200 must-see films I had seen, like, four, and one of them was The Lion King.
Pulp Fiction was on his list.
I told this to these two girls (the breakfast-snatcher and our mutual friend), and they suggested we all meet up one night and watch the DVD. ‘Fab,’ I said. We settled on Tues.
We later realised that Tues was Valentine’s Day. This didn’t matter, we agreed - two of us were single, and the other (the one dating my friend’s boyfriend) was celebrating with him the next day. ‘Great,’ we said.
Midday Tues the second girl says her sister has suddenly come home from America and she has to spend time with her; can’t come. Fine, no problem, we’ll go ahead anyway.
Then the first girl texts to say that she and her boyf have broken up.
'Oh sh*t,' I say to myself. 'Oh darling,' I say to her. 'I'm so sorry. How about we do it another time?'
'No no, let's go ahead. It will distract me.'
I take the tube towards her house. I arrive at the station.
She is sitting on the floor of the concourse, outside the newsagent’s, sobbing. She is literally weeping on the floor. In the tube station. There is mascara all over her face.
'For heavens' sake,' I say. 'Get up.' I pull her up. I offer her a tissue. She wipes her face. We board a bus.
She spends the entire bus journey reminiscing about the relationship. Reminiscing mainly about the sex. This is somewhat uncomfortable for me as this boy is my best friend’s brother, and anyway I’m a prude. And we’re on a bus. (Earlier that afternoon my friend had told me about the breakup and about her brother’s reasoning, and she and I both agreed that it was the right thing to do. Not that it was any of our business, because it wasn’t.)
We reached this girl’s house. We watched the film. It’s an awful film. It’s violent and frightening; the story doesn’t make sense; the funny bits aren’t funny. We both hated it. I expressed, for the umpteenth time, my commiserations; I dug out the last few stale items from the back of my platitude cupboard. I patted her dog. I went home.
