Miranda folded up the laptop and got up from where she was sitting and stretched a little. She walked over to Ellie who was still leaning against the kitchen counter eating popcorn. Miranda held out the laptop towards Ellie.
"Here, you should be the one that chooses the movie. You are the one that suggested this movie night and I already told you the type of movie I like." Miranda emphasizes her point by holding the laptop even closer to Ellie. Ellie looks at the laptop, then at Miranda, then at her popcorn.
"But... I am holding the popcorn." Ellie takes a handful and shoves it into her mouth, "I'm doing my part." She says through half-chewed popcorn.
"Ellie..." Miranda's disappointed tone and small frown was enough to have Ellie roll her eyes and sigh. She held the bowl in both of her hands and stared at it longingly as she was willing herself to let go.
"Ellie, I am not going to eat it all and I'll give it back to you once we choose a movie." Miranda's patience was running a little short with Ellie's melodramatic break up with this bowl of popcorn.
"Alright... but I am watching you." Ellie reluctantly releases the popcorn to Miranda.
"Yeah, I'll take good care of your special boy..." Miranda sarcastically says as she takes a single piece of popcorn and pops it into her mouth, "Alright, you want to just chill on the couch? My back and neck are getting stiff."
"Sure, but I get the comfy spot!" Ellie looks very serious at Miranda, who seems perplexed.
"There is a comfy spot?" Miranda asks before waving off the question, "Sure, you get the comfy spot."
"Is there a comfy spot?" Ellie says in a mocking impression of Miranda, "Psh, as if you don't know. I mean, it is your couch!"
Ellie rolls her eyes and walks past Miranda, who simply stands there with a bemused look on her face, into the living room. Miranda eats another kernel of popcorn as she follows Ellie into the next room. She is sure that Ellie is being over dramatic about the point she is trying to make so she doesn't hurry herself.
Ellie is posed in front of the couch with her hand gesturing to the couch as if her point should be self-evident. Miranda simply looks at Ellie with an unimpressed, dead pan expression. Ellie lets out a huge sigh and places the lap top down on the couch.
"You are not going to tell me that you can't SEE which side of the couch is more comfy." Ellie has both of her hands on her hips as she speaks.
"It's a couch, I think one of the pillows might have a little less filling in it." Miranda shrugs, "I really couldn't tell."
"COULDN'T TELL!!" Ellie drags her hands down her face, "Miranda, you are killing me here! Are you being serious?"
"Yeah, they aren't that different." Miranda retorts, now getting slightly agitated.
"Alright, maybe your boney butt can't feel the difference but my perfectly sculpted ass can definitely detect the minute differences between the two spots."
"EXCUSE ME!" Miranda walks forward and places the popcorn on the coffee table to make sure that there is nothing distracting her from focusing her energy on dealing with Ellie.
"What?" Ellie is utterly oblivious to what she has said.
"I do not have a boney ass!" Miranda's face is beet red from both embarrassment and anger.
"Alright, that was not fair." Ellie's tone lowers as she tries to play the diplomat, "I am sorry I said that. You do have some booty, and really good thighs. There, happy?"
"I don't know... Yes? Maybe? Huh..." Miranda is obviously trying to unpack what she was hoping to get out of this exchange.
"Alright, well I am taking the comfy side of the couch." Ellie plops down on to the right side of the couch, wiggles around a little bit to get comfy, and then crosses her legs. She opens up the laptop and begins scrolling through the movies.
Miranda picks up the popcorn bowl and slowly moves over to the couch. She is still obviously processing the outcome of that conversation. She sits down quietly and wordlessly mutters to herself about whether confirmation of having a booty was a good thing or not.
"Ok, so... no horror and no R rated boning... so, comedy then?" Ellie asks and this shakes Miranda out of her deep soul searching about her opinion on other people having a good opinion about her butt.
"Oh...yeah." Miranda shakes her head a bit, "That could work. I mean, we both have a good sense of humour."
"Yeah, of course..." Ellie sends a doubtful glance towards Miranda, "Why not something recent? I have been hearing good things about 'Drop Dead Gorgeous'. It is like a bunch of teens that go out to a graveyard to do teen hi-jinks..."
"So trespass and have sex on public property?" Miranda interjects in an unamused tone.
"So, they never get to that point because...uh oh, Zombies!" Ellie puts up her hands up in mock shock and smiles at Miranda, who remains unimpressed.
"This just sounds like a horror movie, a very standard one to be honest." Miranda states. She looks over at Ellie with a bit of confusion considering her hesitance to watch a horror movie moments ago.
"Ah, it would be BUT one of the teens falls for one of the zombies!" Ellie is seemingly trying to be excited enough that it might infect Miranda, "The teen in question is Chet Hollinger, this is one of the first roles of Harry Jackobs Jr. before he became a well known movie heartthrob. In this he was just a heartthrob."
"Ok, so if it was a real zombie it wouldn't have the mental faculties to properly hold a conversation or at least fight back its hunger. Even the most intelligent zombies, the ones depicted in 'The Dead Hunt' still used their base intellect more like advanced pack hunters..." Miranda starts to explain and Ellie starts quickly typing. She quickly cuts Miranda's impromptu lesson on the history of zombies and their varying intellect short by turning the laptop towards her.
"Miranda, its a young Harry Jackobs Jr. ..." Ellie says as she points at a picture of a well tanned, shirtless man that is well muscled and sporting wavy dirty blonde hair. She presents this evidence with both hands as if she were on a game show presenting a new car. Miranda raises an eye brow.
"Oh, wasn't he in that new superhero movie? I think I remember seeing something about there being a huge plot whole involving time travel and one character having information that they can't possibly know." Miranda taps her chin as she thinks about it. Ellie just turns the laptop back towards her, gets a last longing look at Harry Jackobs Jr., and then starts to look for another movie.
"Ya know, it was going to be funny because then he has to try and convince his family that his girlfriend is not a zombie at a dinner party... It was going to be funny." Ellie mutters to herself and she scrolls along. After a few clicks, grumbling noises, and then shaking her head Ellie finally brightens up.
"Ah, what about 'Tough Break'? It is basically a crew of prisoners that try be as obnoxious as possible to make the guards release them early." Ellie shrugs, "I like the idea at least."
"Sounds kind of dumb. I mean, that wouldn't even work... like where did they get that idea?" Miranda asks.
"I don't know, there was that time that I kept making that noise so that you would change the radio station." Ellie laughs a little upon remembering, "Man, that noise was so god damn annoying. I didn't think that you would break that fast."
"Can you blame me? You basically sounded like you were choking on your own spit." Miranda shudders at the memory, "Considering how much I hated that I really don't want to experience that again for an hour and a half..."
"Honestly, fair." Ellie quickly finds another movie "What about '69 degrees of separation'?"
"Ellie..." Miranda could not be more blatantly fed up with Ellie who was just nervously smiling as if she did not know what she had just said.
"What? It's a witty title!" Ellie tries to be convincing, it does not work.
"Are you suggesting that we watch a porno?" Miranda leans towards Ellie and speaks quietly but in a very direct tone."
"Ok, listen." Ellie already has her hands up towards Miranda in the hopes of pleading her case, "Sure, it is R rated. Sure, the plot might be paper thin and wholly revolve around sex. Did I think I could sneak it by you? Possibly. BUT there are some great visual gags that happen and there is some improv that is just super genuine."
"Ellie, I know what 69ing is!" Miranda shouts at Ellie.
"How am I supposed to know that!" Ellie shouts back.
"Just choose another movie!" Miranda's hands tense up looking as if they were ready to strangle Ellie.
"Alright, what about 'May the Horse be With You'? Huh, you got an issue with a sci-fi movie with an all horse cast with bad CGI and dubbing to make it look like they are talking?" Ellie points multiple times at the laptop as she talks about this movie.
"Do any of the horses die?" Miranda has both of her arms crossed.
"Uuuuuhh, let me check that animal movies site..." Ellie quickly starts typing and is seemingly shocked with the information that she finds.
"Ellie, what's wrong?" Miranda's curiosity overtakes her annoyance at Ellie's hi-jinks.
"So, uuhh..." Ellie is trying to figure out how to pass along the information as her eyes dart between the laptop screen and Miranda, "So, yeah. The horses die..."
"What do you mean?" Miranda is caught off guard by the information she is being given.
"The horses die, Miranda." Ellie decides to be more direct now that the band-aid has been ripped off.
"How many?" Miranda is now just reeling with trying to understand the scope of what Ellie has said.
"Like all of them! All of the horses!" Ellie seems distraught and also having a hard time parsing this information.
"Do they have a number?" Miranda asks trying to understand the scope of what she hearing
"Like, more than 60. It is uncertain exactly how many..." Ellie says as she reads through the site.
"HOW DO YOU KILL MORE THAN 60 HORSES! WERE THEY ACTUALLY THROWING THEM INTO SPACE!?" Miranda has both of her hands on her temples trying to calm herself down.
"They were filming on an island and the plane that flew them in crashed on the horse stables and then exploded." Ellie was caught somewhere between complete bafflement and laughter, "The only people that survived was the director, the producer, and 3 cameraman."
Miranda at this point has gotten up and is pacing while eating popcorn. She was just trying to grapple with the tragedy that she has just been told. Ellie just leans back and sighs to herself.
"Ya know, movie night seems like a terrible idea..." Ellie shakes her head at the horse apocalypse article that was still open on the laptop.
"Yeah... Hey, you want to just watch new anchor bloopers?" Miranda looks over at Ellie who shrugs and then nods.
Miranda returns to her side of the couch as Ellie happily closes the tab and opens up another one. As "Fail Comp, News People and Anchors [Part II] *Try Not to Laugh*" starts playing with an overdone and weirdly loud intro Miranda places the popcorn between both of them. They promptly ignore the challenge of the video and laugh at the first clip of a weather caster being passive aggressive while they are in the middle of a thunderstorm talking to the anchors in the studio. They took turns for hours choosing videos to watch, always trying to work off of what the last video was.
Ellie was happy to have popcorn, Miranda was happy to unwind. Both were happy that they had someone to laugh with.