The family is in the family room watching TV.
Velma: I’m so excited for tomorrow. Well, it’s really a nervous excitement.
Karl: What’s tomorrow?
Teri: The day I have to watch Law & Order: SVU on Hulu because some idiot won’t stop talking during it!
Danielle: Actually, SVU isn’t on Hulu anymore. It’s on Peacock.
Teri: What in the hell is Peacock?
Steven: Ha, she said co-
Tammi: Do not finish that thought.
Velma: I’m up for a promotion, I find out tomorrow if I get it. I’m pretty sure I nailed it, though.
Jerry: They give promotions to people that work at home?
Velma: Emphasis on work. I might not be in a physical workplace, but I work just as hard as anyone else. And much harder than Mitchell.
Mitchell: do you always have to single me out?
Velma: You’re my husband, I get a free pass to bully you.
Cindy: It’s true, that’s how it works.
Teri: Hey! You are all talking over Captain Benson. No one talks over my Olivia! Especially not now that I can only watch her on some streaming service named for a bird.
Betty: What sort of promotion are you supposed to get? What are you going to have to do?
Teri: Why do I talk?
Ralph: No one knows.
Velma: I will be the assistant manager of my division, so I’ll be one of the people that my co-workers report to.
Cindy: Being in charge is hard, so be careful what you wish for.
Tammi: She’ll only be the assistant manager. She’s going to be the Dwight Schrute of her company.
Danielle: No, Dwight was the assistant TO the regional manager. Big difference!
Velma: Hopefully I'm taken slightly more seriously when I get the job.
Teri: And we’re all very proud of you. Now, SVU.
Velma: Yeah, don’t want to interrupt that. Very important stuff going on.
Teri: Exactly, yes. Glad you agree.
The next morning…
Danielle: Hey, Frank! You do know you still owe me ten bucks, right?
Frank: Ten bucks? No, I don’t recall anything abou-
Danielle: The Super Bowl bet? You said you wanted to participate but that you didn’t have any bills on you at the time. You bet on the Eagles. All of you did, in fact. I was the only one who was right.
Jerry: Does it could when you only bet on the Chiefs because you like the color red more than green?
Ralph: Hey, I bet on the eagles because I like Hotel California. Some of us have more logical reasons for our bets, but you still get the glory when your prediction is right, no matter what.
Teri: Velma, you look awful!
Velma: I couldn’t sleep last night!
Mitchell: She damn near ripped my head off when I told her the same thing, and barely bats an eye when you say it! This is an outrage.
Cindy: To be fair, I think she’s too tired to move an eye at this point.
Betty: Here, drink some coffee. You have to be somewhat awake for work today.
Teri: Yeah, wouldn’t look great if you had to call off on the day you get your big promotion.
Danielle: I have to say, Velma, I’m not used to seeing you like this. You’re usually so calm, cool and collected, always sure of yourself. This promotion’s really got you worked up.
Velma: It’s a lot of money at stake here, it’s not just a case of getting a title upgrade. I can really use that money.
Teri: You got big plans for it?
Velma: No, just good to have.
Teri: So you’re all worked up over a promotion and you don’t even really need the money? How would your sleep be if you did need the money/
Velma: Nonexistent.
Mitchell: She worries about money a lot. She likes to have it stockpiled. She says we’re moving to Florida eventually and need it for then.
Teri: Ew, what a hellhole.
Jerry: Florida is the only state in our country that is truly paradise.
Teri: Florida is so awful, it makes West Virginia look good, and I grew up calling West Virginia our state’s “ugly stepsister.”
Jerry: I’m sorry you can’t appreciate its tropical beauty and freedom.
Karl: So, the Super Bowl! That was a good game, no?
Danielle: I’ll be able to think about how enjoyable it was when I get my money from Frank.
Frank: I will get it when I go to the bank.
Danielle: It’s ten dollars!
Teri: To paraphrase halftime performer Rihanna, bitch better have Danielle’s money.
Tammi: Did you just call my husband a bitch?
Teri: Oh, I’ve called him much worse.
Four hours later…
Velma: Goddammit! Son of a bitch!
Tammi: First, we don’t damn God in this house.
Velma: Maybe you don’t…
Tammi: Second, what is wrong?
Betty: I heard screaming! I’m home from work with a headache, please stop screaming.
Velma: Is that why Mitchell was called in? Thank you for that, please do it more often.
Betty: I should get a headache more often?
Velma: They don’t all have to be real.
Tammi: What was the screaming about, Velma?
Velma: Oh, right. Just trying to distract myself from reality wit a bit of banter.
Tammi: Velma, I have to get back to work. If you’re not dying down here, like I feared you were, I‘m going to go back to my office.
Velma: I didn’t get the job.
Tammi: What? But y-
Velma: I know. I’m qualified, I have seniority, I’m competent. Anything you’re about to say to cheer me up, i’ve already thought it. I know how wrong this is. It doesn’t stop the fact that the job went to someone newer, someone younger, someone with”fresh ideas” and an “interesting perspective.” That’s how they put it in the email. I read it as, I’m past my expiration date. I’m too close to retirement to be worth promoting.
Patty Lynn: I think I’m proof that an “expiration date” is a myth. I opened a store of my own in my mid-seventies, and it is mildly successful. Is that not the American dream?
Tammi: Eh… maybe?
Velma: I don’t know what to do with myself. How do I keep working for this company that doesn’t value me? How do I allow myself to sink so low and keep showing my face around there?
Betty: You don’t actually show your face, do you? You work at home.
Velma: Zoom meetings.
Betty: Oh.
Velma: Really, though, it’s just about the principle. I’m too proud to work for a company that treats me like dirt, knocks me around, and won’t even give me the credit I know I’ve earned. I’m sick of it.
Tammi: I can understand why that would be frustrating.
Velma: You actually work for a company that values you. That must be nice.
Tammi: I don’t know what the proper response is here to make you feel better.
Velma: It’s not your job to make me feel better, I won’t put that on you. It’s hard to make someone feel better when they realize that no matter how hard they try, they’re never going to be able to move upward at a company they dedicated over twenty-five years of their life to. First opportunity I get in all that time at a promotion and they pick someone who just graduated college five years ago.
Tammi: Do you think maybe her attending college helped her out in that regard?
Velma: Trust me, Tammi, this job does require a degree. Having a degree would be considered someone’s detriment here if this company had any morals. It’s criminal to make someone with actual potential in life spend their days doing… this.
Tammi: It’s good to see that, even if you’re mad at the company, you till clearly view your work as important and necessary. The passion for the job is still in you.
Velma: You know, it’s not like I was asking them to make me CEO or something, just assistant manager. I don’t get how that’s too much to ask.
Tammi: I’ll say one thing, and tell me if I’m out of line.
Velma: You never say anything out of line. That’s Mitchell’s job.
Tammi: I know you’ve put a lot of time into this place, but maybe it’s time to look for other opportunities at places that actually value you.
Betty: You always have a place at Betty’s Boutique.
Velma: With Mitchell? Yeesh.
Tammi: Surely there are other, Mitchell-free options. Plenty where you can still work from home, too.
Velma: I really may have to think about it. This is eating me up. I’m so close to telling my bosses off, and that will not end well.
Betty: Do it! You can get unemployment if they fire you!
Velma: You sound like Mitchell.
Betty: He better not ever try that with me! I’ll kick his ass!
Velma: Oh, I’d love to see that.
That night, at dinner…
Velma: Big news, everyone!
Cindy: Don’t tell us! We already know! Jerry, hit it!
Tammi: Oh no, not Celebration…
Jerry: Everyone loves Kool & the Gang!
Teri: What a gaggle of idiots.
Cindy: We’re just celebrating!
Jerry: You could celebrate too if you weren’t so set on being miserable all the time.
Cindy: Mom, why does your face look like that?
Ralph: Wow! Asking that of the woman who gave you life, that’s low!
Cindy: She looks concerned, that’s all I’m asking.
Karl: She’s been sick all day, give her a little break. Maybe the music is too loud for her.
Teri: Or maybe it’s that it’s on at all…
Betty: I’m keeping my mouth shut, that’s all I’m going to say.
Ralph: Wow, that would be a first.
Cindy: What happened to respecting the woman who gave birth to us?
Ralph: Only when it’s convenient for giving you a hard time.
Velma: I didn’t get the promotion, guys!
Karl: Aw,, I’m sorry.
Cindy: Jerry! Cut the music! Kill the Kool!
Jerry: I don’t know how!
Cindy: What do you mean you don’t know how?
Teri: He’s a boomer.
Tammi: Steven, help your grandfather. This is all too sad to watch.
Steven: He can’t figure out how to close Spotify?
Velma: I’m fine, really. You don’t have to worry so much about playing some music, I know you had the right intentions.
Mitchell: If I did that, you’d be yelling.
Velma: Shut up.
Mitchell: Will do.
Danielle: Do us a favor and don’t go into the living room for a while, okay? Also, don’t go in the garage fridge.
Ralph: I worked hard on that cake, someone is eating it no matter what!
Velma: You guys made me a cake?
Cindy: And decorated the living room! Not that it matters now, your bosses clearly hate us.
Velma: I appreciate the thought. Sorry all the work was in vain.
Ralph: Like I said, we will be eating the cake. They still have cakes at funerals.
Betty: One of the best cakes I ever had was at my uncle’s funeral. I mean, it was so sad, but that buttercream… to die for. Pun not intended.
Karl: Well, that was delightfully inappropriate.
Velma: Teri, you seemed to know something was off, even though I didn’t tell you. Are you psychic or are Betty’s lips looser than I gave her credit for?
Teri: I’m simply very observant.
Ralph: Since when?
Teri: Since always!
Velma: What did you observe?
Teri: Well, you didn’t mention anything about getting a promotion all day, and I feel like you would have said something if you did, considering how you kept talking about it last night and this morning. Also, you’ve been moping around ever since I got home and your eyes look all red and puffy. And not in the Mitchell way.
Mitchell: What is the “Mitchell way?”
Teri: Puff, puff, don’t pass.
Mitchell: I do not smoke pot!
Teri: Okay, Pepe Le Pew.
Steven: Wait, that’s why he smells like that? I just thought there was something wrong with him.
Teri: On second thought, maybe it’s I’m not extra observant. I think it’s just that every else is just extra not-observant.
Betty: You know, I smoked pot once in the 70s. I didn’t know it was laced with angel dust and it made me high as a kite and I accidentally put the cat in the hamster cage. Good thing the cat was blind, Fluffy didn’t get eaten. Five year-old Cindy gave me a good talking-to, though.
Teri: You guys had way more fun before I came along!
Ralph: Yeah, we did. Oh well.
Velma: Well, anyway, you were right, Teri. I have been off all day, this promotion fiasco has completely shaken me. I don’t know how a company can value its loyal employees so little, after putting so much time into helping them. I work ten hours of mandatory overtime a week and they repay me be passing me over yet again.
Mitchell: I’m sure you’ll get it next time.
Danielle: She’s been talking about a promotion ever since I met her. Still nothing. I don’t know how you can be sure about that.
Mitchell: She’s always mad at me, I’m just trying to say something nice to her.
Velma: I’m not always mad at you! Idiot.
Frank: It’s okay, Mitchell. I know what it’s like to be bullied.
Teri: Stay outta this.
Velma: There’s not going to be a next time, if I’m being honest. I’m looking for a new job, one that values me, and when I find it, I’m telling them to shove this just so far up their asses, it’ll come back out their mouths.
Steven: Like the Human Centipede?
Cindy: Who let him watch that?
Tammi: Frank.
Frank: I am innocent!
Steven: You are not.
Betty: Velma, I’m very proud of you. It’s important to stand up for yourself and know your boundaries. Don’t let them push you around. When I worked at that brewery, they never respected me, so I quit.
Ralph: You got fired.
Betty: That’s their story. Not mine. Like I said, they never respected me. Of course they’d make up lies.
Teri (singing): One of us is lying…
Betty: Quiet, ABBA!
Cindy: Where are you going to look for a new job? Are you going to stay in the same industry?
Velma: I’m not sure. I don’t love my work, it’s not my passion, but I’m guessing 25+ years in the industry will be more beneficial towards getting me a new job in insurance rather than an unrelated industry.
Karl: You’re diligent worker and you rarely take time off, I don’t think you’ll find trouble getting a new job. This is an exciting time for you.
Ralph: I’m sorry to rain on the parade, but something’s been weighing on me.
Cindy: Don’t be negative, we don’t need negativity today.
Ralph: I’m just wondering why you excitedly said you had “big news” when you at down.
Teri: That’s what you’re worrying about now?
Ralph: I’m just curious. She gave me whiplash.
Velma: You all looked so happy and excited. I wanted to let you down easy.
Tammi: You guys got lucky. Grandma and I found out by hearing her scream and running to check on her. I thought she got stabbed.
Betty: I just thought she was going crazy. I don’t think that was an unreasonable thought in this family.
One week later…
Velma: Guys! Big news!
Ralph: Oh no, you got fired.
Velma: Wouldn’t matter if I did! I found a new job!
Karl: Did I tell you, or did I tell you?
Velma: There was an insurance company that was looking for a new manager of the off-campus claims division.
Teri: Campus? Like a school?
Velma: No, off-campus like the people who don’t work in the physical building. Anyway, they were very impressed by my long work history at my current job and my loyalty, so they decided to give me a shot. They're already valuing me more than a company I worked for for longer than Law & Order: SVU has been on the air.
Teri: Now you’re speaking my language!
Betty: I always believed in you.
Velma: You did.
Betty: It’s not always easy for us ladies of a certain age -
Velma: How old do you think I am?
Betty: Thirty-five, like me.
Velma: Yep, sure, that’s right.
Mitchell: No, she’s fif-
Velma: Finish that sentence, and I’ll be spending thirty-six in jail for your murder.
Cindy: Another joyous day in this house! Hallelujah!
What did you think of this episode of Our House? Let us know in the comments and make sure to read the new episode next week!
