Slow White
By Shawnee Armstrong


Once upon a time, sometime in the 90s I believe, there lived a young, dimwitted girl. Her name was Lillian Victoria Elizabeth Sullivan - White III. A few facts: Lillian’s name was 15 syllables long, she couldn’t spell her name until age 8 and a half, and she thought pickles grew from a pickle tree. Considering kids have been mean since the beginning of time (Mean, yes. Creative, no.) Lillian Victoria Elizabeth Sullivan - White III gained the nickname, Slow White.

Slow was never a graceful child. A scrape on the knee was expected nearly every day, she unsuccessfully attempted the monkey bars from time to time, and for some odd reason, came home with a battle wound from some sort of animal at least once a month. The scrapes on her face didn’t look too out of place, her lips were already as red as blood. That is until she started wearing glittery lip gloss the year Nathan Dunn moved in next door. That was also the year that Christina Aguilera became popular. Slow’s hair quickly switched from ebony black, to blonde as snow. (“Snow,” that would be a neat first name.) Anyway, once she saw herself in the mirror she decided that she was much too pale and that spray tanning was a necessity. She acquired a membership at Hollywood Tanning Co. and became as tan as the members of Jersey Shore.

Slow’s birth mother, Lillian Victoria Elizabeth Sullivan Jr. left Slow and her father to become a Blackjack dealer in Atlantic City and Slow’s dad remarried the CFO of McDonald’s around the time Slow entered preschool. Slow never liked the fact that McDonald’s was so unhealthy and caused heart disease all across the country, but she couldn’t resist Big Macs. “Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun.” She’d always aspired to be a nutrition specialist but thought that would be too ironic. Instead she went to college to study sociology. And this is where our story begins…

* * *


Slow attended UCSB which was ranked the 8th best party school in the US. Whenever Slow would speak of her plans after college, her stepmother would lovingly, and sarcastically, say, “Oh honey, you know we can’t afford a sixth year of college. I suggest you drop out now.” Slow would then reply, “Wait, you have to go to college for six years!? I thought it was only 5!” (Did you think I was kidding about her not remembering her own name? There is a reason she went by Slow but she just thought it was due to her running abilities.)

During her first semester of college, she was mauled by a bear. (Why there was a bear on a California beach I will never understand.) She was walking along the coast while whistling an ’N Sync song, - badly, I might add - when a bear came out of nowhere and sat on her! Her diaphragm was crushed, a few ribs were broken, and she could no longer whistle, or for that matter, breathe. (Some may argue that the bear sat on her in that exact position to shut her up, but I don’t think bears are that smart.) After about a minute, the bear got up and continued on it’s way. Slow was then rushed off to the hospital by a gorgeous paramedic named Pete. Muscles covered his arms, his teeth were perfect with no signs of childhood braces, and he was the type of blonde you would expect to see on a surfboard. Slow tried to stare into his eyes but he seemed to be distracted by helping her breath and other medical shenanigans. If only he had looked up before she passed into unconsciousness.

At the Downtown Santa Barbara Research Hospital and Rehab Center, there was a recreation room. This room combined both mentally disturbed patients and regular patients (if they had insurance.) In this room, Slow met some of the strangest people she’s ever met: DWARFS, aka, Drug Ward and Rehab Focus Subjects. For the protection of these people, (and the fact that I don’t want to be sued,) I have changed their names. The first DWARF to walk in, we’ll call him Grumpy, was not a nice fellow. He glanced at Slow with a scowl and muttered, “Hi hoe,” then snatched a ping pong paddle out of an elderly man’s grasp. Slow was later told that the reason Grumpy was so, well grumpy, was because he had just lost his friend Sneezy due to allergies. Nobody really knew why Grumpy was in the DWARFS program, but he had been there for years and had to be near the age of 90. The one to tell Slow all this was Sleepy, who walked in along with a group of people right after Grumpy. He was a speed addict who was 3 weeks clean. He seemed to have extreme anxiety and ate all throughout the day. Slow and Sleepy became good friends.

Some other friends of Sleepy’s were Happy, who was a sex addict; Bashful, who was schizophrenic; Doc, who was hooked on prescription pills; and Dopey, who was known as the pot head. They were all good people, but some of them had odd quirks, like Happy who would look down Slow’s shirt from time to time. They all seemed down due to Sneezy’s death caused by yellow food dye #41; they never saw it coming. But, what can you expect from hospital food. It was all hard mashed potatoes, undercooked meatloaf, cold gravy, and, for desert, crusty Jell-O. Slow called her stepmother one day and requested that she send her and her friends Big Macs, the greatest food on earth. A package soon arrived containing eight McDonald’s hamburgers. (One without pickles and sesame seeds in the honor of Sneezy.) Slow and the six remaining DWARFS chowed down on their burgers. But then, in a moment of McPanic, Slow collapsed. Everyone gasped! (At this point you may be thinking that the stepmother poisoned the burger, but really, how could that be possible? She had no way of guessing which burger Slow would consume. Besides, she’d always been a loving stepmother who had cared for Slow as if she were her own. The real villain in this story is McDonald’s. 590 calories, 34 grams of fat, 8 grams of sugar! But, I think what pushed her off the edge was the super sized Coke which sent Slow into a diabetic coma.)

Who better to save her from McDeath than the hospital’s very own muscular babe. She opened her eyes to find Pete leaning over her and multiple tubes sticking out of each of her arms. The crowd cheered knowing that she was alive, but she really wished they hadn’t for she could no longer hear her hero. She could only assume that within that time, he had declared his love for her and demanded she run away with him to surfing paradise. The crowd settled and she declared, “I love you, too!” Stunned, confused, and under the crowds pressure, he leaned in for a kiss, they bonked noses, he leaned in again (successfully this time), and swooped her up. He ran carrying her to his ambulance in front of the hospital and they went riding off to paradise. They lived happily ever after as Mr. and Mrs. Peter Jeremy Alexander Carpenter Gonzalez Jr. The end.