Michael: I think there’s a reason we chose this format.

     Because we’re movie—

     What?

     Junkies?

(in unison): No.

Michael: Addicts? That’s not right.

     Movieaholics?

Melissa: No. Why do all these words make it sound like a disorder?

Michael: Well, it does kind of seem that way, because we watch movies all the time, even though we don’t necessarily feel like it, and we can’t seem to stop.

Melissa: But there are times when we’ve gone whole months without watching a movie or even longer.

Michael: Months? That’s an exaggeration.

     Weeks, yes.

Melissa: Actually, no, we have gone months. Remember last December? We had about three Netflix checked out, and it took us until February to watch them.

Michael: No.

     But that’s because I have a terrible memory.

     But that doesn’t automatically mean you’re right.

Melissa: True, but I am right most of the time.

Michael: Maybe.

     Okay, let’s get back to what I started this off with.

Melissa: Right, so I think the closest would be “buffs,” but I don’t like that word, either.

Michael: Wait a minute, isn’t that cheating?

Melissa: No, because uh—

Michael: We typed that earlier, so you wouldn’t have necessarily said that now. I wouldn’t even know what you’re talking about.

Melissa: I don’t think I know what you’re talking about!

Michael: About bringing in what we had typed earlier to your line that began, “Right, so . . . ”

     You wouldn’t have said that right then.

     Or, you wouldn’t have said it exactly like that.

     I want perfect fidelity here!

Melissa: The problem is, we interrupted the process and started back up in the document, and now we have a lacuna in a palimpsest.

Michael: What is a lacuna and a palimpsest?

Melissa: A lacuna in a palimpsest is a hole in a document that’s been written and rewritten over.

Michael: And how is that like this?

Melissa: We’re now typing in the middle of a document, and we have text below, and text above, and we have to make them meet.

Michael: But we only had one line below—that line!

Melissa: Nu-uh. Look at all those lines down there, starting with “Let’s look that up.”

Michael: I’m not keeping that.

Melissa: Oh, really? I thought we were.

Michael: Well, that’s where we began having the problems.

     Oh man, there’s actually a lot more, isn’t there?

Melissa: That’s what I was trying to tell you.

     I think we can still use it.

Michael: But now, everyone’s gonna know that we’re doing this fake little thing to match up to this part.

Melissa: It’s not fake, it’s just time rearranged.

Michael: It is fake.

     It’s like knowing about your own surprise party. A fake response.

Melissa: I know, but we did say those lines earlier, they’re—

Michael: That’s not what I’m saying!

     I’m saying that we have to fake it to make what we’re saying match into what was said earlier.

Melissa: I see what you mean.

Michael: Finally.

Melissa: So what do we do?

     We can’t delete it now that we’ve referred to it.

Michael: Sure we can.

     That doesn’t need an exclamation point. I don’t want exclamation points!

Melissa: I know what we can do.

Michael: What?

Melissa: We can introduce the section that came earlier that’s now below, and quote it.

     So we don’t have to fake it.

Michael: So you mean, we’re just gonna say, “And we said,” and then what we said?

Melissa: Yeah!

     And we said . . .

Michael: Let’s look that up.

Melissa: Um—

Michael: Put “um.”

     Oh, I wouldn’t have used this.

     Use Dictionary.

     We’re a “yellowish-beige color”?

     This is kind of boring. In a comforting way.

Melissa: No, it’s the second entry.

Michael: “a person who is enthusiastically interested in and very knowledgeable about a particular subject : a computer buff.”

Melissa: Okay, so that definition applies, but I still don’t like the word.

     Let’s check the thesaurus.