An young woman named Polly is going about shopping at Christmas time when Amanda, a charity worker, begins haranguing her for spare change to donate. The woman at first politely tries to decline, explaining that she's hard up for money at the moment, but the charity worker insists on guilt tripping her into donating a dollar by claiming she's mean for not caring about the less fortunate. The woman walks away angrily only to walk past some scouts selling cookies at a table.
| Canon Story | ||||||||
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| You're So Mean | ||||||||
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| Artist | Writer | |||||||
| David Hopkins | Julie Miyamoto | |||||||
| Previous | Next | |||||||
| Arc XLVI: In The Beginning | Arc XLVIII: Prayer Of The Mantis | |||||||
The children, Barry and Chrissy, set in on her, trying to coax her into buying a box of cookies to support their school. She tries to politely decline, and even shows her wallet is empty, having given her last dollar to Amanda, but they press on claiming they accept debit. Trying to deflect by saying it's wrong to bully her for money, they claim she's mean for not supporting their school. Again trying to escape, she is confronted by their mother and then a police officer, and has no choice buy to buy a box of cookies to avoid making a scene.
Polly makes it into work in a bad mood from her earlier experiences when one of her co-workers, Shard, tries to convince her to come in tomorrow on her day off and cover his shift. She snaps at him and his excuses about needing to mediate a family dispute in Palm Beach. It turns out he's already cleared the trip with HR and the decision has been made. While distracted with the janitor, her co-worker leaves having eaten her cookies.
She walks home furious and gets to her apartment only to find her sister Raisa has snuck in while she was gone. Raisa's lover Chris has left her for another woman, dialogue suggesting that Raisa was a previous "other woman," and she needs a place to recuperate while dealing with the loss. What's more, she's brought her cat with her. Polly reluctantly lets her crash at her place.
The next morning, Polly encounters another charity worker, this one collecting blood donations. Polly, a hemophiliac, tries to decline, but like the previous charity workers, the blood bank worker persists and essentially kidnaps Polly, knocking her out with an injection and taking her to an operating room.
Polly awakens to find herself strapped to an operating table, and her mother is there, and she's been an prisoner for months. Her mother wishes to take one of her lungs, having damaged her own through smoking. She then lets Polly know she had her cloned. The blood bank worker who kidnapped her, Hilda Webber, reveals herself to be a doctor leading the operations. They have an angry discussion concerning Polly's autonomy and right to control her own fate. As a final indignity to Polly, Hilda plans to transplant a paralyzed child's brain into Polly's body. Polly has a surreal experience and then awakens, showing the events as part of a dream.
Walking to work the next day, she encounters a charity worker collecting hair for bald children, and Polly has an flustered breakdown demanding autonomy over her own body, refusing to participate and running away before she can be roped into another donation. The charity worker is confused by her outburst and passive aggressively calls Polly a "bitch" after she has fled.
Characters[]
- Polly
- Amanda
- Barry Holmes
- Chrissy
- Rose
- Shard Loren
- Raisa
- Hilda Webber