While Karen rests her sore back on the couch and we all are snowbound and on edge with cabin fever…
Luna (bursting into the living room like a missile with her trusty clipboard): I am telling you, telling you, that dinosaurs were part of an organized and hierarchical society. They had routines and, probably schedules, meetings and clipboards made of palm trees.
Charlotte (following Luna scandalized): Meetings?! They were NOT chupatintas, Luna. They were glorious chaotic creatures with teeth, eat them all and let the velociraptor sort them out.
Luna: You are completely wrong. Dinosaurs survived for 165 million years and you need a plan to last that long!
Charlotte: Hah! you don’t last that long without eating everything that moves, not planning, a vibe.
Luna: Dinos built nests like baby chicks, paleontologists found fossilized nesting grounds.
Charlotte: Oh, please spare me. Willow buries her toys too and it doesn’t make her a scientist.
Luna: The Tyrannosaurus rex had binocular vision, sharp as a tack!
Charlotte: And he still couldn’t clap, tragic, what’s your point.
Luna (offended gasp): Dinosaurs raised their young!
Charlotte: So do pigeons and they are idiots.
Luna: And dinosaurs were FEATHERED. Science has SPOKEN.
Charlotte: PROPAGANDA. Science also once thought the earth was flat, Luna M. Whiskers. Sit down before you embarrass yourself.
Luna (slams clipboard on table): Oh, I’m embarrassing? You still think dinosaurs looked like funky lizards in bad rubber suits from the old movies!.
Charlotte (gasp): Those were majestic, you heretic cow! Dinosaurs should make you shiver in your pants, not look like a dumb pigeon with anger issues.Luna: You just hate feathers because you associate them with chaos, birds and… frankly… Tartiflette.
Charlotte: (in Dowager mode): DO NOT BRING THE MONSTER INTO THIS. The fact that you said birds are dinosaurs is the biggest crock I’ve heard.
Luna (paces): It’s called evolution, Charlotte, e-vo-lu-tion. Dinos didn’t just vanish like your toys, they rebranded, Darwin was a good PR. Now they scream and wake me up at 5 a.m.
Charlotte: IF pigeons are dinos, then I am the Queen of Gondor and this house owes me tribute, my precious.
Luna: You are closer to a Therizinosaurus than a T-rex. All fluff for brains.
Charlotte (fur fluffs violently): TAKE THAT BACK. I AM CLEARLY A TYRANNOSAURUS. Large and commanding with terrifying strength, top of the food chain predator!
Luna: You nap seventeen hours a day and scream when dinner is three minutes late. You are not top of anything.
Charlotte (points to Luna): And YOU, YOU would be one of those skinny and twitchy dinosaurs that causes mass extinctions by accident.
Luna: HOW DARE YOU…
Charlotte:…WITH ANGER ISSUES AND TINY ARMS.
Luna (hurt then furious): I would be a smart Troodon! Respect evolution! And this is coming from the cat who thinks seniority equals wisdom? You were just born earlier, Charlotte, that’s not leadership, that’s timing!
Charlotte: You are romanticizing reptiles!
Luna: They ruled the Earth!
Charlotte: And then they lost it to a rock. Case closed.
Luna (deadly calm): Extinction does not mean incompetence.
Charlotte: Tell that to the asteroid.
Luna: This again? You just hate that evolution didn’t crown you Empress of All Species.
Charlotte: Evolution absolutely did, just look at me.
Luna: You’re orange.
Charlotte (gasps, scandalized): HOW DARE YOU TALK ABOUT MY COLOR.
(They’re nose to nose now.)
Tartiflette (who had been carefully listening from under the couch, whispering): …but could they wear hats?
Charlotte (immediately): YES.
Luna (after a pause): …some evidence suggests ornamental crests.
(A small grey blur rockets past.)
Tartiflette (screaming): DINOSAURS HAD HATS. I KNEW IT. (Crash. Something shatters. Karen sighs)
Charlotte: SEE? DRAMA (closing eyes) This is why extinction events happen.
(Ziggy snores. Lilith mutters something about “summoning a velociraptor.”)
Charlotte (final word, smug): Dinosaurs were chaos.
Luna (sighing, writing furiously on clipboard): Conclusion: dinosaurs were cats with feathers.
(Everyone stops. Long pause.)
Charlotte (low growl): …I hate that you’re right.…Get out of my sight.
And somewhere in the cosmos, a T. rex nods solemnly— and pushes a glass off a table.
