“Do I have enough to buy a tree?” BSC #100: Kristy’s Worst Idea (1996)

Okay people, you owe me. I could be out, “enjoying” the 100 degree heat at Santa-Cali-Gon, but I sacrificed in order to try to bring you at least one more Kristy before the month ends. (Okay, you won’t get to read it until September, but I am actually writing it in August.)

I picked this one because it picks up the Sunday before Labor Day. Kristy’s returned from Hawaii and feels like the club has gone to pot while Abby was president and no one’s taking it seriously. After Jackie R has an accident while she’s sitting him, she and the BSC get into a big fight and disband. Everyone takes individual sitting jobs except Kristy. Later, Jackie has a much worse accident while trying to bring Kristy a note and Mallory accidentally hurts Claire during another sitting job, and Kristy realizes that the incident wasn’t really her fault. Everyone misses the BSC, so they reform with a probationary period.

Interesting Tidbits

The cover cracks me up. First, Claudia’s room is way too clean. Second, Claudia is arguing the MA, and Kristy is arguing with Stacey, while Abby’s just yelling at the room in general. Third, for some reason, Stacey has bent down in front of Kristy and is waggling a finger at her. Plus, it’s shiny.
 

It bugs me more than a little that all these books mention the BSC on the first couple pages and then say (more about that later.) If you’re reading book 100, then a) you know exactly what is coming up in chapter 2 and b) you already know all about the club anyway.

This says exactly what I was thinking at the time: “Don’t think I’m a rich snob or anything. I’m casual, down to earth, and friendly as can be. (Modest, too. Heh heh.)”

Kristy brings everyone gifts, even the people who went to Hawaii earlier in the summer. But she gives the crappiest gift to Mallory, who didn’t get to go at all: clip on earrings. Those things hurt like a mofo, and anyway, Mallory’s ears are pierced.

If I were Abby, I’d be insulted: Kristy says Abby and Anna are nothing alike, and then calls Anna sweet, kind and thoughtful. Of course, Kristy’s kind of down on Abby in this book anyway, because she’s apparently jealous that Abby got to be president while she was in Hawaii.

Speaking of that, I’ve always wondered what the point of the vice president is if Claudia doesn’t take over at meetings. Wouldn’t it make more sense for the VP to act as the P? Claudia’s position seems to be mostly ceremonial, while everyone else actually works.

This is different than what we usually read. Kristy says Claudia has “the world’s oddest way of looking at life.”

Ouch. It’s not just Abby on Kristy’s shit list. She refers to the We <3 Kids Club as a “sloppy, unprofessional” version of the BSC, but then adds how nice they are. It’s kinda like the Southerners who add “Bless her heart,” after being vicious to someone.

Heh. When Kristy says she doesn’t feel like the club is taking things serious, she says they’ve been “Abbified.” I actually don’t mind a little Abby in these later books because she’s the only one who doesn’t take the club over-the-top seriously. She lightens things up a bit.

Claudia and MA babysit for the DeWitt/Barrett clan and they’re, uh, violent. Marnie wants Jessi to baby-sit, and Madeleine tells her Jessi’s dead. Later, Buddy says he’s going to poison his teacher and blow up the school. MA manages to get them all to settle down when Claudia barges in and tries to force them into an art project. The two of them end up sniping at each other. You can always tell that MA is really mad because she actually acts bitchy and middle-schooly to her friends.

Wow, Stacey actually misses something because she’s in New York with her dad!

Kristy refers to “Picasso’s Theory of Relativity.” Jessi corrects her by saying “Einstein,” and Kristy corrects herself: “Picasso’s Theory of Einstein.”

Kristy keeps trying to push everyone into a Fall Festival and no one’s into it. Even funnier is when she explains what she’s doing to the Papadakises and Kormans and they all think it’s stupid.

Cokie doing literary analysis using accurate terms is very, very wrong.

When did Kristy turn into one of those characters who gets famous people’s names wrong and pronounces everything wrong? She also calls Mary Anne Miss Congealiality. Which sounds like an awesome award to win.

Abby and Stacey determine that the hot lunch sandwiches are made out of recycled footballs. Would Dawn approve of that? It’s not meat, after all…

How does Jackie know what a googolplex is?

Watson makes a joke. This is almost as funny as if Richard were doing it. (Actually, I read #98 last night for fun because I’d just gotten a copy before and never read it, and Richard was telling jokes with Jeff.)

Kristy brothers take bets on how long the BSC being disbanded will last. I wonder who wins?

This made me laugh. Kristy’s all worked up about the end of the BSC so when MA is upset at school, she assumes that’s the cause. Really, Mary Anne is just freaking out because the school lunch that day is something disgusting.

Heh. Mr. Papadakis actually offers the BSC a retainer to get back together. I don’t know why—he’s got Kristy, Abby and Shannon all living on his street and he can call them directly. But Claudia imagines he means an orthodontic retainer.

Claudia spelling: metablism, oxyjin, elmints, efect, blode, ventricals, somting. She also uses to for too, hart for heart, blew for blue and their for there. She refers to the parts of the ‘hart’ as ‘ventricals and auricals’. But my real favorite is that, for the date, she wrote Thurz.

Later, she tells Kristy she’s D-E-D dead and spells Mary Anne’s last name wrong.

The kids in Kristy’s neighborhood keep asking her to babysit for them. Abby asks, “What about me?” to which Scott Hsu replies that she’s too old for Kristy to babysit.

I didn’t notice it until I started reading these later books through a second time, but you don’t hear much about the Krushers after #95, probably because, with Bart out of the picture, there was no one for the Krushers to play.

When Jackie gets hurt a second time, the whole BSC rushes to the ER to be by his side. Which is pretty stupid, because I can’t imagine the ER wanting a bunch of non-relatives hanging out in his cubicle.

Archie, Jackie and Shea are playing madlibs, and Shea tells Archie that adverbs are “verbs from ads” and pronouns are “names of professional teams." Jackie catches a case of the Kristies (the ghostwriter really likes the messing up words thing, as Claudia does it a few times also) and Shea keeps correcting him. Jackie says he had a combustion (concussion) and he was unconscience. Shea corrects the latter by saying “scious” and Abby replies, “Gesundheit.”

Jackie’s spelling is on par with Claudia’s. I won’t give you all the errors, but he uses my favorite Claudia-spelling and says babby siters.

When the BSC members get together to discuss reforming the club, they all have reasons for wanting to reform. The only one that gets through to Stacey—who, for some reason, is the most stubborn about rejoining—is money.

It think it’s hilarious that Shannon cracks up at the idea of running the BSC by “the net”, but ten years later, that’s exactly how a club like this one would have run.

When Mary Anne and Claudia finally make up, they air their sitting issues (MA feels like she’s dull compared to Claud; Claud feels like MA talks down to her when they sit together) and Logan pretends he’s going to cry from the drama of it all.

Outfits:

Claudia: bracelet made of dyed shoelaces, Captain Hook shirt, man’s pinstriped pants with a bungee cord belt

I’m hoping that by next week I’ll have one more Kristy and a Mary Anne ready to go. But don’t hold your breath…