#5: Dig This
Vanderpump Rules - Season 4, Episode 8
Dear YCWTS readers,
there has been a lot happening in the Bravoverse (specifically the Vanderpump Rules universe) this week. I won’t go into it here. It’s sad and also a bit exhausting to be honest. If you know you know.
And while it’s been happening, this one episode has been going through my head. Normally I wouldn’t write scenes from the same show back to back, but everyone grieves differently and we all need to process before we can move on. So here it is.
Hope you enjoy this literary retelling. If you do, tell your friends and now you can also follow YCWTS on Instagram!
This is a literary retelling of a whole Vanderpump Rules episode.
approx 700 words
Peter has short hair, a girlfriend, and a blue party hat that leaves elastic lines on his chin.
"Are you ready for tomorrow?" he asks Tom.
It's Ariana's birthday and today she is 30 going on five. She's in a pink leotard, a tutu, and her hair is in two high buns. Crouching on the floor in front of a mirror, she dusts her face with powder.
"He has not given me the impression he is going," she says.
Katie backcombs Scheana's hair and everyone agrees that guys trips are so incredibly stupid.
"Ariana is fucking pissed," Tom says to his friends as they scheme in the kitchen away from the party, the pool, the bouncy castle, the face painters, the snow cones.
"Maybe more alcohol is the trick?" one of them suggests. There is a tequila station after all.
A plastic unicorn horn erupts from Ariana's forehead.
"There's a lot going on with my birthday that has nothing to do with this party or whatever," she says. She reveals to Katie that she doesn't want Tom to go on the guys trip to Vegas because her dad recently passed away, because she misses him, because she wants the most important person in her life to be with her right now. She leans over the side of the trampoline and wipes away tears, careful not to disturb the glittery stars lining her eyes.
It's dark and people are starting to leave. Everything is sticky with alcohol and icing. Ariana is now in a crown and bits of spaghetti string dangle from her hair.
"I'm always gonna be here for you." Tom says.
Ariana looks down and smiles. She blushes. Her arms intertwine with Tom's.
"But apparently he told me that we're going to a construction yard and we're taking bulldozers and like crushing shit with bulldozers."
a nation gasps
Framed pictures of tractors and piles of dirt decorate the walls. The doors to the bathrooms are labeled "Lads" and "Birds" and their little cartoon characters wear hard hats and vests.
The guys blow into breathalyzers as sweat beads down their foreheads. They smell like yesterday's tequila but miraculously, they all pass. They are herded outside and into construction equipment and they make joke after joke about what it's like to be a man. Big balls, steak and potatoes, hot chicks, that sort of thing.
Lisa breezes into the restaurant. Table eleven needs cutlery, spit out that gum, get to work. Everyone bustles around her.
"How's your day?" she asks Ariana, fully aware of how her day is going. She leans on the bar counter. The clatter of her gold armbands against her Rolex watch join the sound of customer-fans who slice into goat cheese balls.
Ariana crosses her arms and rubs her shoulders. These milestone events make her miss her dad, she explains. Lisa nods sympathetically.
"Why didn't you tell him?"
Ariana smiles and frowns and cries. "It's scary to know that someone is so... important," she says, wagging her head back and forth like maybe love isn’t that big of a deal.
"But that's a wonderful thing!" Lisa exclaims. Ariana nods. Over sliced limes and candied cherries they talk about how important it is to be honest in relationships. It is paramount.
The guys sit at a roulette table and cheer. They walk down aisles of VLTs. They drink from comically large liquor bottles in hotel rooms littered with dirty laundry, plastic cups, and empty cans of Red Bull. They pull down their pants and smush their bare asses against each other's faces. They praise themselves for not cheating on their girlfriends this time even though it would be so so easy.
"I know that I should have felt okay with being emotionally vulnerable with Tom and telling him this sooner." Ariana says in her confessional. She wipes away more tears. "Because he's never once not been amazing to me."
we're talking BULLDOZERS
That was deep.