How Gilmore Girls Do Money: Liz, T.J., and Doula

“Can I see how many, uh, hearts you got on your Tumbles?” T.J. asked his daughter.

Dee shifted in her armchair, her laptop tilted protectively towards her chest.

“Dee, you know that one of the conditions of you using social media is you have to let us see it,” Liz called from the kitchen. “You don’t want us to have to give you a consequence.”

She reluctantly handed it over and watched as her father scrolled up and down her dashboard. “Where is it?” he asked.

“You have to click on my avatar,” she said, and got up to do it for him. “It got two likes.”

“What are likes?” her dad asked.

“The hearts.”

“So is that good?” Liz said, her voice loud over the pop of the oil in her saucepan.

“I dunno,” Dee said, wanting her laptop back. She knew it wasn’t, but she didn’t want to say so.

“Who are these people?” T.J. asked. “Friends of yours?”

“They’re friends of yours?” Liz echoed. “Do they like jewelry?”

“Teenage girls always like jewelry,” T.J. said. “You ever see a teenage girl who wasn’t covered in jewelry?”

The smell of burning garlic was beginning to fill their small home. “Can you tell if they went to the Kickstarter?”

“Let me have my laptop back,” Dee said, using that tone her mother always told her not to use. T.J. handed it over, and she quickly tabbed over to her parents’ Kickstarter. “You don’t have any new pledges.”

Liz stood in the doorway of the kitchen, spatula sticking out of her crossed arms. “But can you tell if they went to the Kickstarter from your Tumblr?”

“No,” Dee said. “They don’t have the functionality for that.”

“But you can tell when they visit our website.” T.J. said.

“Yeah,” Dee sighed, “because that’s Google Analytics. Kickstarter doesn’t work like that because you don’t own the domain.”

“Well, who are these people?” T.J. asked again.

Dee clicked on the post to see who had liked it. “One of them’s Kirk,” she said. “I don’t know who the other one is.”

“How can you not know who someone is?” came the voice from the kitchen. Dee wondered how long they had before the smoke alarm went off.

“Because it’s the internet, mom,” she said.

“I don’t like your tone, Doula,” came the immediate response.

“But Kirk already supported the Kickstarter,” T.J. said. “At the highest level. He’s our angel investor! So we just gotta find out who this mystery person is, and start overcoming their objections. Can you send them an email?”

“No,” Dee said. It wasn’t true, but they’d never figure that out.

“How will we know when other people put hearts on your post?” T.J. asked, taking the laptop back out of Dee’s hands.

“I’ll get a notification on my phone,” Dee said.

“You’ll tell us, right?” Liz said, dumping a can of tomato paste over the acrid garlic. The saucepan hissed and went silent. “We want to know every time we get a notification.”

“I’ll tell you,” Dee said.

“What I want to know,” Liz said, coming into the living room to look at the laptop, “is why my son hasn’t put it on his Tumblr. Or why he hasn’t liked your post yet.”

“Jess is on tour, Mom,” Dee said. “He’s busy. He’s probably been on an airplane.”

“They have internet on planes now,” Liz said. “How long does it take to like something?”

“He hasn’t even pledged yet,” T.J. added. “How long does it take to pledge? Or make a Tweet?”

“He’s going to pledge,” Dee said. “He still has 29-and-a-half days.”

Previously on “How Gilmore Girls Do Money:” Glenn Babble

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