Where the Fuck is My Birth Control?

the musical

(part one)

DRUGSTORE

B Roll of various drugstores opening, the pharmacy filling pill orders, opening cash register, typing on computer- all creating a beat.

Similar to the opening scene of Hairspray “Good Morning Baltimore”, along with the same tune.

INT. APARTMENT

Continuing to mimic Hairspray opener, an alarm rings and a 26 year old- LUCY, lacking the pep of Tracy Turnblad, awakes in her messy room.

She opens her drawer of meds and takes her pills. Crossing off on morning list “no sneezy,” “no sad,”” no sleepy.”

Lucy flips each pill bottle over after taking them, to remember. However when she stands up, one falls over and rolls under the table.

She gets on her hands and knees to get it, another bottle knocks over in the process. Her head bumps the table as she stands back up and begins to sing.

LUCY
Oh oh oh.
Woke up today.
Feeling the way.
I always do.

As she gets ready for the day- makes coffee, gets changed, brushes her teeth: it’s clear she is clumsy and a mess.

LUCY
Oh oh oh.
Ready for coffee.
That I will drink.
So then I can think.
The chaos of thoughts
Starts twisting to knots
It’s like a clanging from
All around
Oh, oh, oh
Chill the fuck out
Get to the list and put
Feet on the ground.

Lucy goes over her To-Do list, starting to get organized. Then her phone buzzes.

A text from CVS: “YOU HAVE ONE HOUR TO PICK UP YOUR MEDS OR ELSE”

Her eyes go wide.

LUCY
Good Morning Drugstore

She rushes to get ready to leave the house.

LUCY
Every month’s a revolving door

Lucy exits, then runs back in to get her Medicaid card. She continues out the door.

LUCY
Every med is a cacophony
Every symptom a mystery

INT. DRUGSTORE
Lucy waits in the long line to the pharmacy.

LUCY
Good morning drugstore.
Some day I won’t have a drawer
(Of pills) and I’ll see
Drugstore free me.

Lucy is at the front of the line. The music stops.

LUCY
Picking up for Lucy.

PHARMACIST
Birthday?

LUCY
Oh, I’m a Leo.

PHARAMCIST
The date.

LUCY
8/10/97

The pharmacist types. A woman behind Lucy, around the same age speaks to her.

ARIES GIRL
Aries.

LUCY
I mean thats really all they need
to know about us right?

Lucy looks at random items while the pharmacist types. She looks at a clear pill organizer.

ARIES GIRL
Those are great. Life-changer.

Lucy takes in the Aries Girl, who seems very put together. She places the pill organizer into her basket. Which also holds a new electric toothbrush, a fresh planner, and multivitamins.

The pharmacist points for Lucy to wait in the pick-up area. There are many other women similar to her and the Aries, waiting for meds. Many of them hold Medicaid cards.

The pharmacist calls for Lucy. She takes the brown paper bag, which is filled with box shaped pills. Every other women in the area holds up their box shaped brown bags. Except for a man who holds a bag with your average pill bottle.

They girls hold three months worth of birth control.

The tune of It’s the Hard Knock Life from Annie plays.
(The song takes place over a month)

The girls all rip open their bags and begin a synchronized stomping and dance- including tossing their boxes of birth control in the air like professional jugglers.

ARIES GIRL
It’s the hard knock life for us.

The other woman join as they exit the pharmacy.

GIRLS
It’s the hard knock life for us!

EXT. STREETS
The girls walk down the street like a flashmob.

GIRLS
Stead of freedom
We must trick
Our bodies
To act pregnant
It’s the hard knock life.

Each girl enters her apartment. All on the same street. So the doors close at the same time.

INT. VARIOUS APARTMENTS
The scene becomes more like Annie- the girls in raggedy clothes and pigtails doing cartwheels and twirling like kids through their apartments.

While also doing household chores and finally: each putting their birth control in unique spots.

GIRLS
Got eggs that fertilize so,
Contraceptive we must stow

Some store them on a nightstand, some in a purse, some in the bathroom, Lucy in her drawer, one SIXTEEN YEAR OLD in a religious household hides it in a secret spot.

GIRLS
Manmade hormones.
(beat. beat. closing of a drawer
then closing of a cabinet)
Stead of pure.
Phone Alarms
To be sure.
It’s the hard knock life.

We see the different phones making different timed alarms. Some have an x then a baby emoji, some say “B.C”, the Sixteen Year Old says “pray followed by a wink emoji.”

The tune and essence of Hard Knock Life continues. One woman- Rose- peels the days of the week sticker that comes with a birth control pack and places it over the days of the week already written on.

ROSE
Don’t it feel like your belly’s always turning.

Rose is frustrated because the skinny “days of the week sticker” is difficult to put on. She pounds her fist.

ROSE
Don’t it seem your mood’s never really right.

Aries Girl googles “is my vision blurry because of birth control?

ARIES GIRL
Once a day, do you want to be a virgin...

Every girl on the street pokes their head out of the window because they feel nauseated. All face each other from the second story.

GIRLS
It’d be easier than putting up a fight!

One girl, GWEN, gets out of bed next to her boyfriend, FRANK, and goes to take an Advil.

GWEN
No one’s there when you wake with a migraine.

Sixteen Year Old (who has taken birth control for the first time) sits at her all Catholic girls school.

TEENAGE GIRL
They only care if you grow or if you shrink...

Girls around her whisper “she looks bigger.”
Cut to two guys whispering about a girl at work who seems annoyed and tired. “must be her time of the month.”

ARIES GIRLS
Men will say you are going insane.

Aries Girl leaves work to meet the rest of the girls on the street- flash mob style again.

GIRLS
But in a study they were out in a blink!

Tune continues, but starts to fade out as the Girls deliver newspapers with the headline reading
“MEN BIRTH CONTROL STUDY KILLED AFTER MEN REPORT SIDE EFFECTS.”

The girls start to disperse.

GIRLS
Your troubles aren’t seen
When you have a vahine.
It’s the hard knock life.

We end following Lucy ,who walks to her apartment, feeling empowered, and whispering the song to herself.

LUCY
Your struggles no one see’s
When you have ovaries...

INT. LUCY’S APARTMENT
Time has passed based on where Lucy is in her Birth Control: second pack of the box, first week.

She takes her other nighttime pills- now neatly placed in the clear organizer, even with her new multivitamin! She crosses out on her list: “no infants,” “no insomnia,” “no anemia.”

When she awakes she is more pepped than the last time we saw her rise from bed. She feels good, which she often does the first week after her period.

She’s still inspired by the Drugstore Girls, and proud for using the pill organizer and keeping her place clean(ish) for over a month now.

Tune of I Just Can’t Wait to be King by Lion King starts.

Lucy takes out her new electric toothbrush.

LUCY
I’m gonna be a might queen so enemies beware.

As Lucy brushes her teeth in the mirror, the Lucy in the mirror- sans toothbrush- sings back.

MIRROR LUCY
Well I’ve never seen a boss ass bitch, with quite so little care.

Lucy struts to her desk.

LUCY
I’m gonna give main character, unlike me before.

She writes in her new notebook a To Do List: affirmize, organize, workout.

LUCY
I’m affiirm..izing?,
organizing, I’m cleaning up my floor.

Lucy is mid cleaning her floor when she has a thought, drops what she’s picked up, and goes to her notebook. She crosses out “affirmizing” and writes “affirming.”

The Lucy in her full length bedroom mirror looks at what she dropped on the floor.

MIRROR LUCY
Thus far, you fail to practice what you sing

Lucy picks up the pile again.

LUCY
Oh, I just will hold onto my things!

MIRROR LUCY
You’ve rather a long way to go...

Lucy over the course of another month or so juggles: work, exercising, staying organized, etc. We even see her go to a Dry Cleaners, a health store, and bringing her parents flowers.

LUCY
I have gotta do this..
I have gotta be there

Lucy starts to bite her nails as things get overwhelming. She slaps away her own hand.

LUCY
I have gotta stop that

A notification from Calm pops up on her phone.

LUCY
And I need to be here.

She rolls out her yoga mat, ready to meditate but an alarm for birth control rings.

As she makes her way to her pill organizer, her apartment turns into a jungle a la Lion King.

LUCY
Tryna run around all day.

Some of her pills are in the organizer, some are out. She is on her final pack (of the 3 months) of Birth Control.

LUCY
Gonna do it all my way.

A bird outside her open window starts to sing to her, in voice of Mirror Lucy.

BIRD
I think it’s time you and Dr. I, schedule a heart to heart...

LUCY
Queens don’t need advice from big whig shrinks for a start.

BIRD
If this is where these weeks are headed, count me out!
Out of order, out of pocket, you’re going to burn out!

Lucy rolls her eyes and closes the window.

Herself and everything around her becomes animated. Including the bird who has now somehow made it into her apartment.

BIRD
Your mind is getting wildly out of wing!

LUCY
Oh, I just can’t find all my things!

Lucy struggles to navigate the animated jungle. Big animals nearly stomp on her.

She goes to take her nightime pills. She crosses out “no insomnia” but NOT “no infant.” A panic washes over her.

LUCY
Okay let’s look left.

Lucy checks her drawer.

LUCY
Okay lets look right.

Lucy searches her apartment.

LUCY
Everywhere I look it’s, somehow outta sight.
I’ll retrace every step I've made.
I’ll check in every where that I’ve stayed.

Lucy sends a group text: “anyone seen my B.C?”

Lucy starts throwing things around in her apartment, serious and on a mission.

LUCY
It’s gonna be Queen Lucy’s finest raid!

Lucy’s room is now a total disaster. Her anger turns to defeat as she sits in a pile of clothes on her floor.

LUCY
Oh, I just keep losing my things.

“CLOSE CURTAINS.”

TO BE CONTINUED…