Scene 1 - A living room in a modest home in Lancaster, PA. A middle-aged man and woman are standing in the middle of the room, looking agitated.
Man: Cut your goddamn hair! You look like a hag!
Woman: No! I like my hair long.
Man: Well...fine! Go live in Hagerstown, with all the other hags.
Woman: If you're going to insist on insulting me, I'm going to stop holding back and start telling YOU to cut your goddman POT BELLY!
Man: I don't have a pot belly!
Woman: Yes, you do! Why don't you go live in Pottstown? You'd fit right in.
Man: Wait...this isn't fun. Let's be nice to each other.
Woman: Yeah, I agree. You leave me alone about my hair, and I won't mention your gut. Okay?
Man: Okay. But I really do wish you'd cut your hair.
Woman: Yeah? Well, I really do wish you'd shut the fuck up about my hair!
Man: Stop yelling at me!
Woman: I'm not yelling!..................Okay, I guess I did yell just then, but it's because you drive me crazy!
Man: You ARE crazy!
Woman: So are you!
(Man leaves room, slams door behind him.)
Woman (yelling): Come back here, you coward!
(Silence...)
Scene 2: Woman goes into bathroom and looks in the mirror.
Woman: Shit! I DO look like a hag. But it's not because of my hair. It's because I'm fucking old! He just thinks it's because of my hair, because I had short hair when we first met. But he had a flat stomach back then, too. Well, I'm not cutting my hair, no matter what. I want it to get so long that I could wrap it around my neck and hang myself with it, like Rapunzel did to her stepmother. But before I do that, I could experiment with pulling it back really tight, and see if it would smooth out the wrinkles in my haggy, old face.
(Bathroom door opens. Man peeks in...)
Man: Honey...I'm sorry. I won't say anything more about your hair, if you don't say anything about my gut.
Woman: Gut? What gut? You look great, Sweetie-pie.
Man: So do you, Baby Doll.
( Hugs...kisses...)
And they lived happily ever after.
8 comments:
All's well that ends well. Sweet!
I think you should send this play to marriage counselors, Madam Z, I'm sure it would save a lot of couples from divorce. I prefer Hagsville to Hagertown, but that is a minor point.
Well thank the lucky stars which smile over unfractured fairy tales that he's not from Pricksburg.
Mirror, mirror
on the bathroom wall
Madame Z tells a tale
best of all
right to the tip
of her protagonist's roots
of the matter.
~ Absolutely*Kate,
still smiling at "Gut, what gut?"
Kate,
Actually, he IS from "Pricksburg!"
P.S. I love your poem. :)
"Yeah? Well, I really do wish you'd shut the fuck up about my hair!"
Hilarious ... And just when were you a fly on MY wall? Just kidding ... Nice one!
PS (Sorry I haven't been around much lately. Been in the writing and [movie-watching] cave.)
No apology necessary, Anthony. I knew you were in the "cave," because I am a fly on your wall! :)
( which gives "What's the buzzz" a whole new swing )
Z, that was uterly, utterly very clever...
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