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| Joined: | Sat May 31st, 2008 |
| Location: | Missouri USA |
| Posts: | 17 |
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MAGGIE: No, but if you hum a few bars, I can fake it.
(Sits down; Pops, Maggie’s grandfather, orders them both a drink.)
POPS: That’s it?
MAGGIE: Yeah, that’s it. Why should it be anything else?
POPS: Well…I was hoping for something more…meaningful.
MAGGIE: "Meaningful?" Pops, have you published a novel? Produced a Broadway play? Chiseled the greatest sculpture since Michelangelo? Composed a symphony comparable to Beethoven’s—
POPS: Yeah, yeah. I get it.
MAGGIE: So what’s the deal?
POPS: It stinks.
MAGGIE: Sure, life stinks but as you always told me—
POPS: I mean the bird poop on your shoulder. It’s smelling up the place.
MAGGIE: This isn’t the Chase Park Plaza. Christ, Pops, I’m wearing overhauls, I’ve been baling hay all morning, and we’re sitting in a grimy roadhouse in the middle of the freakin’ Ozarks. Give me a break.
POPS: Now I wonder where you got that sassy mouth?
MAGGIE: And the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
POPS: And that tendency to quote stupid proverbs.
MAGGIE: You forgot the irrepressible urge to tell really bad jokes.
POPS: I was just getting to that.
MAGGIE: Another drink?
POPS: Nope. Twelve is my limit. Very strict on that.
MAGGIE: All right, then you’ll have to take it sober. Maybe not SOBER, but with nothing more to drink.
POPS: You’re pregnant by that dope pusher and going to give birth to a crack baby?
MAGGIE: He’s a pharmacist and he made more money last year than you’ve made in your whole life! Besides, he makes me tingle. You know, tingle right down there—
POPS: Shut up, I’m not that liberal.
MAGGIE: Oh, yes, you are just one flaming liberal guy. But enough about Phil the Pharmacist. This is about YOU!
POPS: Too late for me. I’ve got one foot in the grave and the other…okay I won’t finish that one.
MAGGIE: This is for you. (Hands POPS a card.)
POPS: A thank you card? It’s blank inside. Except for your name. "Love, Maggie."
MAGGIE: It’s the best thing I could get you.
POPS: Thanks for what? Did I go into one of my disorientation stages and write you a big check or something?
MAGGIE: No, no, no.
POPS: Tell me, then. I’m dying here. I mean, of curiosity.
MAGGIE: Okay…so…I lied…a little.
POPS: Here it comes.
MAGGIE: Pops, you raised me from a pup ever since the…car wreck. And it is about Phil. (Beat.) We’re getting married.
POPS: Surprise, surprise! About time. How long you been going with him? Twenty, thirty years?
MAGGIE: Pops, now listen. The thank you is…like we talked about before…for teaching me that corny jokes and stupid sayings—and, yes, even a sassy mouth—are really good ways of making sense out of the world. I never once doubted that you loved me more than anything. And that is more important than novels, plays, sculptures—
POPS: Or bird poop on your shoulder?
MAGGIE: You know…you are a lot smarter than you look, you old geezer!