The setting: A suburban post office in Alabama.
Cast of characters:
• LOUD LADY #1
• LOUD LADY #2
• CELL-PHONE MAN
• CLUELESS OLD WOMAN
• POST OFFICE EMPLOYEE
• STOIC MAN
• ME
(The scene opens as ME, played by me because Pierce Brosnan wasn’t available, walks into the post office from stage right. I’m just there to buy stamps. LOUD LADY #1 is standing stage right with LOUD LADY #2, away from the counter. Their reason for being there is never really made clear. CELL-PHONE MAN and STOIC MAN are standing in line stage left. POST OFFICE EMPLOYEE is behind a counter at center stage, talking with CLUELESS OLD WOMAN.)
LOUD LADY #1: And Myrtis doesn’t know WHAT that thing was on her neck, although that doctor says it’s a goiter, but I don’t know about that.
LOUD LADY #2: Oh, my aunt Lurlene had a goiter. It looked like she was trying to swallow a YAM, that thing was so big.
CLUELESS OLD WOMAN: How much will it cost to send this package to Venezuela?
POST OFFICE EMPLOYEE: Venezuela? Wait just a moment, please, while I figure that out.
CLUELESS OLD WOMAN: You mean you can’t just tell me how much it costs?
POST OFFICE EMPLOYEE: No, ma’am, I have to weigh the package and calculate the rates.
CLUELESS OLD WOMAN: Well, I don’t have all day.
STOIC MAN says nothing.
CELL-PHONE MAN: (answering phone) Yello? Hey, Tim. How’s the divorce going? You hit the strip club yet? Asked out that chick at work?
LOUD WOMAN #2: I wonder, are ALL goiters painful, or just some of them?
LOUD WOMAN #1: They sure LOOK painful, don’t they?
POST OFFICE EMPLOYEE: It’ll be $41.35 to ship to Venezuela, ma’am.
CLUELESS OLD WOMAN: Forty-one DOLLARS? That’s ridiculous. I could DRIVE it there for less money.
POST OFFICE EMPLOYEE: I’m sorry, ma’am, but that’s the best international rate I can find.
CLUELESS OLD WOMAN: InterNATIONal? No, honey, this is just going to VENEZUELA. It’s not international.
CELL-PHONE MAN: Man, if I was you, I’d be all over that work chick. I bet she could suck the chrome off a bumper.
LOUD WOMAN #2: Well, I NEVER.
LOUD WOMAN #1: I don’t know WHY people talk on those things in public.
STOIC MAN says nothing.
POST OFFICE EMPLOYEE: Venezuela is in South America, ma’am. That’s why it’s an international rate.
CLUELESS OLD WOMAN: Venezuela? I don’t want to send this to Venezuela. It’s going to VERBENA. I don’t even know anybody in Venezuela. Why would I want to send a package there?
CELL-PHONE MAN: I bet you could (Very Bad Word) that chick seven ways from Sunday. She just looks like that type, you know?
LOUD WOMAN #1: Well I NEVER.
LOUD WOMAN #2: SOME people just have no sense of BOUNDARIES.
POST OFFICE EMPLOYEE: Okay, ma’am, it’ll be $8.50 to ship to Verbena.
CLUELESS OLD WOMAN: Well that’s more LIKE it. Venezuela! I swear! You sure you’re qualified to deliver mail?
STOIC MAN says nothing.
LOUD WOMAN #2: Didn’t your preacher go to Venezuela on a mission trip?
LOUD WOMAN #1: No, he went to Peru. Myrtis was going to go on that trip, but then her goiter showed up and she had to drop out.
ME: *(Grabs a roll of bubble-wrap and stuffs it down my esophagus in a desperate attempt to kill myself. This is thwarted by STOIC MAN, who turns out to be a paramedic and who administers CPR after pulling the bubble-wrap from my throat. I never do get my stamps.)
(Curtain.)*
