Valerie Work is a New York City based playwright, and the editor of offoffonline, a website that reviews downtown theater productions. Her plays, which include A Week at the NJ Shore, The Rules of Sleepaway Camp, A Meditation on The Misanthrope: 10 Years Later, My Book of Storms, Emily’s World the Play, The Fighting Frogs vs. Victoria Vanderbilt, Rrrrr Argh Blech, Crossing the Cow Field, Hazel and the Sun and Sick, have been staged, read or fully produced at Classic Stage Company, Walkerspace, Dixon Place, The Bushwick Starr, manhattantheatresource, the Boston Center for the Arts, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, the Bryant Lake Bowl Theater, The Pulse Performing Arts Studio, Club Midway, Freddie’s, Brooklyn College, The Producers’ Club II, Sidewalk Café, Yale University, Georgetown University and Washington College. She has completed residencies at the Espy Foundation in Washington State and the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming. She holds a B.A. from Yale and an MFA from Brooklyn College.

For production permission, please contact the author at valerielauren@gmail.com.

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(Early weekday morning. An urban apartment. The twelve scenes can be performed in any order; what follows is only one suggestion.)

Scene F

                                                       2
Rrrrr.

                                                       1
Argh.

                                                       2
Blech.

                                                       1
Ach.

                                                       2
Guh.

                                                       1
Mmmnnn.

                                                       2
Pfoh.

                                                       1
Sssach.

                                                       2
Zaaaaoohw.

                                                       1
Rrgg.

                                                       2
Aahhhnn.

                                                       1
Eeeooogh.

                                                       2
Woof.

                                                       1
Woof?

                                                       2
Woof.

                                                       1
That’s the dog’s sound.

                                                       2
Oh. I forgot. Margh.

                                                       1
Uh.

Scene I

                                                       1
I don’t like our alarm clock anymore. The ring.

                                                       2
Why?

                                                       1
I think it’s overly harsh.

                                                       2
It’s supposed to be harsh.

                                                       1
Yes, but our alarm clock rubs the morning all over your face and there is just no excuse for that, it’s rude.

                                                       2
Well there are different rings. How about this one. Wait. (2 presses alarm clock button. Alarm clock rings)

                                                       1
No. No, that isn’t any better.

                                                       2
Or, this one. (2 presses alarm clock button. Alarm clock rings. Different ring.) No I don’t like that one. Too cheery.

                                                       1
Yes. Is there another?

(2 presses alarm clock button. Yet another kind of ring.)

                                                       2
We should stick with the old one.

                                                       1
Yeah.

Scene K

                                                       1
We have to remember it’s almost Fred and Selma’s anniversary.

                                                       2
Why now?

                                                       1
So we don’t forget.

                                                       2
I’m going to forget.

                                                       1
I’m just saying. We have to remember. As a reminder. Remember last year? That was bad. Embarrassing. Remember?

                                                       2
Yeah. Well.

                                                       1
Better this year.

                                                       2
Yes.

Scene A

                                                      1
Where are my shoes?

                                                      2
Under the bed.

                                                      1
No they’re not.

                                                      2
Yes they are. Look.

                                                      1
Oh.

Scene C

                                                       1
I don’t like that shirt.

                                                       2
Why?

                                                       1
Color. It’s wrong for you.

                                                       2
Mmphf.

Scene G

                                                       1
What do you want for breakfast?

                                                       2
What?

                                                       1
I mean, it’s my turn to make it. So you have to decide.

                                                       2
Oh. Hmmm. Gosh. Don’t know.

                                                       1
Eggs?

                                                       2
Yeah.

                                                       1
Okay. (pause) Where are all the eggs?

                                                       2
Huh?

                                                       1
There were definitely four eggs here last night. I checked. And now the carton is empty, yet sitting in the fridge. Look.

                                                       2
I don’t want to look.

                                                        1
Did you eat them?

                                                       2
No.

                                                        1
I didn’t eat them.

                                                       2
No?

                                                       1
Where did they go?

                                                        2
                     (brief pause)
Closet monster?

                                                        1
Closet monster?

                                                       2
Willy. You know.

                                                       1
No.

                                                        2
Or the dog.

                                                       1
Dogs don’t eat raw eggs. Gross. Wait, we need to walk him.

                                                       2
How ‘bout cereal?

Scene E

                                                       1
Have you heard about the new credit card scam?

                                                       2
Which one?

                                                       1
You mean there’s more than one?

                                                       2
Duh.

                                                       1
New ones.

                                                       2
Oh.

(pause)

                                                       1
Well?

                                                       2
What are we talking about?

Scene J

                                                       2
Wait. Something fell in the toilet.

                                                       1
What fell in the toilet?

                                                       2
I can’t tell. From the shelf? In the bathroom?

                                                       1
Lot of things on the shelf in the bathroom.

                                                       2
I know. But it disappeared. Down the bowl. Look.

                                                       1
Let me see. (pause) Are you sure there’s something there?

                                                       2
Yes. It made a splash.

                                                       1
Big splash or little splash?

                                                       2
Medium splash.

                                                       1
Hmmm.

Scene D

                                                       2
What about the recycling?

                                                       1
What about the recycling?

                                                       2
Is it the day for that? I can never remember the day for that.

                                                       1
Oh. Days are tricky. Downright ornery. In fact, I don’t like them. Who came up with days? Was it the Romans?

                                                       2
The recycling?

Scene L

                                                       2
Do you think we should get him a new collar?

                                                       1
Who?

                                                       2
The dog.

                                                       1
Oh. Why?

                                                       2
Did I tell you this girl at my work?

                                                       1
No.

                                                       2
Her dog. Nice, little Yorkie terrier, just one year old. She was walking him after work one day and he pulled and slipped out of his collar and was hit by a taxi.

                                                       1
No.

                                                       2
Run straight over. Dead instantly. Messy.

                                                       1
Gross. I mean that’s terrible.

                                                       2
Didn’t even stop.

                                                       1
The taxi?

                                                       2
Yes.

                                                       1
Terrible. (pause) I keep hearing about buses.

                                                       2
Buses?

                                                       1
Yes. People getting run over by buses. Seems like every day, you turn around and a new person has a story about someone they know who saw someone get hit by a bus.

                                                       2
Terrible. Remember – did I ever tell you about the baby squirrel who got into my first apartment?

                                                       1
Baby squirrel. No. No, don’t think so. No.

                                                        2
I got home one evening and my roommate was screaming into her phone, totally freaked out. She hung up and said, there’s a rat in our toilet! There’s a rat in our toilet!

                                                        1
I thought this was a baby squirrel story.

                                                       2
It is. Wait for it. Anyway, she had come home and found this hairy scrambling mass in the toilet bowl, and so she screamed, and slammed the lid down, and flushed, like, 50 times.

                                                       1
Whoa.

                                                       2
Yeah. And then, of course, she called the super and complained like hell. She was too afraid to look again, to see if it was still there. But I was thinking – it’s 7 pm – we’re going to have to use the toilet again sometime. It’s a biological necessity. So I opened the lid – and no rat. We were in the clear.

                                                       1
What about the baby squirrel?

                                                       2
Well, a week later I ran into my super on the sidewalk outside my building and he says, I solved the mystery. It wasn’t a rat in your apartment, it was a baby squirrel. And he points up to the fire escape, and there was an adult, and two baby squirrels running around there. Apparently there had been a family of squirrels living in our attic all spring, not rats, like we’d thought.

                                                        1
Well. But that means you killed a baby squirrel.

                                                       2
My roommate, yes.

                                                       1
Drowned the poor thing.

                                                       2
Well, it shouldn’t have jumped in there.

Scene B

                                                       2
How much milk do we have in the fridge?

                                                       1
Some.

                                                       2
How much is some?

                                                       1
This much.

                                                       2
I mean should we pick some up after work?

                                                       1
Dunno. Maybe. You look.

Scene H

                                                       2
Keys.

                                                       1
Check.

                                                       2
Wallet.

                                                       1
Check.

                                                       2
Coffee mug.

                                                       1
Check.

                                                       2
Printout of strange picture of giant octopus strangling giant squid for bulletin board.

                                                       1
Check.

                                                       2
You would be really upset if you forgot that. Outgoing mail.

                                                       1
Did you really just say outgoing mail?

                                                       2
What else are you going to call it?

                                                       1
Okay. Check.

                                                       2
Umbrella.

                                                       1
I’ve decided to forgo the umbrella today. Only 30% chance of rain.

                                                       2
You’ll be the wet one.

                                                       1
Check.

(End of play.)