#dottie brainfeeble

[vicandsade]

1941-12-08 - The Bottom Buffet Drawer

1941-12-08 - The Bottom Buffet Drawer

[See additional commentary at The Crazy World of Vic and Sade]

[hear the episode here or here]

Every house needs a junk drawer. Unfortunately, Sade would prefer that the bottom buffet drawer not be that. 

As a person who likes things to be organized in a certain way, I can sympathize with Sade’s intense disapproval here. Things have places where they belong and don’t belong, and those places are not always as obvious to the other people in the house or workplace as you think they are. It’s especially vexing that this has happened once before. You’d think Vic and Rush would have learned their lesson the first time. Their claiming not to remember putting those items in the drawer: lies, or pure absentmindedness? We can’t know for sure. But I would like to point out how ready Vic is to throw Rush under the bus in these situations -- it’s happened before. Whenever Sade is angry with both Vic and Rush, Rush always comes out looking a little better!

Transcript

————–

ANNOUNCER: Well sir, it’s late afternoon as we enter the small house halfway up in the next block now, and here in the living room we find Mr. Victor Gook, his son Mr. Rush Gook, and Sade’s amiable Uncle Fletcher. The gentlemen have just this moment arrived and they’re removing hats and overcoats. Listen.

FLETCHER: Guess Sadie’s not home.

RUSH: Probably upstairs or down cellar. The back door was unlocked. Mom very seldom even goes across the alley to Mis’ Harris’ without lockin’ the back door.

FLETCHER: Fine. Likely she’s off Christmas shoppin’.

SADE: [off] Yes? You, Rush?

VIC: [calls] Hidey-hi hodey-ho.

SADE: [off] I’ll be right down.

VIC: Take everybody’s hats and coats out in the hallway, why don’tcha, George?

RUSH: Okay. You can be gettin’ the cards outta the library table drawer.

FLETCHER: I’m only gonna play a couple hands or so, Vic. Sit down long enough to take the chill outta my bones.

VIC: Anything you say.

FLETCHER: I better let Sadie know I’m not stayin’ for supper. Otherwise she might--

SADE: [up] You here too, huh, Uncle Fletcher?

VIC: Greetings, Dr. Sleetch.

FLETCHER: I couldn’t stay for supper even if I was invited. My landlady Mis’ Keller’s fixin’ special turnip greens this evenin’. No, I’ll play a hand or two of rummy, and step on home.

SADE: You here too, huh, Uncle Fletcher?

FLETCHER: Hello, Sadie. [mischievous] These scalawags told me you were off downtown Christmas shopping.

SADE: [not amused] Did they?

FLETCHER: Yeah.

RUSH: [up] I suggest we deal everybody ten cards just like you do in two-handed rummy. That way the game lasts longer, and there’s more chances--

FLETCHER: What’s the idea tellin’ me your mother was off downtown Christmas shoppin’, Rush?

RUSH: [laughs]  I never told ya that.

FLETCHER: You take boys, they enjoy a game.

SADE: Don’t bother there for a minute, Vic.

VIC: What?

SADE: I say don’t bother fixin’ up your rummies there for a minute.  I’ve got something to show you.

VIC: Something to show me?

SADE: Yes. You too, Willy. Come out in the dinin’ room.

RUSH: What for?

SADE: [quietly] You’ll see. We’re goin’ out in the dining room a little bit, Uncle Fletcher. Siddown and make yourself comfortable.

FLETCHER: I’m not stayin’ for supper, Sadie.

SADE: You’re welcome to.

FLETCHER: Mighty nice of you to insist, but like I just got through tellin’ what’s-his-name, I promised Mis’ Keller I’d come home and eat turnip greens she’s fixin’ special.

SADE: Uh-huh.

FLETCHER: The way it was, I bumped into Vic just now comin’ from the office, and Rush comin’ from Tatman’s Vacant Lot. They said why didn’t I stop in for a while and get warm and play a hand or two of rummy. I decided fine.

SADE: Uh-huh. 

FLETCHER: Thought I’d better get understood right away, though, I wasn’t stayin’ for supper.

SADE: Mm-hmm.

FLETCHER: [chuckling] Then Rush told me you were off downtown Christmas shopping!

RUSH: I never told ya any such a thing!

FLETCHER: Yes. I understand boys enjoy a joke.

SADE: Come out in the dining room, you two fellas. I’m sure Uncle Fletcher’ll excuse ya for a minute or so.

VIC: What’s out in the dinin’ room?

SADE: Come along.

VIC: After you, Charlie.

RUSH: Oh.

SADE: Shame company has to be present to see this.

VIC: See what?

SADE: If I’d realized I had two little babies in the house instead of two great, big men I’d have bought myself a padlock.

VIC: [laughs] Well, I got no idea what you’re talkin’ about, kiddo.

SADE: I wouldn’t laugh.

FLETCHER: [off] Where’s everybody goin’?

SADE: [calls] They’ll be right back. [to RUSH] Will ya open this bottom buffet drawer, please?

RUSH: Sure.

SADE: This happened once before. A long time ago. I thought then I’d made everything clear. Looks like I didn’t.

RUSH: Are you referrin’ to the occasion when--

SADE: I asked you to open the bottom buffet drawer. Just gonna stand there?

RUSH: [annoyed] Only a civilized question--

SADE: Open the bottom buffet drawer. 

RUSH: Oh. 

FLETCHER: [off] I’m not stayin’ for supper, you know, Sadie.

SADE: [calls] Just siddown and be comfortable a minute, Uncle Fletcher.

FLETCHER: [off] I made a commitment with my landlady Mis’ Keller I’d be home eatin’ special turnip greens. She mentioned at the dinner table this noon she was makin’ ...[continues talking in background]

VIC: Overshoes, by George! So that’s where they’ve been! Do you remember the other day me searchin’ high and low for them overshoes--

SADE: [accusingly] Yes, your overshoes, by George, so that’s where they’ve been!

VIC: Well, I don’t recall ever puttin’ my overshoes in--

SADE: What’s the matter with him in there? [calls] All right, just a second, Uncle Fletcher!

FLETCHER: [off] Well, I better be on deck to eat them special turnip greens!

RUSH: [chuckles] Uncle Fletcher’s a great fella--

SADE: Did you notice this?

RUSH: [pleased] Well! My first baseman’s glove! I woulda bet forty dollars I’d carelessly left that first baseman’s glove in Tatman’s Vacant Lot last summer! I woulda bet fifty dollars--

SADE: Do either one of you fellas remember how I cried and wept and yelled when I discovered you’d used this bottom buffet drawer to keep your trash in before?

VIC: About those overshoes, Sadie, I plead complete innocence. It’s a mystery to me how they ever--

SADE: You plead complete innocence about this?

VIC: Uh -- what?

SADE: This!

VIC: Why, isn’t that...

SADE: [voice shaking] Yes, it is! It’s the rotten, old, dirty, rusty, rotten horseshoe you brought home from Ike Kneesuffer’s basement!

VIC: That’s the horseshoe Ike presented me with. I won six games in a row with it and made seven ringers in succession. Let’s see, was it early last September that I...

SADE: What is it doin’ in the bottom drawer of my buffet?

VIC: Darned if I know! Rush, have you been takin’ liberties with my personal possessions and secretin’ them in Mama’s--

RUSH: [indignant] I have not! 

FLETCHER: [up] What’s everybody doin’ in the dining room?

SADE: I don’t open this bottom buffet drawer, ever. It’s where I keep my NICE things. My best washrags and doilies and tablecloths and napkins. And you fellas knew! You just couldn’ta forgot that other time when this happened.

FLETCHER: What’s everybody doing in the dining room?

SADE: It’s by accident I opened the drawer this afternoon. Needed a place to put that little handkerchief Dottie Brainfeeble sent me. Opened the drawer and like to have fainted. Rush, how about that ice skate?

RUSH: I’ve been lookin’ at that ice skate with considerable interest. It’s not my ice skate.

SADE: It’s not your ice skate?

RUSH: It’s not my own, personal ice skate, no. I mean by that I never purchased the ice skate. As a matter of strict, downright fact, I found that ice skate layin’ in the middle of Center Street way last summer. I remember sayin’ to myself at the time it certainly was a peculiar season to come across an ice skate with the thermometer at 90 degrees in the shade...

SADE: Did you put the ice skate in the drawer, there?

RUSH: I’m just tryin’ to recollect if I did or not.

SADE: You’ll notice it’s stickin’ into the fancy table runner Mis’ Stembottom bought in Chicago and give me for my birthday and I considered it too nice to use. 

RUSH: Well, I’m rackin’ my brains, but I can’t seem to recollect placin’ that particular ice skate in that particular bottom drawer...

[telephone rings]

VIC: [seeing an escape] Uh, telephone’s ringin’!

RUSH: Telephone’s ringin’!

VIC: I’ll get it!

RUSH: I’ll get it!

VIC: No, it’s probably Ike Kneesuffer.

RUSH: It’s probably Bluetooth Johnson.

VIC: I’ll get it!

SADE: I’LL get it. You fellas stay right here.

FLETCHER: What’s everybody doin’ in the dining room?

SADE: I’m sorry you had to be a witness to this, Uncle Fletcher.

FLETCHER: Fine. 

VIC: [turning on RUSH] What’s the idea pilin’ ice skates on top of your mother’s table scarves? 

RUSH: I don’t even recall doin’ it.

VIC: Ha! Likely story!

RUSH: As far as that goes, what’s the idea pilin’ horseshoes on top of Mom’s table scarves? 

VIC: Are you all of a sudden the district attorney, the judge, and a stern old man? I’m not responsible to YOU for my actions, my friend.

RUSH: Oh.

FLETCHER: Sadie’s vexed?

VIC: What?

FLETCHER: Sadie vexed over somethin’, is she?

VIC: Yeah.

FLETCHER: Fine. No, you take ladies, they’ll get vexed. Remember Phil Wisher there in Sterling?

VIC: Uh-uh.

FLETCHER: Wore cap, socks, shirt, necktie, underwear, pants, coat, and vest all made outta the same material?

VIC: No.

FLETCHER: Later died?

VIC: No.

FLETCHER: Phil Wisher married a woman and that woman got vexed on her wedding day and stayed vexed for twenty-seven years. Phil never made her mad on purpose at all. All he done was say, “Who’s that funny-lookin’ chump with the whiskers?” Just happened to be his wife’s father. Wife got vexed and stayed vexed. Never a day passed but what she couldn’t jump up from the breakfast table and say, “I suppose you’re wonderin’ who that funny-lookin’ chump with the whiskers is!”

VIC: [chuckles quietly]

SADE: [up] What’s just terrible, terrible, terrible funny?

VIC: Uncle Fletcher just told an amusing anecdote. It was about a--

SADE: Shame Uncle Fletcher had to be a witness to this.

FLETCHER: [miles away] Yes! No, Phil Wisher’s wife got vexed and stayed vexed.

VIC: Who was it on the phone, Sade?

SADE: Mis’ Trogle.

VIC: Nobody for me?

SADE: I said it was Mis’ Trogle. No, I never open this bottom buffet drawer myself. I feel like it sometimes, but I hesitate to. See, everything is arranged so careful. Every washrag, table runner, napkin, and doily folded and patted down to perfection. I don’t like to dig around and take chances on disarranging stuff I’ve labored over.

VIC:  If I may murmur one little word in my own defense, I’d like to--

SADE: No such scruples in you fellas, though. Ice skates, overshoes, old newspapers, baseball mitts and screwdrivers! These easy slippers are your property, aren’t they, Rush?

RUSH: I can explain exactly how they happen to be there.

SADE: Can you? Tell us. Oughta be interesting.

RUSH: Well sir, one evenin’ some weeks ago I was studyin’ algebra in my pajamas. The doorbell rang, and it was Mr. and Mis’ Heddles stoppin’ past for a few minutes on their way home from the picture show. “Rush,” you said, “run upstairs and put on your clothes.” I run upstairs and put on my clothes, and come down again, and--

SADE: This is a long, dull, tiresome story, don’t you think, Uncle Fletcher?

FLETCHER: Beg pardon, Sadie?

SADE: [chuckles] Don’t you think it’s kind of a long, tiresome story Rush is tellin’?

FLETCHER: Yes! Yes it is. Reminds me of Sid Teepers there in Belvedere.

SADE: Did Sid Teepers there in Belvedere pile dirty old junk on top of his mother’s loveliest linen things?

FLETCHER: Yes. Sid Teepers married a woman twenty-four years old.

RUSH: [giggles] How old was Sid?

SADE: This is hardly any time for you to snort and smirk and titter, Rush.

FLETCHER: Sid Teepers married a woman twenty-four years old.

VIC: How old was Sid?

SADE: Or you, either. 

VIC: Oh.

FLETCHER: Sadie?

SADE: Yes?

FLETCHER: Sid Teepers married a woman twenty-four years old.

SADE: [giving in] How old was Sid?

FLETCHER: Twenty-six. Sid Teepers was twenty-six years old when he got married. Started takin’ violin lessons. Took violin lessons every Sunday afternoon up until the time he was fifty-seven, and at the end of that time, wasn’t able to play a single tune.

RUSH: What was the matter?

FLETCHER: Fine.

RUSH: Why couldn’t he play a single tune after all them lessons?

FLETCHER: He played scales. He liked scales, so he played scales. Ask Sid to slop out his fiddle and play ya a selection, he’d play ya a scale. Holler for an encore, he played another scale. He played scales as good as any violin player around. But he got monotonous after an evening.

SADE: Gettin’ back to the buffet drawer.

FLETCHER: Yes.

SADE: Is this gonna happen again?

VIC and RUSH: No.

SADE: You know what takes place.

VIC and RUSH: [guilty murmur]

SADE: You’ll come dashin’ in the house with your ice skates and your overshoes and your baseball mitts, and wanna get ‘em out of sight. And won’t go to the trouble of liftin’ your little finger to find a suitable place. This bottom buffet drawer is close and handy. Ya simply yank it open--

[telephone rings]

VIC: Uh, telephone’s ringin’.

RUSH: Telephone’s ringin’!

VIC: I’ll get it.

RUSH: I’ll get it!

VIC: I’m positive it’s Ike Kneesuffer. 

RUSH: I’m positive it’s Bluetooth Johnson.

VIC: I’ll get it.

RUSH: I’ll get it!

SADE: [tired] Why don’tcha both go get it.

VIC and RUSH: What?

SADE: Why don’tcha both go get it. 

VIC and RUSH: Oh...

FLETCHER: I hafta go home for supper, you know, Sadie.

SADE: Sorry you can’t stay.

FLETCHER: Mis’ Keller’s preparin’ special turnip greens this evening.

SADE: Uh-huh.

FLETCHER: Vic and Rush vexed, are they?

SADE: [chuckles] No...I’m the one that’s vexed.

FLETCHER: Fine.

SADE: Just look at my bottom buffet drawer...

FLETCHER: [approvingly] Yes!

SADE: And it’ll happen again.

FLETCHER: Oh, sure.

SADE: It’ll happen again.

FLETCHER: Remember J.L. Dunsplot there in Dixon?

SADE: No.

FLETCHER: Was right-handed up to the time he was twenty-nine, and turned left-handed overnight?

SADE: No.

FLETCHER: J.L. Dunsplot married a woman thirty-three years old.

SADE: Uh...how old was he?

FLETCHER: Thirty-seven.

ANNOUNCER: Well, neighbor, so end’s the day’s visit at that small house halfway up in the next block. But seems like something’s always going on at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Victor Gook. I’ll be waiting there to open the door for you when you drop in on Vic and Sade the next time.

[vicandsade]

1941-11-05 - Vic’s Christmas Gift List Too Long

[See additional commentary at The Crazy World of Vic and Sade]

File too big for tumblr – get the episode at the above link or HERE.

Vic must send gifts and grease palms; the ever-frugal Sade doesn’t understand why he has to grease so MANY. She ought to disdainfully label it “guy stuff.” She really won’t leave him alone or accept any answers without question, so much so that Vic shuts down and goes into a kind of weary state of serenity.  I especially love his little “Gus Fuss give me a necktie” fugue state.

Sade wonders what kind of Christmas present Vic could possibly get for fifty cents, and I wondered, too, because that sounds like a fair amount of money in 1941 dollars. So I looked it up. DollarTimes says fifty cents was worth about $8.45 in 1940, which would be easily enough for the kind of trinkets you get your work buddies -- a small box of chocolates or a Starbucks gift card (not that they had those, but whatever the equivalent would have been) or a nice pen or something like that. A Hershey bar only cost five cents, so think of the kind of luxury chocolate you could get for 50! A model plane was only 23 cents -- I don’t think Vic would have been getting model planes for his business associates, but just an example of the kind of lovely merchandise you could get for 50 cents in 1940. I think Vic could have kept them very happy for 50 cents or even less. 

Transcript

———–

ANNOUNCER: Well sir, the evening meal has been over only a little while as our scene opens now, and here in the living room of the small house halfway up in the next block, we find Mr. and Mrs. Victor Gook. Vic is established at the library table, competing with himself in a brisk game of Solitaire. His wife sits nearby, ostensibly glancing through the newspaper. Actually, however, she's reading what's scribbled on a piece of scrap paper she just happened to spy beside her on the arm of the davenport. And of a sudden, she says in expostulating tones:

SADE: No, Vic!

VIC: Beg pardon?

SADE: You're not gonna send Christmas presents to all these fellas!

VIC: All what fellas?

SADE: On this scrap of paper.

VIC: That is a private scrap of paper.

SADE: It's layin' here on the arm of the davenport pretty public.

VIC: I meant to throw it in the garbage bucket and forgot to.

SADE: No, but goodness! Gus Fuss, L. Wylie Fapp, U.F. Beakley, T.W. Weatherwax, Howard S. Mont--

VIC: Some of those guys I'm gonna send Christmas CARDS to.

SADE: No, I'm readin' the list marked "Gifts." You got one list marked "Cards" and one list marked "Gifts." This is the one marked "Gifts."

VIC: I feel that I'm quite capable of decidin' to whom I wish to send Christmas presents. In fact, I--

SADE: We have this same rotten old argument every year.

VIC: I know we do and it's a most distressin' thing. I had intended to handle my own Christmas givin' this time and make no mention of it around home here. However, I slipped up. Before supper I jotted down a buncha names on that piece of scrap paper there, and carelessly allowed it to come under your eye.

SADE: Who's Gus Fuss?

VIC: A warm friend and a good scout.

SADE: Never heard of 'em.

VIC: He works at Consolidated Kitchenware Company, Plant 17, Dubuque, Iowa.

SADE: Oh.

VIC: I believe I pointed you out his picture on the cover of the last Kitchenware Dealers' Quarterly.

SADE: Shirt sleeves?

VIC: What?

SADE: Fella in his shirt sleeves? Vest, but no coat? Earmuffs on his ears?

VIC: Yes. That's Gus Fuss.

SADE: Why should you have to send him a big expensive Christmas present?

VIC: Was some mention made of big, expensive Christmas presents on that list?

SADE: We might as well shovel our money out the window with a coal scoop.

VIC: I suggest you save your breath, Sadie. I'm determined that Gus Fuss will receive some slight token from his old pal Vic at Christmas time.

SADE: Spend five or six dollars, hmm?

VIC: Very possibly.

SADE: Let's draw our lovely money outta the Savings Bank and go throw it out in the middle of Miller Park Lake.

VIC: All right. Let's do.

SADE: Who's L. Willie Fapp?

VIC: L. WYLIE Fapp.

SADE: Who's he?

VIC: Another wonderful fella from Plant 17, Dubuque, Iowa.

SADE: Is he a dear old darlin' chum of yours?

VIC: I feel that between L. Wylie Fapp and myself there exists a firm bond of friendship. Yes.

SADE: Funny I never heard of any of these beloved, arms-around-the-neck buddies.

VIC: I've mentioned L. Wylie Fapp on numerous occasions. I recall mentionin' him just the other day. I was tellin' you and Rush about how he bought me a chocolate bar when I was in Dubuque.

SADE: He bought you a chocolate bar, so you feel like you hafta trot out your pocketbook and get him a big, monstrous, expensive Christmas present?

VIC: [chuckles] Aw, kiddo, for Pete's sake!

SADE: No, but actually. Every year in the world, we go through the same business. You cook up a list of fellas a mile long to send gifts to. Why?

VIC: Please give me credit for ha--

SADE: Gus Fuss, five dollar present. And L. Willie Yapp, five dollar present.

VIC: L. WYLIE FAPP. L. Wylie Fapp is a--

SADE: That's ten dollars. My goodness, ten dollars! All that spondulix! And just because Jess Mess bought ya an ice cream cone.

VIC: Not Jess Mess, Sadie. Gus Fuss. And it wasn't an ice cream cone. It was a chocolate bar. And it wasn't Gus Fuss bought it for me, it was L. Wylie Fapp. Furthermore, I think I--

SADE: January, February, March, April...

VIC: I'm familiar with the months of the year, thanks.

SADE: ...May, June, July, August, September, October, November, we scrape and save and scrimp and accumulate money to put in the bank, and are proud of ourselves. Then along comes December and something happens to your head and we take the bread out of our mouth to buy presents for all the fellas on this list. Oh, must be twenty fellas down here! And you're gonna give 'em all five dollar presents. And what's five times twenty? A hundred?

VIC: Was when I went to school.

SADE: Think of it! A hundred dollars! No, Vic, let's do that.

VIC: Do what?

SADE: Draw our money outta the savings bank and go throw it in the middle of Miller Park Lake.

VIC: I presume YOU have friends you intend to remember at Christmas time.

SADE: Just a teeny, tiny, rotten few. Robert and Laurestine Price. Chuck and Dottie Brainfeeble. Bess and Walter, Fred and Ruthie. Mr. and Mrs. Donahue. Uncle Fletcher, Mis' Harris, you, and Rush. That's about my list.

VIC: You are a housewife. I am a businessman. Naturally, the businessman has many more obligations in the matter of--

SADE: Aw, fiddle-de-widdle! Who's this U.F. Beakley?

VIC: U.F. Beakley happens to be the Exalted Big Dipper of the Purple Prairie Popinjay Chapter of the Sacred Stars of the Milky Way in Moline, Illinois.

SADE: A wild stranger.

VIC: The gentlemen whose names you see on that scrap of paper are not "wild strangers." The gentlemen whose names--

SADE: They're wild strangers as far as I'm concerned. This U.F. Beakley, now. Whatcha gonna buy him for Christmas?

VIC: A gold watch and chain.

SADE: No!

VIC: U.F. Beakley gets a gold watch and chain. Gus Fuss gets a leather easy chair.

SADE: No!!

VIC: L. Wylie Fapp gets a sixteen cylinder automobile. T.W. Weatherwax gets a set of office furniture. Howard S. Montgomery gets a ruby ring. I. Edson Box gets a yacht. And Sam Shout gets a solid platinum coathanger.

SADE: [wearily] Ha, ha, ha.

VIC: Percy X. Snoot gets an emerald necktie clasp for which I propose layin' out fifteen thousand dollars hard cash.

SADE: Very funny. Ha-ha-ha.

VIC: Well, it's "very funny, ha-ha-ha," this dimwit talk! I'm not gonna buy all those guys five buck presents! You oughta know that.

SADE: How much ARE ya gonna spend?

VIC: I can't tell! Haven't thought about it. Fifty cents, maybe. Seventy-five. Dollar and a quarter.

SADE: What kind of a gift can ya get for fifty cents.

VIC: I don't know, Sade.

SADE: No, but what kind CAN ya?

VIC: I don't know.

SADE: There's twenty names on this list.

VIC: Are there?

SADE: I counted 'em.

VIC: Mm.

SADE: Suppose ya bought twenty fifty-cent presents. What would that add up to?

VIC: Ten dollars.

SADE: Well, we're not the kinda people, Vic, where ten dollarses grow on trees out in our front yard, ya know!

VIC: Mmm.

SADE: We got to squeeze our ten dollarses 'til the eagle howls.

VIC: Mmm.

SADE: Can't ya cut down on some of these names?

VIC: Sure.

SADE: Ya can?

VIC: Sure.

SADE: You're just sayin' that.

VIC: No.

SADE: You're just sayin' that so I'll quit talkin'.

VIC: No, you cut down the list yourself. Scratch out anybody you choose. Scratch out Gus Fuss. Scratch out L. Wylie Fapp. Scratch out Percy X. Snoot. Here's my pencil.

SADE: You'll just make out another list.

VIC: Uh.

SADE: Won't ya?

VIC: Please, Sade.

SADE: 'Course, you're doin' your best to make me out stingy and mean. You know I'm not, though.

[telephone rings]

SADE: You know I'm only tryin' to--

VIC: Telephone's ringin', telephone's ringin'.

SADE: All right. Get it.

VIC: Mmm.

SADE: Gus Fuss, L. Wylie Fapp, U.F. Beakley, T.W. Weatherwax, Howard S. Montgomery, I. Edson Box, Sam Shout, Percy X. Snoot...

VIC: [answers phone] Hello? [pause] Why, no, he's not. [pause] Down at the YMCA, I believe. [pause] Uh-huh. [pause] Why, I s'pose, watchin' the fat men play handball. Who is this? [pause] Oh, hello, Rooster! How are you? [pause] Uh-huh. Fine, thanks. [pause] Yeah, I think you'll find him there. [pause] Okay, Rooster. [hangs up] Rooster Davis, by George.

SADE: No, but what CAN ya get for fifty cents?

VIC: A derby hat.

SADE: Seriously.

VIC: [chuckles] I don't know.

SADE: Can't get any very substantial Christmas gift for that little bit.

VIC: I'm just gonna buy these fellas trifles, Sade.

SADE: You expect to receive Christmas presents from them?

VIC: Sure.

SADE: I don't remember you gettin' any twenty gifts from your business friends last year, or ANY year.

VIC: I got quite a few.

SADE: What did Russ Buss send ya?

VIC: Gus Fuss?

SADE: Yes.

VIC: Sent me a necktie.

SADE: Where is it?

VIC: In Cody, Wyoming under heavy guard.

SADE: I don't remember any neckties.

VIC: Aw, Sade!

SADE: But I don't!

VIC: [firmly] Gus Fuss gimme a necktie! Gus Fuss gimme a necktie! Gus Fuss gimme a necktie. GUS FUSS GIMME A NECKTIE.

SADE: Funny ya can't tell me which one.

VIC: Gus Fuss gimme a necktie.

SADE: What did Bill Willie Phipp send you?

VIC: L. Wylie Fapp?

SADE: Yeah.

VIC: Sent me a necktie.

SADE: I don't recall you receivin' any bushel baskets fulla neckties last Christmas.

VIC: L. Wylie Fapp send me a necktie.

SADE: U.F. Beakley send you a necktie also?

VIC: Yes.

SADE: What color was it? Green?

VIC: Yes.

SADE: T.W. Weatherwax send you a necktie?

VIC: Yes. T.W. Weatherwax sent me a necktie.

SADE: And Howard S. Montgomery and I. Edson Box and Sam Shout and Percy X. Snoot?

VIC: Yes.

SADE: Just refuse to discuss this with me, hm?

VIC: It's all so wretched and pointless and miserable!

SADE: I'm only tryin' to do what any wife'd do, Vic.

VIC: Thanks.

SADE: I see places where your lovely salary can be economized on a little, naturally I do my best to track 'em down.

VIC: Mm.

SADE: January, February, March, April--

VIC: I know the months of the year.

SADE: --May, June, July, August, September, October, November, we watch our pennies and save and scrimp. And are real proud of our thriftiness. Then December comes around and you trot out your lead pencil and fix up Christmas lists with Mus Puss and Gel Billie Sapp and T.W. Weatherwax and--

[telepone rings]

SADE: Sam--

VIC: Telephone's ringin', telephone's ringin', telephone's ringin'.

SADE: All right.

VIC: I bet it's good old Vernon Peggles. Or good old LeRoy Snow. Or good old Smelly Clark.

SADE: Uh.

VIC: Maybe it's good old Leland Richards.

SADE: Could be good old Fred and Ruthie.

VIC: [answers phone] Hello? [pause] Oh, yes! [to SADE] It is.

SADE: Fred and Ruthie?

VIC: Yeah. [on phone] How are you, Dr. Sleetch? [pause] Oh, just sittin' around with our shoelaces in our eyelets. Uh-huh. [pause] Uh-huh. [pause] Well sir, by George, Ruthie, I'll just go to work and see. [to SADE] They feel like five hundred.

SADE: All right.

VIC: [on phone] Sadie hit the ceilin' with ecstacy at the prospect, Ruthie. [pause] Fine. [pause] Fine. [pause] Fine. [pause] Fine. [pause] Okay, dandy. [pause] See you, Ruthie. [pause] Bye-bye. [hangs up]

SADE: Comin' here, hm?

VIC: Yep.

SADE: Right away?

VIC: Within the next half hour.

SADE: Mmm. [pause] Gus Fuss, L. Willie Fapp, U.F. Beakley, T.W. Weatherwax, Howard S. Montgomery...

VIC: Please, Sadie.

SADE: I. Edson Box, Sam Shout.

VIC: Please.

SADE: Percy X. Snoot.

VIC: Sadie?

SADE: What?

VIC: PLEASE.