" ... there's a BOMB in your purse!" A play in 37 lines

GIBLET (shouting up the stairs):  Hey, Dumpling, where's the garage door remote?

DUMPLING (shouting down in answer):  I think it's in my purse.

GIBLET (still shouting up the stairs): Where's your purse?

DUMPLING (shouts back down again, exasperated):  Where I always put it!  On the chair by the door!

GIBLET: Okay! Jeeze!  You don't have to give me 'tude.  I just asked a question.

GIBLET crosses to the DUMPLING's pocket book and opens it

GIBLET (screams):  OH MY GOD!

DUMPLING (comes running downstairs):  GIBLET! What?  What?  Are you okay? What is it?

GIBLET:  There's ... there's a BOMB in your purse!

DUMPLING: A ... a bomb?!?  Oh! Oh, honey ...

DUMPLING laughs a little

DUMPLING:  Oh, honey, no.  That's not a bomb, that's my alcoholism.

GIBLET:  Your ... what?!?

DUMPLING:  My alcoholism.  It's always with me, so I decided to just put it in my purse where it would be handy.

GIBLET:  Your alcoholism.

DUMPLING:  Mmm hmmm.  Did you find the garage door remote?  It should be...

GIBLET:  Your alcoholism.  In your ...

GIBLET looks in purse again

GIBLET:  Oh My God!

DUMPLING:  What now?

GIBLET:  Is it ... is it ticking?

DUMPLING:  Well of course it is, honey.

GIBLET:  It's ticking ... like a countdown?  Like it could go off?  When will it go off? 

DUMPLING:  I don't know, exactly.  But every 24 hours I can reset the timer, and so far that seems to keep it from finishing its countdown.

GIBLET:  What if you forget to reset the timer?

DUMPLING (shrugs):  Then I guess eventually it would explode.

GIBLET:  Could you ... could people ... you know, get hurt?

DUMPLING:  If it goes off?  Oh yeah.  Absolutely.  People could die, actually.

GIBLET:  You've got to get rid of it!

DUMPLING (smiles):  Yeah, well, science one day may accomplish that, but it hasn't done so yet.  For now ... and for the foreseeable future ... it's always with me.  So that's why I decided, what the hell, it'd be handier if I just kept it in my purse.

GIBLET:  Is it heavy?  I mean, is it heavy to carry around?

DUMPLING:  Sometimes it seems that way.  I used to carry a lot of other bags too, of course, so naturally that made it more difficult to manage everything.  And all that other baggage, I mean, it was a lot.  Handling them all at once I occasionally forgot to reset the timer, but I guess I remembered in time.  Now I don't notice it so much.  The weight I mean.  I'm kind of used to it.  And of course I have a lot fewer bags than I used to, too.

GIBLET:  Well, that settles it.

DUMPLING:  Settles what?

GIBLET:  I'll help.  I'll carry it for you sometimes.

DUMPLING:  Awww, you really are sweet, you know.  But that won't work.  If you try and carry it for me, the timer just goes faster.  And I think it gets heavier too.  I'm afraid before you got it back to me it might go off.

GIBLET:  Well, is there anything I can do?

DUMPLING:  Not really.  I guess you just let me worry about resetting the timer on my alcoholism so it doesn't go off, and you worry about ... whatever it is you should worry about.

GIBLET (suspicious):  And what, exactly, might you be implying?

DUMPLING:  Nothing dear.  

Comments

[Syd]

Some would be Al-Anons need to read this.