Dear Wally 109.5 twinkie and carrot

Dear Wally 109.5

Twinkie and Carrot

(A one act, actionless play obliquely about healthy choices employing Dues Ex Machina, a big playwriting no-no and fake boobs, an even bigger playwriting no-no).

Dramatis Personae:

Twinkie (tubularly rotund.  Abrupt in nature)

Carrot (ectomorph-ish, with a floppy shock of unwieldy, green hair. RayBan sunglasses)

ACT 1

Poolside.  LA.  Day.  Beautiful people lounge everywhere.

CARROT is clearing the pool of tanning butter slicks and throttled snarls of wind strewn coconut hair with a long handled skimmer.  His moves are fluid and deliberate.  His body is taut, extruded and whippet-thin.  He is sunburned to the point of being almost orange.  Think Oompaloompa.

TWINKIE is in an inappropriately snug, brightly colored, full bodied plastic track suit which resembles a wrapper.   He lays supine and bloated on a pool deck recliner and watches Carrot work.  Twinkie uses a folded Style magazine (Kardashians on the cover!)  to shield his eyes from the bright sun.

He steals a glance at two incredibly attractive women sunbathing across the pool from them.   Twinkie mops his profusely sweating chocolate brow, trains his glance menacingly at Carrot, then finally:

Twinkie:

Carrot, you suck.

Carrot:

Excuse me??

Twinkie:

Those two over there would come over and have their way with me but that green …thing on the top of your head you call hair is scaring them off.  Can’t you dye that stuff blond?  We’re in LA.  Be cool man.  Jesus.

Carrot:

That’s right, we’re in LA. Where they like healthy things.  Like carrots.

Twinkie:

You are delusional my orange-hued friend.  Look.  She’s looking at me!!  Look look! She’s licking her lips.

Carrot:

People believe what they want.

Twinkie:

You don’t taste good.  You are hard to chew.  Unpleasant to the taste buds.  You are the problem here, not me.  Now jump in that pool and wash the peasant dirt off you.

Carrot:

Twinkie, why the hostility, you girthy, sugar log??  I thought we came here to have fun. To relax.

Twinkie:

Don’t call me ‘sugar log.’  Look, I get really excited, really fast.  I can’t help it.  It’s a bio-chemical imbalance.

Carrot:

Sorry.

Twinkie:

I actually don’t think you are.

Carrot:

(rests on the submerged skimmer handle, then calmly)

Are we gonna get into it? Here?  In front all these people?  Really?

Twinkie:

(sits up and removes sunglasses)

What’s THAT supposed to mean?

Carrot:

Oh I think you know.  I…I’m just going to come out and say it.  You are not treating yourself with respect.  Look at you.  You’ve let yourself go.  You look like… a Twinkie.  How am I supposed to respect you if you don’t even respect yourself?

Twinkie:

I am lovable.  I am kind.  I bring pleasure to people.  I taste fine and I am who I am. 

Carrot:

Yes.  (pause) Twinkie?

Twinkie:

Yes, Carrot?  What do you want?  To apologize?

Carrot:

Do you feel good after you eat you?

Twinkie:

I feel great , thank you.  Energized. Alive.

Carrot:

And then?

Twinkie: 

And then …(long pause)… I feel crappy.  (bitterly) There, I said it.  Are you happy now?

Carrot:

Your pain doesn’t give me pleasure.  When you hurt , I hurt.   (another long pause) Twinkie?

Twinkie:

Yes?

Carrot:

Do you resent that I have no ingredients?

Twinkie:

Do you resent that I have 248 and none of them are naturally occurring?

Carrot:

I don’t know.  No.  Maybe a little.   Twinkie?

Twinkie:

Yes?

Carrot:

Do you sleep naked?

Twinkie:

What the hell kind of question is that?   Are you getting weird on me?  It happens that I prefer track suits.  (Twinkie presses down the folds of his wrapper with his palms) Plastic ones.

Carrot:

Well it’s really nice to sleep naked.  In the dirt.

Twinkie:

You think because you are natural that you are somehow better than the rest of us.

Carrot:

I somehow AM.

Twinkie:

See?  You are smug.  Well, they like me better.

Carrot:

(cocking his eyebrow and nodding at the ladies).  They DO?

Twinkie:

Well, I go into more lunchboxes than you.  Kids love me.  They hate you.  And that’s a fact.  I have my own shelf in the supermarket.  I can stay fresh for decades.  You are a chore.

Carrot:

You sound defensive.  And I am not a chore.  I am a sophisticated treat.  Crudite.  That’s French for fancy.  This is about good choices.

Twinkie:

Screw you.  You wilt and mold over there in the produce department with the rest of your fair weather friends.

Carrot:

That’s a low blow.  We’re perishable.  And we’re sensitive.  Can you respect that?

Twinkie:

Well, you asked for it.

Carrot:

That’s largely true.  ‘Fresh for decades’ is a contradiction in terms.

Twinkie:

Don’t get clever with me.  When people dream, they see me not you.

Carrot:

When they wake  and open their eyes, they GET to see …because of me.  (a long awkward pause)  Anyway, is this a contest?

Twinkie:

Whatever.

Carrot:

Fine.

Twinkie:

Fine.

Carrot:

Fine.

Twinkie: 

I have other skills you know, besides just being yummy and edible.  I bet you don’t even know that about me.

Carrot:

I don’t believe I’ve ever thought to ask.  I am sorry.  What else can you do?

Twinkie:

If I stand on one foot and hold my hand up like…

Just then a huge hand reaches down and grabs Twinkie.  In a flash he is gone.  There is nothing left but discarded wrapper.

Carrot scratches the nape of his neck momentarily.  Then he continues skimming the pool and pushes away what might be a tear.  It also might just be a drop of sweat.

The End.