Misconception

This is a scene that I wrote late last year for Teatro Bastardo's show at Sketchfest in the early part of this year. It was originally seven pages of what I thought was comedy gold. The other members of Teatro thought maybe there was only five pages worth of comedic precious metal. And they were right. It's good to work with people who will tell you exactly what you need to hear to improve your scene. It was the first "conventional" scene I had written in a long time. By conventional, I mean that it is a pretty straightforward three-person scene that takes place in a doctor's office. I tell my students that what they write about is arbitrary. What makes the a scene unique is their own voice as a writer. I have seen what seems like hundreds of scenes that take place in doctor's offices, so this was my challenge to myself to come up with one of my own.

This scene was also in our run of the show Life...is a Joke at the Skybox a few months later.


MISCONCEPTION
Written by Joe Janes
Final Draft

CAST:
DR. MILLMER
JASON
JILL

(Lights up on Jason and Jill. Jason is in his 40s, Jill is in her 30s. They sit in a doctor’s office.)

JASON

I feel good about this.

JILL

Me, too, honey.

JASON

If everything works out, we might just have a little visitor by Christmas, and it won’t be Santa.

(They laugh. Dr. Millmer enters with a clipboard.)

DR. MILLMER

All right, then, Jason and Jill Methusiak. I have your test results here.

JASON

Every fertility doctor we’ve seen has run tests, Dr. Millmer. I don’t think you’re going to tell us anything new.

DR. MILLMER

Perhaps not. Just a formality. Jill, you’re plumbing is in tip-top shape. Pristine, in fact. The uterus is slightly tilted, but that just makes things a little interesting, right, Jason? And Jason, your sperm count is amazingly low.

JASON

We already knew it was low-

DR. MILLMER

Amazingly low. I could count your sperm with one hand (mimes the action). You’re a late bloomer, aren’t ya’?

JASON

I waited until my 40s to get married, if that’s what you mean.

DR. MILLMER

Fortunately, you married someone fifteen years your junior. Jill’s youth gives us a fighting chance here. If you had appropriately married someone close to your age, forget it. You’d be planting your dried up cornhusk in a dust bowl.

JILL

Dr. Millmer. We’ve been to five other doctors without any success.

JASON

We’ve been trying for years to get pregnant. Spent a lot of money. A lot of money.

JILL

We had given up until I saw your ad on TV.

DR. MILLMER

Good. Then you know I mean business. Now, I can run you and Jill through the usual routines. Fertility drugs, Viagra, ovulation monitoring. We can even do the embryos and the turkey basters. Those are all very expensive methods and, as you already know, unlikely to work in your situation. Even if it did, do you want to tell your son his dad was a turkey baster? Sure would put a damper on Thanksgiving.

JASON

Exactly how do you help us have a baby, then?

DR. MILLMER

Jill, let me ask you this. Do you want your baby to be conceived in a laboratory by people wearing hairnets and rubber gloves? Or do you want to kick start that fertilized egg with unbridled skull-melting s-e-x?

JILL

All this time we’ve been dealing with thermometers and ovulation when we should have just been going for it?

DR. MILLMER

Well, yes and no. You see, Jill, your vagina is like a vast, open fertile field. Rich top soil aching for seeds to take root. For that to happen, you need an irrigation system that can get the job done. Jason, you’re the irrigation system. And you’re watering her field with an eye-dropper. You, Jill, should be writhing on your back in ecstasy while your fallopian tubes are drenched with man juice like water from a fire hose. You, Jason, should probably not even be in the same room. Remember -? (He counts on one hand)

JASON

And who should be in the same room with my wife, Dr. Millmer?

DR. MILLMER

Well-

JILL

You’re going to help us have a baby by sleeping with me?

DR. MILLMER

Purely professional. Although, I could certainly get lost in those brown eyes of yours.

(She blushes.)

JASON

This is ridiculous.

DR. MILLMER

Scoff all you want. I have a proven track record. If the thought of actual intercourse makes you uncomfortable-

JILL

I’m fine.

JASON

I’m not.

DR. MILLMER

There doesn’t even have to be direct contact. Instead of sleeping with you, I sleep near you and just point in your direction and – Ka-pow! These boys can swim, even across dry land! They’re like marines and ninjas and Zulu warriors all rolled into one. I’ll check with the nurse and see if she can schedule us a session in the Baby-Making Room. (He reaches for the phone).

JILL

You have a whole room devoted to making babies?

DR. MILLMER

Loaded with state of the art stuff, too. Whatever you’re into. Personal massagers, handcuffs, Doritos. I’m a feather man, myself. And there’s a two-way mirror, Jason, so you can bear witness to the miracle of conception.

JASON

I thought the whole point is that you use my sperm.

JILL

Don’t be selfish, Honey.

DR. MILLMER

Your sperm, Jason? (He hangs up the phone.) Do you want a healthy baby or some drooling mongoloid flipper-handed circus freak? Should any of your coughing and wheezing soldiers should ever make purchase in her loins, men your age are more likely to have babies with birth defects or down syndrome. I have you outgunned, Jason, and outmanned. My testicles are huge. Here’s a picture (He hands Jill a snapshot. She’s very impressed. Jason intercepts it and hands it back, after taking a peek.). The grapefruit’s for scale.

JASON

Let’s go, Jill. I’m not going to hire another man to sleep with my wife.

DR. MILLMER

Wait. Look. I’m sorry. Maybe I was a little too strong in making my point. You seem like a really nice couple. I want to help. You could adopt, but the only real winner there is the baby. Usually some foreign baby that doesn’t even speak English. And doesn’t resemble either of you. At least, with my method, as vulgar as it may seem to you, your baby boy will have his mother’s features and my brain, and by that I mean, large testicles.

JILL

You really think it would be a boy?

DR. MILLMER

It almost always is. I have testosterone running down my leg. Really. Feel here. See how damp-

JASON

No, honey. Not like this. Well find another way. Let’s go sign-up for those tantra classes.

(Jason exits, Jill walks out backwards miming “call me” to the doctor. Jason comes back and pulls her out of the room.)

DR. MILLMER (to his penis)

Boys! Rally the troops! We move out at dawn!

(Blackout)

THE BS NEWS QUIZ OF THE DAY

Yesterday, I asked...

"A man in Oregon had his vanity plates rejected because the state considered his last name offensive. His last name is what?"

66% were quite certain it was "Suckett"
- No. Nor was the fellow from Nantucket.

9% ventured "McCracken"
- Nope. Phil McCracken's name is safe on behalf of all the McCrackens around the world.

There was no loving for "Pimp"
- Sounded like a good christian last name to me.

25% scored the offensive word "Udink"

"Udink?" Offensive? According to the Associated Press, the state of Oregon has ordered a family to turn in the vanity license plates on its cars because their Dutch last name, Udink, is similar to an offensive word. You might think the key word there is similar. That "dink" sounds similar to something else, link "bink," which is probably the least offensive word possible for, well, binking. But, no. Their problem is with the word "dink."

DMV spokesman David House said the word can be treated as a verb, which gives it a sexual reference. Well, really, Mr. House, you can say that about any word, can't you?

"Oh, man, I housed her hard!" "I really need to get housed." "Mmm, time for the little piggy to build his house!"

I want everyone to get janesed tonight. Wang chung janesed.