Check the shirt

(1 enters wearing a “Department of Redundancy Department” tee-shirt)
“Yo. Check the shirt.”
“Wha?”
“Check the shirt.”
(2 looks down at his own shirt and brushed off a few crumbs)
“No, my shirt. Check it.”
“Oh. ‘Department of Redundancy Department.’ Oh.”
“It’s funny, right?”
“Uh, yeah. I guess so.”
“What do you mean you guess so?”
“It’s funny, OK?”
“You’re not laughing.”
“I’m just—not out loud, I’m just not in a laugh-out-loud kind of mood.”
“I don’t think you get it.”
“What do you mean? I get it.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. The Department for Redundancy Department is an appropriately redundant name.”
“It’s irony! Maybe that’s too sophisticated a thought for you to handle, but—”
“Actually, it’s not ironic. It’s completely appropriate which in fact makes that shirt the exact opposite of ironic.”
“That where you’re wrong. The very department set up to combat redundancy is falling prey to its own enemy! It’s not that complicated a concept or shirt.”
“Well I can’t say I know exactly what the Department of Redundancy does, but the Department of Motor Vehicles does not exist to identify and wipe out motor vehicles wherever they appear.”
“Yes. But! But! The Department of Motor Vehicles exists to what? To what? To service motor vehicles. Likewise, the Department of Redundancy exists to service redundancy.”
“Bryan—”
“Wait! Wait! Let me finish. Now, how does one service redundancy?”—“No answer. Typical. Well let me tell you that one services redundancy by eliminating it from conversation, thereby streamlining the language and making things clearer and easier for everyone, yeah? But. This department is so inept that it cannot even correct the redundancy in its very name! And this is the department that’s meant to rid the world of redundancy? It’s ironic, it’s a biting satire of ineffectual government bureaucracy, it’s fucking brilliant and I’m not gonna sit here and listen to you trash this shirt because you don’t understand it. OK?”
—
—
—
“You’re right, the shirt is hilarious.”
“Yeah. I could get you one if you wanted.”
“No thank you.”

Inkblots

“OK, this is a simple test. I will hold up a card and you tell me what you see. Got it?”
“Yes, Dr.” (Dr holds up an inkblot) “Umm—a woman with a long flowing dress.” (another inkblot) “That looks like a spider.” (another inkblot) “I think that looks like a couple clouds in the sky.” (Dr looks worried and discouraged) “Is there something wrong?”
“Well, yes. You failed that test miserably, to be honest.”
“How so?”
“There were no pictures on those cards. They were just abstract blots of ink.”
“Oh, well I knew that, but I thought the point of the exercise was to—”
“Never mind what the point of the exercise was, it’s fairly clear to me that you are delusional to the point where you could present a danger to you or the people around you.”
“With all due respect, Dr., even if I was delusional, which I can assure you I am not, how does seeing objects in the place of splotches of ink present a danger to anyone?”
“Oh sure, you’re calm now in this office. But what happens when the day rolls along where someone spills ink on their shirt and you see a gunman, and you grab a knife and stab your poor innocent friend directly in the abdomen? Now where are we?”
“That seems unlikely.”
(Dr. spits on the floor in fury) “I’ve seen it happen plenty of times! Why just yesterday, I dealt with three murderers, all of whom attacked inkblots they thought were kidnappers or cougars or something! And if I hadn’t had my wife carry my inkblot cards to the car one afternoon, she might be alive today and I might be dead! So if you don’t think I take this affliction seriously, you are dead wrong!”

Birthday

I turned 20 in December. I didn’t really think it was a big deal, but apparently it is for some reason. Why, though? What does it mean really? That the earth has revolved around the sun exactly twenty times since I was forcibly expelled from my mother’s womb. Big deal. It’s not like I grew or matured in any appreciable way from the night before. It’s such a meaningless landmark. It would make a lot more sense to me if birthdays were scrapped and we celebrated more concrete achievements and signs of maturation. Like the first time I rode a bike without training wheels or when my pubic hair began to sprout. These are real monuments to aging, not silly things like an arbitrary calendar.

I didn’t have a birthday party, but one of my friends had a birthday on the same day so I went to his party. I didn’t think it was a big deal, but apparently this is the saddest thing in the world. At the party I would tell people that it was my birthday too, and they’d say “What? But—but why are you here? You should be—you should be—” everyone looked like they were about to cry. I didn’t get it. I think they all thought less of me after they heard, it was like I just told them I had leprosy. “You have leprosy? Why are you here? You should be in a clinic!”

I spent most of the evening trying to envision something more pathetic than going to someone else’s birthday party on one’s own birthday, and I came up with only one: if my parents had attended my friend’s birthday party rather than my own. I think that would have been pretty bad.

So anyway, I decided that I needed to do something to regain my social standing. Luckily my roommate’s birthday was only a week or so after mine, so I spearheaded a surprise party, and I had streamers and decorations in our room and a cake and he was shocked when he saw the party and then he was even more surprised when he found out the party was for me. So it worked out great.

He’s studying in London second semester, so I even threw myself a going-away party, it was great. He’s kind of mad at me, he won’t talk to me anymore. But nobody really talks to him anymore. Loser.

Socialist realism

A few writers are around a table, making their finishing touches on the script.

WRITER 1
So we’re going to cut the greasy Italian joke and the one-legged hypnotist joke, OK?
The writers grumble in reluctant agreement.

WRITER 2
I love that greasy Italian joke.

WRITER 1
I know, but it’s no good. OK, so we’re set, where’s Christian?

CUT TO

CHRISTIAN in the bathroom, staring into the mirror looking terrified.

SPY (V.O.)
(in a thick Russian accent)
Is the earpiece working?

CHRISTIAN
Yes.

SPY (V.O.)
Good.

CHRISTIAN
Look, what do you want with me?

SPY (V.O.)
Never mind! If you ever want to see your wife and your son and your three daughters and your ex-wife and your stepchildren and your niece and nephew again, you’ll do exactly as I say, understand?

CHILD (V.O.)
Please, Uncle Christian! Do what he says!

CHRISTIAN
All right! Just tell me what you want to do.

CUT TO

Back to the writers.

WRITER 3
The sketch isn’t impractical, I’m telling you, I know a guy who keeps iguanas, they’re docile creatures, they’d wear a pair of wings.

WRITERS
Oh, that’s ridiculous! No way, etc.

CHRISTIAN enters, standing stiffly at the door. The writers look up at him.

WRITER 1
Here’s the script Christian.

CHRISTIAN
How—how’s it look?

WRITER 1
It’s looking pretty good.

WRITER 2
It could be better.

WRITER 4
Shut up.

CHRISTIAN takes the script and flips through it, obviously not reading anything.

CHRISTIAN
Uh huh. Uh huh. Well it’s good, but—I think it needs something else.

WRITER 1
What’s that?

CHRISTIAN
Socialist realism.

WRITER 4
Socialist realism?

CHRISTIAN
Yeah. You know, praising the virtue of the proletariat, encouraging spontaneous revolution, honoring to our hero Lenin, stuff like that.

WRITER 2
That doesn’t sound funny.

WRITER 5
Proletariat? Socialist realism? What happened to you, Christian? The Communists haven’t gotten to you, have they?

CHRISTIAN
Uh—

SPY (V.O.)
Kill him.

CHRISTIAN
(whispering)
What?

SPY (V.O.)
You heard me! He is an enemy of the people.

WRITER 5
Christian what’s going o—

CHRISTIAN punches WRITER 5 in the face. Writer 5 drops quickly.

WRITER 5
Ow! Jesus, what was that, man?

CHRISTIAN
Hey! Don’t question my authority, just write it!

CHRISTIAN exits awkwardly.

WRITER 1
So—what are we going to do?

Pause

WRITER 3
How about Lenin and Trotsky sock puppets?

The writers agree enthusiastically.