Our HOST sits at a desk shuffling papers. He looks up into the camera.
Host: Welcome again to the “Questionable Show!” where every honest question is answered with a patent lie and somehow people still buy it. God Bless America.
He turns.
Host (cont’d): Why can’t people communicate? Language has become, like so much else today, coarse, adolescent and just plain sloppy. And this inexactness in the use of even the simplest of words can lead to hurt feelings, misunderstanding, and at the highest levels, geo-political fallout. This is appalling, and frankly, dangerous.
(Our HOST regards his guests: two scholarly but unkempt professors sit in opposing easy chairs in front of a fireplace.)
HOST (cont’d) …We have therefore enlisted the world’s foremost doctor-ologists of language, Professors Gibbons and Hunt, who will now attempt to analyze the most elementary of words, and the trouble people have with, “it”.
(Classical music takes us in…)
Gibbons: So today we want to discuss it.
Hunt: What?
Gibbons: It.
Hunt: It what?
Gibbons: What we are scheduled to discuss here. We are going to discuss…it.
Hunt: Fine. Go ahead.
Gibbons: We already are.
Hunt: Are what?
Gibbons: Discussing it.
Hunt: (slowly) What is the “it,” to which you are referring?
Gibbons: Yes!! And here, we come to the crux of the problem, Hunt: the mis-identification of it.
Hunt: I’m not even sure what it means.
Gibbons: Exactly. What I just said.
Hunt: No. You really didn’t.
Gibbons: I expressly did. I just said it. Here: I’ll say…it, again.
Hunt: Fine. Let’s say you hypothetically said it…
Gibbons: (interrupts) I did.
Hunt: Okay. If you believe you said it, I’ll go with it.
Gibbons: But why would you go with it? You don’t even know what it means. You just said so yourself.
Hunt: Agreed.
(beat)
So, what does it mean?
Gibbons: THAT is what we are here to discuss.
Hunt: Uh, I thought we were.
Gibbons: So let’s get back to it.
Hunt: We were someplace else?
Gibbons: Only if you wish to think about it that way.
(beat)
Look, the problem is that people overuse it.
Hunt: How would I know?
Gibbons: Because they do. Don’t you see it?
Hunt: If you say so…
Gibbons: It happens everyday.
Hunt: I’m sure it does.
Gibbons: (angry) Are you toying with me, doctor!?
Hunt: What!? Of course not…I wouldn’t dream of it!
Gibbons: Of course you do. Everyone does. Most research points to the fact that people think about it all the time.
Hunt: (quietly) Have we been talking about…sex?
Gibbons: What on earth does sex have to do with it, my good man!?
Hunt: Because you just told me…it, did.
Gibbons: I do not believe I did so. It’s just not something I would think about.
Hunt: But you just said everyone did.
Gibbons: I don’t think you’re getting it.
Hunt: (huffy) I get…enough.
Gibbons: But are you getting it man??
Hunt: Gibbons! How dare you!!
Gibbons: (sincere) I am SO sorry – I didn’t know you’d take it so seriously.
Hunt: Well, apparently everyone takes, it…seriously. At least according to you.
Gibbons: (under breath) And some more than others.
(beat)
In any event, I don’t think we’ve even come close to getting to the bottom of it.
Hunt: Well, that’s for sure. And no good has come of it.
Gibbons: So on that we can certainly agree.
(beat)
Now, if only we could get them to stop it.
Hunt: Well, they aren’t going to stop it.
Gibbons: Why would you say that?
Hunt: Because it’s what people…do. And it’s fun.
Gibbons: Mis-communication?
Hunt: Between the sheets? Sometimes yes. But it can generally be worked out.
Gibbons: That’s very optimistic of you.
Hunt: I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Gibbons: Are you now saying that, it… can only be one way? And it cannot be any other way?
Hunt: I said no such thing.
Gibbons: It sounded like it.
Hunt: “It”…sounded like….”it”??
Gibbons: (harrumph) There’s no point in discussing it further. I think that’s it. We just can’t get there from here.
Hunt: Where’s there?
Gibbons: What?
Hunt: There. Where is there?
Gibbons: (to camera) Please join us next week for an in depth discussion of, “there”. See you next time.
Hunt: Where?
Gibbons: There! Don’t you get…it?
Hunt: I thought I did. Then, I didn’t.
(beat)
Ah…it doesn’t matter.
Gibbons: Now, now…Of course “it,” matters…
They shake, quite pleased with each other and smile for the camera.
(Music under and out.)
***end***
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