eXcessDrama
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Here's a few I've got kickin around.
I'm Not Wicked, REALLY
This is a HIGHLY edited version of a monologue from a Margaret Attwood book. When I actually used it there were a few more edits, but this is the last copy I had saved.
All anyone ever writes about is the wicked stepmother. Never once do they stop and think that I have reasons for what I do, nice ones at that. For heaven’s sake- I’m not that bad! And it’s not all MY fault either. You’d lose it every once and a while too if you went through what I go through. It’s just…those girls…they’re so…good. Obedient and passive. Snivelling I might add. No get up and go. What would have happened to them if I hadn’t come along? Nothing, that’s what. All they’d ever do is the housework. They’d marry some peasant, have seventeen kids, and get “A dutiful wife” engraved on their tombstone. Life as a baby machine. Big deal. Well actually, big hips is more like it.
I want these girls to have a life- so I make things interesting, you know, stir it up a bit. I tell them to go play in the traffic, run with scissors, that sort of thing. It may be perverse, but it works. All they have to do is smile, bat those baby blues, and do a little more housework for some dwarves or nice ladies or whatever and BINGO- they get the charming prince, the palace, and a life of never having to lift a finger.
Whereas all I get is the blame. All I ever wanted was a better life for the girls. Sure, I’ll admit my methods were a bit unorthodox, but what’s a few attempted murders among family? Besides, I never cause any lasting harm -the stories always DO end “and they all lived happily ever after”. ALL? All, except me more like it. I never get happily ever after. God knows all about it. No devil, no fall, no redemption. Grade two arithmetic.
Of course, none of that really matters. They can wipe their feet on me, and twist my motives around all they like; they can dump stones on my head and drown me in a river, but they can’t get me out of the story. Those girls may have their fancy tiaras, but I’M the plot.
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Even Cowgirls get the Blues
-Tom Robbins
Bonanza Jellybean:
I’m talking about our fantasies, you know the difference between fantasy and reality, don’t you? Fantasy is when you wake up at four o’clock on Christmas morning and you’re so crazy excited you can’t possibly go back to sleep, but when you go downstairs and look under the tree- Podner, that’s reality.
So they teach us to believe in Santa Claus right? And the Easter Bunny. Wondrous critters, both of ‘em. Then one day they tell us ,”Well there really isn’t any Santa Claus or Easter Bunny, it was Mama and Daddy all along.” So, we feel a bit cheated, but we accept it because, after all, we got the goodies no matter where they came from, and the Tooth Fairy never had much credibility to begin with. Okay, so they let you dress up like a cowgirl, and when you say, “I’m gonna be a cowgirl when I grow up!” they laugh and say, “Ain’t she cute.” Then one day the tell you, “Look, honey, cowgirls are only play, you can’t really be one.” And that’s when I holler, “Wait a minute! Hold on! Santa and the Easter Bunny I understand, they were nice lies and I don’t blame you for them, but now you’re screwing around with my personal identity, with my plans for the future. What do you mean I can’t be a cowgirl?” When I got the answer, I began to realize there was a lot bigger difference between me and my brother than what I could see in the bathtub.
…Yep, it’s true. Any boy anywhere can grow up to be a cowpoke even today if he wants to bad enough. One of the top wranglers on the circuit right now was born and raised in the Bronx. Little boys may discouraged from adventurous yearnings, but their dreams are indulged, nevertheless. And the possibilities of fulfilling their childhood expectations do exist. But little girls? Podner, you know that story as well as me. Give ‘em doll babies, tea sets, and toy stoves, and if they show a hankering for more bodacious play things, call ‘em tomboy, humour ‘em for a few years, then slip ‘em the bad news. If you’ve got a girl who persists in fantasizing a more exciting future for herself than housewifery, desk-jobbing or motherhood, better hustle her off to a child psychologist, force her to face up to reality, and the reality is, we got about as much chance of growing up to be cowgirls as Eskimos have got of being vegetarians.
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The Alien Hypothesis
I got this one out of a book about a year ago, it was a male monologue and I edited it and then rewrote the second half because I didn't like it.
Do you ever feel… different? Not like everybody else? Oh, everybody’s unique- I know that: DNA, fingerprints, it’s a scientific fact! But some people feel at home whether they’re in New York or Paris or… Venezuela. They feel like they belong. I don’t. I think I’m from another planet. No, listen, I’m not crazy. I’m just entertaining a hypothesis about my feeling different. One hypothesis might be that I am actually an alien from another planet, here in the form of an earthling and I’m programmed not to realize this so I’ll fit in, except the programming didn’t work. Or else it did work and I’m programmed to realize the truth gradually. And at some time I will- I hope- receive further instructions. Maybe a manual, like you get with your VCR to explain how to set the clock and everything. Of course, no one ever manages to set the clock anyway, so maybe a manual isn’t best. Maybe my race doesn’t even communicate with writing. Maybe we communicate telepathically. But that’s what crazy people think! That they’re getting instructions from Alpha Centauri “Go kill.” And so on. I wouldn’t hurt anybody. After all, people have been nice to me, even though I am from a different planet.
I’ve never seen a flying saucer. If I were really an alien, wouldn’t they visit me? Just to say, “Hi, how ya doing? Keep up the good work, great job on being a freak!” Well, they’re busy. They’re out there making crop circles, scaring cows, abducting people and such. Still, they could give a girl a ring once in a while. Birthday card, that sort of thing. Unless our nature is that we’re different. But if my nature is being different, why does it bother me to feel different? I mean, if I were meant to be different why do I want to belong to something …or anything?
Wait…do I really want to belong with people who would drop me on an unknown planet like this? They drop me here, without any manual to speak of, and leave me to fend for myself like some feral child raised by wolves! Not to mention I’ve heard a lot about aliens eating humans, and I’m not sure I could handle that. Cannibalism’s never really been my thing. You know what…I don’t think I’m an alien afterall!
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Here's a short one written anonymously from a monologue website that is no longer in operation. It's about a person who'sa germophobe.
I know they sent me in here to talk to you. They seem to think I have “issues” which I assure you I don’t. Well unless you count that time w- what? sit down before we talk? What difference does it make if I’m sitting down or not? [PAUSE] Oh- it’s a policy of yours…okay then. Where should I sit? [PAUSE] There?[PAUSE] You don’t have any other chairs do you? [PAUSE] What’s wrong with this one? Well….nothing really it’s just…..it’s cloth. I’d really be more comfortable in a vinyl chair, or plastic or just anything else. You see, cloth is actually quite disgusting, especially in a public place like this. I mean, how many other patients do you have? And do you dry clean and disinfect this chair after every person pays you a visit? I would hazard to guess not. Hence my dilemma, you see cloth…it has pores and dust collects in these pores. And bacteria likes to feed on the dust, and people sweat and some of them carry diseases and the sweat could soak into the fabric. And I’m sure you get some criers in here, and tears? Well that’s not entirely hygienic either. In fact there’s probably all sorts of microscopic critters crawling on that chair.
Which is why vinyl is much better. You can wipe it down with Lysol and kill the germs. You’d probably get a lot better business if you did, I mean with all those germs on that chair lots of people who come here probably get sick. And then die. And then you lose patients. Really you could solve it all if you got a nice sanitary plastic chair.
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Hope this helps you out a bit.
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Bookworm
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A version of a monologue I found online, cut and edited slightly
Oh, it’s you, Muriel. It sure is nice to have a friendly voice to listen to, I can tell you.
Well, you just have no idea what a friend is worth until something like this happens to you.
I wish I’d stayed in Dundalk, even if the snow did go up past an elephant’s eye. Forget the elephant’s eye. Last year it was piled higher than the chimney. I could have paid someone to shovel the blasted stuff. You sure can’t pay for friends, though.
It certainly is that bad! Am I the kind to complain about nothing?
It did seem like a friendly place, Muriel. You remember when you helped me move in. The next door neighbor was right over here and had us in for lunch. The one on the other side brought us salad plates for supper on her best china to welcome us properly, so she said.
I couldn’t even give those Royal Albert plates back to her, or her silverware. I finally left them wrapped up on her doorstep and would you believe it she had a lawn sale and sold those two plates and that silverware. How insulting can you get?
And to make it even worse, she asked only a quarter for the whole kit and kaboodle.
I went right over and looked, that’s how I know.
You know what she said to me, Muriel? "There’s nothing here you’d want." Now, if that doesn’t mean, ‘Go home’ I don’t know what does.
Whether you can imagine it or not, Muriel, that is just a sample of how I’m being treated in this town! Why last week I saw the plumber across the street answer his portable phone when I called him. He hadn’t moved his carcass in a whole hour, except to guzzle beer and swoop up the phone when it rang. He was real interested in fixing the leak in my toilet until I told him who I was. He suddenly remembered the job he was right in the middle of that would leave one heck of a mess if he didn’t get right onto it right this minute. He jumped up, kicked his chair and strode inside.
When I was walking Killer, my three legged Chihuahua, there was Mr. Plumber sitting in the shade, three houses over.
No, Muriel. He hadn’t finished the job. This was two minutes later.
Well, as I said, I’m repenting about coming to this town and buying a house here. I put it up for sale two days ago and forty local people have gone through it so far. The real estate agent is a bit confused. And frustrated. Not one of those people have made an offer on my house.
What am I ever going to do?
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