The Old Man and The T.P.

THE OLD MAN AND THE TP

CURTAIN UP

Outside a supermarket.  A younger man, DAVE, is walking up to the front door. An elderly man with a cane, MILES, approaches him.

MILES: Excuse me. Excuse me. Can I ask you something young man?

DAVE: Uh, sure (as he looks into the store anxiously)

MILES: You sure it’s alright, I don’t want to keep you.

DAVE: Yeah, what can I help you with?

MILES: It’s just that I know, well, everyone wants to get in there and buy their groceries and get back home.

DAVE: Well, yeah, that’s what I want to do. Uh, should you be standing so close? I mean I’m fine and all but I haven’t been tested.

MILES: Oh, I’m okay. I have been tested. They tested everyone in the home and I’m okay.

DAVE: Well, good. So what can I do for you?

MILES: It’s more what I can do for you.

DAVE: I don’t think there’s anything you can do for me.

MILES: Oh there is. You see this market, it lets elderly folks in early so we can shop without worrying about younger people potentially infecting us. 

DAVE: Yeah, I know that. Nice of them.

MILES: Yes, very nice. Thing is that gives us first crack at a lot of products.

DAVE: I just need to pick up a few things I’m pretty sure they still have.

MILES: Products that might be in shorter supply.

DAVE: That’s OK.

(DAVE starts to enter the store)

MILES: I got toilet paper.

(that stops DAVE)

DAVE: You got what?

MILES: I got toilet paper, lots of it.

DAVE: How…

MILES: Like I said they let us in early. Overnight the toilet paper shipment gets put on the shelves. We’re the first ones in.

DAVE: Ones? Not just yourself?

MILES: I got a posse.

DAVE: A posse?

MILES: The Potty Posse. They put it out on the shelves, we buy it all up.

DAVE: But they only allow two packages per customer. And that aisle is pretty long.

MILES: I ain’t saying how many we are. But we get the job done.

DAVE: What do you do with it?

(MILES looks around furtively to make sure no one else is listening)

MILES: What you think we do with it, wipe our asses? How many you want?

DAVE: You want to sell me toilet paper?

MILES: Keep your voice down. I can hear you just fine.

DAVE: (down to a loud whisper) You want to sell me bootleg toilet paper?

MILES: I don’t sell no bootleg TP. My stuff is real. It’s pure. Still in the package. All nice and white and fluffy. None of that single ply crap either. I’m two ply or fly.

DAVE: Actually I’m fine on that score. Just need some produce and some snacks.

MILES: Produce and snacks, huh. Young man like yourself, bet you got a wife at home. Uses up that TP like nobody’s business.

DAVE: Well, yeah.

MILES: Sure, that’s the produce. Snacks gotta be for the kids I bet.

DAVE: Yeah. Boy and a girl.

MILES: Ooh, that girl, bet she learned how to potty from her momma. Bet she a bigger user than your wife.

DAVE: Yeah, but it evens out with my son.

MILES: He a teenager?

DAVE: 15.

MILES: You remember when you was 15? How long he spend in the bathroom?

(this stops DAVE)

DAVE: So, uh, how much?

MILES: Now you talking. I got a twelve pack of Northern I can let you have for twenty-five.

DAVE: Twenty-five dollars?

MILES: Of course dollars, American dollars. And don’t tell me about no Crypt Currency or Bite Coin cause I don’t do that.

DAVE: But it’s like $12 inside.

MILES: But they don’t got none inside. I got it outside and outside the price is $25.

(JERRY approaches the two of them. He also is an elderly man. He uses a walker)

JERRY: Hey hey what I tell you about working my turf?

MILES: This ain’t your turf. It ain’t nobody’s turf. This is open territory. Potty Posse got a right to work here.

JERRY: This is TP-13 ground. (turning to DAVE) You don’t want to buy his phony ass product. He say he got Northern? (DAVE nods yes) He don’t got Northern.  He got that bitch ass house brand. Take you half a roll just to blow your nose. Now me, I got the real deal. I got Charmin. I got Charmin Ultra Strong. Double rolls.

MILES: What you talking about? Nobody got Charmin anything let alone Ultra Strong.

JERRY: (ignoring MILES) I got Charmin Ultra Strong. Double Roll, twelve to the pack. You can have it at a real good price cause I don’t like this Potty Posse poser trying to take away my customer.

DAVE: How much?

MILES: Don’t believe his lying. He ain’t got any such thing.

JERRY: (to Miles) Old man you keep your mouth shut or I’ll shut it for you. You think this walker ain’t equipped? Oh it equipped you can bet on that. (to DAVE) Now son since it’s your first time and since I heard you got a family and all I’m gonna make you an offer, it gonna make you reach right for your wallet, open it up, and say “Gimme granddad, gimme all of that”.

DAVE: Well I was speaking to this gentleman first…

JERRY: Did you hear what I said about this walker? You think it can’t take you out as fast as it take out that old gas passer? Don’t you be passing up when I offer you a deal like this. You don’t get no second chance.

DAVE: Um okay, so what’s your offer?

JERRY: Charmin Ultra Strong double rolls, twelve pack. Today only. $150.

DAVE: $150?!

JERRY: That too rich for your blood? That too much money to spend on your sweet wife and her babies? Can’t afford to provide for your family like they should be provided for? Like you know you want to? Like your Daddy taught you to. Like you promised her Momma you were going to?

MILES: Don’t listen to his big talk. He ain’t got the stuff. He just gonna grab your money and run and you ain’t never gonna see no Charmin Ultra Strong double rolls. Me, I got Northern right here. My wife’s right down the street. I’ll have her bring it up, you can inspect, and then you can hand me fifty dollars and we’ll be done.

DAVE: $50? But I thought you said it was $25.

MILES: I never said twenty-five. Ain’t no one out here sell you a dozen rolls of Northern for twenty-five. Maybe your hearing is going. I saw on the TV they think hearing going is the first sign of this corona thing. Maybe I oughta back away. I’m in a high risk group. You know what, deals off, go, go, deal with that TP13 crowd, I don’t want no part of you.

DAVE: No, no, I’m okay. I guess I was just, um, mistaken.

JERRY: You mistaken is you think you gonna deal with this guy when he’s on my turf. Our turf.

(a group of elderly men and women appear behind JERRY. Some have canes, others walkers)

MILES: Oh big tough man. Can’t fight your own battles. Have to bring your whole gang into it. OK, so be it.

(MILES pulls out a Life Alert from under his shirt)

MILES: Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.

LIFE ALERT MONITOR (VO): We have your location, help is on the way.

MILES: (to JERRY) You got three minutes before they get here. I suggest you might not want to be here when they do.

(JERRY stares intently at MILES)

JERRY: This ain’t the last of this. We gonna rumble. And soon.

MILES: You best remember to drink your Ensure before we do. Cause I’m gonna Ensure you gonna need it.

(JERRY and the others exit)

MILES: Now let’s get back to business. Gotta be quick now, those Life Alert boys get upset if I’m not down on the ground when they get here.

DAVE: Uh, okay. So a twelve pack of Northern for fifty dollars, right?

MILES: That’s what I said.

DAVE: You got it here?

(MILES motions offstage. An elderly woman approaches with a package wrapped in brown paper that she hands to MILES)

MILES: Thank you Sarah.

SARAH: You’re welcome. (to DAVE) Use it in good health.

MILES: My wife, she always wants things nice and neat.

(DAVE pulls out his wallet and removes a $50 bill which he starts to hand to MILES then suddenly stops)

DAVE: I gotta see the merchandise.

MILES: What, you don’t trust me?

DAVE: Fifty dollars for twelve rolls of toilet paper is a lot of money. I just want to know I’m not flushing it down the toilet before I, um, get to flush it down the toilet.

MILES: You’re a very smart young man. OK take a look.

(MILES places the package on the ground. DAVE tears some of the brown paper off to reveal the Northern logo.)

DAVE: Looks like the real deal. Here you go.

(DAVE hands MILES the money)

MILES: Thank you. It was a pleasure doing business with you. Is there anything else I can help you with? Dried pasta? Canned beans? Maybe you’d like some nice chicken parts? Fresh today.

DAVE: No, I’m good.

MILES: Then can you give me a hand getting down on the ground for the Life Alert boys?

DAVE: I don’t think that will be necessary.

(DAVE pulls out a badge)

DAVE: Freeze. Police. Don’t make any (pause) sudden moves. Put your hands in the air. Don’t move lady.

SARAH: What? What’s happening?

DAVE: Your husband is under arrest for violating the Price Gouging Act of 2020. I’ve been staking out this market for the last two days after there were a lot of complaints about gangs of old people taking advantage of the market’s generosity. Even some complaints about grandmother types extorting men with certain, uh, alternate lifestyles.

SARAH: I don’t know anything about that. (SARAH knows all about that)

DAVE: You have the right to remain silent.

MILES: This was a set up. I was, what do you call it, entrappedmented.

DAVE: Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.

MILES: Listen, maybe we can make a deal. Maybe you can just take that package home to the wife and kiddies and we can forget this all happened.

DAVE: .You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney..,.

MILES: I can afford, I can afford. I got the best lawyer in the state, my friend Bennie’s kid. He’ll have me out in nothing flat. Sarah, call Bennie and tell him to get his kid over here right away.

SARAH: I’ll call him right away.

MILES: And Sarah (softly) tell him we’ll pay him a 12 pack an hour. The Charmin. Ultra Strong.

CURTAIN