English Majors script
Saturday, September 10, 2005
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(CRICKETS SFX)

Tim Russell: What a beautiful night. Being here...in Kansas...under the stars...with you...I wonder where at the State Fair we're at.

Sue Scott: Earl— you don't say, "Where we're at..."

TR: No?

SS: No. You can just say, "I wonder where we are?"

TR: Oh. Where'd you get that from?

SS: I'm an English major, Earl. I told you.

TR: Oh. Geez. Kill the mood why doncha.

SS: I'm sorry.

TR: You're the only girl I know who brings a book along to the State Fair. Geez.

SS: Sorry.

TR: How about we go over there and lay down on the grass?

SS: You mean lie down.

TR: That's what I said.

SS: You said lay. Laying something down means you set it somewhere. You lay a banana on a counter. But when you want to be in a horizontal position yourself, you lie down.

(BEAT)

TR: Maybe you'd rather lie down with a banana.

SS: I'm only trying to be helpful.

TR: What's the book?

SS: Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton.

TR: Never heard of it.

SS: It's good. It's about a man married to a bitter hypochondriac and he falls in love with her younger cousin and they go sledding, the husband and the cousin, and they have a terrible accident and the cousin is incapacitated and he takes care of her and his wife, both of them bitter and unappreciative and all the love in his life evaporates forever.

(BEAT)

TR: Well, now I understand you better.

GK: Oh, excuse me—I didn't see you here in the dark—

TR: Yeah, well— now you do— beat it.

Garrison Keillor: Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt—

SS: You didn't interrupt. Who are you?

GK: So it was your voice I heard out here. I thought it was a bird.

SS: You thought I was a bird? (SHE LAUGHS MUSICALLY)

GK: I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing Than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

SS: e.e. cummings! Nobody ever quoted e.e. cummings to me at a State Fair ever before!

GK: Never?

SS: Never!

TR: Monica—

SS: I've been looking for someone like you for a long time.

TR: Me?

SS: Go away, Earl. What are you doing here?

GK: I sell corn dogs at the state fair.

SS: You must be an English major.

GK: How did you know?

SS: The upturned chin, the expectant eye, The keen anticipation, the readiness to be Astonished by beauty.

GK: Cummings?

SS: No. Me.

GK: So you're an English major too?

SS: English and creative writing.

GK: Beautiful.

SS: English Majors can do anything — as long as we have each other.

GK: This message brought to you by the Professional Organization of English Majors.