(Song: Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy". Fades, then lights up on a bald, middle-aged man in a yellow shirt with a zigzag across the midsection.)
Mr. Brown: I have been bald since the age of two. My ex-wife left me to go follow the Indigo Girls around the world with her best friend Marcie. I live by myself in an apartment that I rent from my own dog . . . who just raised the rent by the way. Good grief, is it any wonder I’m a little depressed? I feel like everything I’ve ever touched gets ruined. Or dies. If you attended last year’s Christmas party you’d understand. And before you suggest it, I’ve already tried the therapy thing. I spent my formative years in the hands of a young gifted “hot-shot” psychiatrist. And what do I have to show for it besides a compulsive avoidance of nickels? Nothing. Then there are days I feel like a blockhead for feeling this way in the first place. We all have problems. I’m sure there are things that you can’t even share with your own friends. My best friend was like that. Last year he hung himself from his ceiling fan with a powder blue baby blanket. And I thought he was the most centered person I knew. Maybe I should just accept things and try to learn from my troubles like Lot did. But the fact is I’m not Lot damn it. I am simply a man who comes into work each day and sits in a cube for eight hours seven days a week and feels the weight of his own death like a toothache swimming in lemonade. And for what? Do I ever hear a “thank you” or “nice effort” from Ms. Othmar? No, It’s just “Wmaw mwah whah” this and “mwah mwah mwat” that all freaking day long! Take a look at this. (Holds up a fist-sized rock) My quarterly bonus. Rats! I was supposed to be a big-league pitcher, not the guy who files rejected credit applications all day. I want to scream out loud, but I cannot move my tongue from the roof of my mouth because it is so swollen with presence of absence. And do you know what really eats at me? The nagging feeling that all of my co-workers, the great and the greater are nothing but a sham. Losers like me but worse, because when they look into the mirror each day, they have no problem lying to themselves. Tricking themselves into believing that they are something more than what they really are, each and every one of them…a Charlie Brown just like me.
