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Note: A few words about 'free' - all these monologues are protected under copyright law and are free to read, free to perform and video as long as no money is charged. Once you charge admission or a donation, or include my work in an anthology, you need to contact me for royalty info.
If you just started this blog and want to read the earlier monologues, please
scroll down for the previous days or go to http://www.monologuestore.com/ -click on the Monologue Mania button please scroll down.
To start at the beginning - Feb. 13, - click here.
For a list of the blurbs from each day, click here
Help a playwright and get more great award-winning monologues - MonologueZone.com
Thank you for your comments - and for liking and sharing this site
------------------------------
Monologue Mania Day # 189 by Janet S. Tiger Cat Days of Summer Aug.20, 2014
Cat Days of Summer(for the play BEN)
A monologue by Janet S. Tiger © all rights reserved
tigerteam1@gmail.com
(Benjamin Franklin enters, rolling a cart with test tubes filled with liquids, a bellows and some thermometers. He stops and wipes his forehead with a handkerchief.)
Is it warm enough for you? I hope so! Because this little experiment is something I've been working on with my dear friend, John, a professor at Cambridge.
Do you see this?
(He holds up a test tube)
This is alcohol. Not the good kind to drink, but the kind which evaporates rapidly.
Our belief is that this can be used to lower temperatures rapidly......and that is what we will be testing today.....
(He now holds up a thermometer.)
Heat. Cold. We so desperately want to be in control of the elements.
(He starts to set up the bellows)
My lightning rods have saved many homes from burning and many people from death.....but as I age, some of my goals become more....personal. I like to be warm, hence I invented a stove. But I also like to be cool, hence I love London.
But how to create a way to be cool when it is hot?
(He sets the thermometer near the bellows and starts to put the alcohol onto the thermometer.)
When alcohol evaporates, it removes heat from the object it is on.......
(He now uses the bellows on the thermometer.)
This room we are in is 64 degrees.....but with the alcohol on the thermometer, the temperature on the thermometer's bulb is dropping.....
(He looks closely, smiles)
50 degrees!
(He continues to use the bellows, looks again)
25 degrees!
(He holds up the thermometer)
And if you can see it, there is now a small coating of ice on the bulb!
This is something that is important to understand - when working with certain substances - and people, too - it is better to rapidly cool them off, rather than wait for them to calm themselves.
(He looks at the thermometer)
Sometimes, the cooling process works too well - the temperature is now down to 14 degrees Centigrade, and hence, I will stop this experiment because the thermometer may crack. But it is very interesting to note, that from this experiment one may see the possibility of.... freezing a man to death on a warm summer's day.
One day soon...I think it is in about twenty years, we will have very cold days.....hard days in our history. Valley Forge....funny name for a cold place isn't it? But that winter of cold will forge our nation.
Dog Days of Summer - that is a funny idea as well. Whatever does it mean? The hot weather corresponds to the star Sirius in the night sky. The Romans had strange ways of looking at things, didn't they. I think that the days in Valley Forge, where the men died like dogs in the freezing cold, that....that was more accurate.
But the summer- that is a time for cats! Cats are naturally lazy in the heat, and they lie about anyhow...so the summer is truly their time - I believe the expression should rightfully be - Cat Days of Summer........
I have other important questions that I am working on. How can you make sense where there is nonsense? How can you pass gas that smells good? .....And there's one I fear will always elude me - How to make men of politics tell the truth!
(Benjamin Franklin enters, rolling a cart with test tubes filled with liquids, a bellows and some thermometers. He stops and wipes his forehead with a handkerchief.)
Is it warm enough for you? I hope so! Because this little experiment is something I've been working on with my dear friend, John, a professor at Cambridge.
Do you see this?
(He holds up a test tube)
This is alcohol. Not the good kind to drink, but the kind which evaporates rapidly.
Our belief is that this can be used to lower temperatures rapidly......and that is what we will be testing today.....
(He now holds up a thermometer.)
Heat. Cold. We so desperately want to be in control of the elements.
(He starts to set up the bellows)
My lightning rods have saved many homes from burning and many people from death.....but as I age, some of my goals become more....personal. I like to be warm, hence I invented a stove. But I also like to be cool, hence I love London.
But how to create a way to be cool when it is hot?
(He sets the thermometer near the bellows and starts to put the alcohol onto the thermometer.)
When alcohol evaporates, it removes heat from the object it is on.......
(He now uses the bellows on the thermometer.)
This room we are in is 64 degrees.....but with the alcohol on the thermometer, the temperature on the thermometer's bulb is dropping.....
(He looks closely, smiles)
50 degrees!
(He continues to use the bellows, looks again)
25 degrees!
(He holds up the thermometer)
And if you can see it, there is now a small coating of ice on the bulb!
This is something that is important to understand - when working with certain substances - and people, too - it is better to rapidly cool them off, rather than wait for them to calm themselves.
(He looks at the thermometer)
Sometimes, the cooling process works too well - the temperature is now down to 14 degrees Centigrade, and hence, I will stop this experiment because the thermometer may crack. But it is very interesting to note, that from this experiment one may see the possibility of.... freezing a man to death on a warm summer's day.
One day soon...I think it is in about twenty years, we will have very cold days.....hard days in our history. Valley Forge....funny name for a cold place isn't it? But that winter of cold will forge our nation.
Dog Days of Summer - that is a funny idea as well. Whatever does it mean? The hot weather corresponds to the star Sirius in the night sky. The Romans had strange ways of looking at things, didn't they. I think that the days in Valley Forge, where the men died like dogs in the freezing cold, that....that was more accurate.
But the summer- that is a time for cats! Cats are naturally lazy in the heat, and they lie about anyhow...so the summer is truly their time - I believe the expression should rightfully be - Cat Days of Summer........
I have other important questions that I am working on. How can you make sense where there is nonsense? How can you pass gas that smells good? .....And there's one I fear will always elude me - How to make men of politics tell the truth!
(He laughs as he collects the items from the experiment and starts to take them offstage. He turns and looks back)
I think it's possible....but it just may be....a cold day in hell!
(Lights dim as he exits laughing. End of scene)
--------------------------------------------------
Note - This is based on one of Franklin's experiments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_conditioning
I think it's possible....but it just may be....a cold day in hell!
(Lights dim as he exits laughing. End of scene)
--------------------------------------------------
Note - This is based on one of Franklin's experiments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_conditioning
Janet S. Tiger 858-736-6315
Member Dramatists Guild since 1983
Playwright-in-Residence
Swedenborg Hall 2006-8
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