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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 # 219 by Janet S. Tiger In Defense of Hoarding Sept. 19, 2014
In Defense of......Hoarding (for CRIME)
In Defense of......Hoarding (for CRIME)
A monologue by Janet S. Tiger © all rights reserved
tigerteam1@gmail.com
(The same crime scene investigator from Day #193 enters, with a bottle of water. She puts her purse and the water on the table and now opens one of the boxes she has brought.)
Because of my archeological background, I actually enjoy when someone has hoarded. And, the best possible hoarding, a hoarding in order. Where I don't have to do any sorting, just cataloguing. A person who refused to discard any part of their life allows me to look into the past as if I had a giant microscope.
(She indicates the box)
This is one of the 1,223 boxes of receipts in Bertha Johnson's barn. Thousands of receipts.....to be exact - one hundred seventeen thousand, two hundred ninety one. Elsewhere in the barn were old letters, from parents to children, distant relatives on trips to far away places, Christmas cards, photos, school records, medical bills, shopping lists, newspapers with important dates, all farm records. Each record giving a different angle into Bertha's life, even before she was born. And I, I was looking to - pardon the barn reference! - find the needle in the haystack that might uncover who her killer was.
(She opens the box)
This specific box has utilities - water, gas, electric. The gas section has older receipts, then electric was added. Water is actually the most recent, as until the 1950s, all water for the farm came from wells on the property.
(She indicates the box)
This is one of the 1,223 boxes of receipts in Bertha Johnson's barn. Thousands of receipts.....to be exact - one hundred seventeen thousand, two hundred ninety one. Elsewhere in the barn were old letters, from parents to children, distant relatives on trips to far away places, Christmas cards, photos, school records, medical bills, shopping lists, newspapers with important dates, all farm records. Each record giving a different angle into Bertha's life, even before she was born. And I, I was looking to - pardon the barn reference! - find the needle in the haystack that might uncover who her killer was.
(She opens the box)
This specific box has utilities - water, gas, electric. The gas section has older receipts, then electric was added. Water is actually the most recent, as until the 1950s, all water for the farm came from wells on the property.
(She holds up a receipt)
Each receipt is a mini-history of a month. This one is from 1938, stamped paid, with the name, in nice handwriting, of the clerk who took the payment.
(She holds up another)
This is from 1944, during World War II. As you can see, the paper was smaller, just like many things were during those years.
The older receipts had notes signed by her grandfather, then father, then mother, then Bertha. As she aged, the handwriting became less strong, but it is clearly the same signature.
Why are they important? Because, unlike TV shows, where the people have 48 minutes to find the killer, and the missing clue is uncovered in the last 3 minutes, in cold cases, the result, as we all know, is usually.....not good. But the most important clues may have been there from the first day, and that is exactly what happened here. On the first day I came to Bertha's house, and went out to her barn, I had no idea where to start looking. So I closed my eyes, spun around and walked until I hit a section of boxes. I opened my eyes, put my hand on this.....and looked in ........
(She lifts up a box)
It only took me two months to figure out how important it really was......
(Lights down. End of scene)
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Janet S. Tiger 858-736-6315
Member Dramatists Guild since 1983
Playwright-in-Residence
Swedenborg Hall 2006-8
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