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Monologue Mania Day# 361 by Janet S. Tiger Certain Tea (from Book of Teas) Feb. 8, 2015
Certain Tea
(from Book of Teas)
by Janet S. Tiger
by Janet S. Tiger
(c) 2015 all rights reserved
(T comes onstage and looks in a fram where a mirror should be. She is still with a Southern accent)
I think this title would be
better as Change Tea - but there is no such tea.
And, from what I have learned in
this life, the only type of certainty we have is that everything will change.
Except perhaps math, and you never
know about that either.
That's what I told my algebra
teacher in high school. Mr. Hall.
I hated algebra. I knew that I
would never pass it.
I told Mr. Hall that there was no
way letters and numbers could be in the same sentence, it was not right.
I told him I hated math, and he
laughed……..and said (imitates) 'You use math all the
time, T'
(As herself) How?
You write stories, don't you? The last story - how many chapters,
how many pages?
That's not the same.
To the numbers it is - numbers don't care if you like them or not, they
just are. And there is a way of passing
this class.
And then he leaned in close to me..... I got nervous. Growing up
around animals, I thought I knew what he meant. I was right, He wanted me to come over to his
house after school.
(as younger self) I can’t do that, Mr. Hall, it’s not
worth passing the class for.
(as Mr. Hall) I just wanted you to come and
help my daughter.
You see, Mr. Hall's wife had died givin birth to Mary,
and he had raised her all by himself.
She was 10 years old now and he
wanted her to have a woman to talk with about, well,
you know.
I think I blushed, because I had
misunderstood Mr. Hall, and that was embarrassin. He thought
talkin about lady things was what made me blush, so he apologized, but I told I
would help, and I did.
Mary was only 6 years younger than
me, but she was a sweet girl.. I showed her how to sew and bake a little.
One
day, we were making cookies, and Mr. Hall was watchin and he said 'T, do you realize you are usin’
math right now?'
I wondered how anyone could take a perfectly fun activity like makin
cookies and ruin it with
math?
Then he asked me how many cookies can you make
with one cup of sugar in this recipe.
And I told him that with one cup you get about 20 cookies, depending on the size of the cookie.
Then he asked, 'what if
someone asked you to make 100 cookies? How much sugar would you need?
For the same size cookie, T, make it simple.'
Well, that is simple - 5 cups of sugar.
Well, that is simple - 5 cups of sugar.
Then ge showed me
on the paper - 1 cup = 20 cookies
? cups=100 cookies
and he said that if you divide the 100 by 20, you
get 5, and...and I was amazed, I did understand! I was doin math! Just like in class, but I understood! It
was miracle - a miracle of the cookies.
And then he showed me how to use a square or a question, instead of x's and y's a that is what is
so confusin. Letters make
stories - beautiful stories, I hated to see them all jumbled up with those numbers!
And I tried, and, lo and behold, it did work.
I was able to pass algebra with a D minus. I think
helpin his daughter also made a difference. But that was the best part -
Mary and I became good friends - we'd
still be friends if she hadn't up and died.
Change. Maybe the fact it took
1 cup to make 20 cookies didn't change, but Mary couldn't eat any more sugar cookies when she got
diagnosed with diabetes mellitus. Why
they have to put that mellitus in there, I will never knowl. Diabetes is
ugly sounding enough all by itself.
Change. Who would know Mary
would go blind from the diabetes, and trying to cross the street in Atlanta where she lived with her husband, Travis,
bein unable to see the bus turning
the corner, she was hit and killed.
That was a change.
Numbers may not change, but all the
numbers in the world never prepare you for when someone's number comes up.
Certainty...Certain tea......
(Turns to leave, stops, looks back)
I guess that’s the one thing that never really changes......
(Lights down as she exits, 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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