By Neil Simon
Neil Simon Monologues (ISBN: 0-940669-34-X)
HERB: Wait a minutes, you! You just listen to me a minute. I never figures I had anything coming to me. I gave you up, that was my loss. I left that house because if I had stayed it would have turned into a war zone and there would have been no survivors. You want to talk about guilts, regrets – I got enough to fill up my garage. But that’s my business and I’ll handle it my own way. I never expected anything from you or your brother. Outside this house, you can call me any goddamn thing you want to call me. But under this roof is my domain, and if you talk to me, you show me some respect.
HERB: Okay! For the sake of argument, let us say someone looks at the card. Someone is looking for a valet service for his son’s bar mitzvah. Someone just met a girl at the party and wants to write down her number. Someone has a piece of spare rib in his teeth and is trying to pick it out with the card. Only a small percentage of that group will look at the back of the card. But let’s say one does. He sees, “Libby Tucker, New York trained actress – No Part Is Too Big or Too Small.” Do you imagine he’s going to slam his foot on the break, pull off the road and, say to his wife, “That’s exactly what I’m looking for. An actress trained in New York who doesn’t care if the part is too big or too small. Right under my nose in my very own car. What a break for me. I’ll contact her first thing in the morning and hope and pray that someone else with spare ribs in their teeth didn’t get to her before me!”