"I have a confession to make, Ben." "She's not really your aunt." " What do you mean?" " Aunt Jemima." "Ha ha ha." "But Mrs. Butterworth, she is your aunt." "Oh really?" "Yeah, she's your mother's sister." "I love pancakes, dad." "God, I love 'em." "You know, your definition of a short stack has changed over the years." "Well, I go by... by the human scale." "You mean it's in proportion to you." "Yeah." " So, dad?" " Yeah." "I was reading this thing yesterday about a new method in psychology called "Brief therapy"." "Do you know about this?" "Yeah, I've..." "I'm familiar with brief therapy." "It's very popular right now." "Yeah." "Well, it seems to be the new thing in therapy." "Well, every few years something like that comes up..." "Which sort of captures the imagination of the world of therapy and of the public, and y'know, it's usually somebody trying to make a quick buck." "No, but this seems a little different, dad." "It seems like it, w..." "It's very effective." "Yeah, they all seem like that." "Well, what was the last one?" "The last one was the Freudian thing." "Dad, that was like 80 years ago." "Wasn't it?" "More than that." "You know this article says that, and I quote..." "I can't really quote 'cause I don't have it on me..." "Okay." "But it said that brief therapy will be the predominate method of therapy for the next millennium." "Why don't you get back to me then?" "I think this is the real thing, dad." "Because in only one session, you're done." "One session and you're out." "Yeah, that's not the way it works, Ben." "Well, it apparently does." "From what the article said, dad, you ask, like ten questions." "Mm-hmm." "And the session can be as short as ten minutes." "Most of the people I see are between the ages of 30 and 40 and it's taken them that many years to get as sick as they are." "So you can't just fix them in ten minutes." "I'm just saying, dad, that if you don't take this seriously, right?" "A year from now, your patients might have moved on..." "All in brief therapy, all cured." "And you're sitting alone, in your office, with no one." "Doesn't sound so bad, right now, you know?" "But like, how we judge um, witch doctors now..." "You don't see many of those around anymore." "Ben, I want to tell you a little story about a young man named Jonas Salk, who thought that by injecting people with a vaccine, he could cure polio." "Mm-hmm." "Oh no, wait, that's right..." "That's not a good example." "'Cause he did." " He did, yeah." " Yeah." "Laura?" "Yeah?" "I-I just..." "I want to tell you," "I just had a great session with a patient." "A really insightful session with my last patient." "Great." "And I..." "I think I'm on the top of my game, actually." "Super." "And I did some extra listening..." "I mean, I'm not going to charge him extra..." "But I did some extra listening, and I really think I helped." "Dr. Katz, why are you talking like this?" "Ever hear of brief therapy?" "Mmmm... is that like Myers-Briggs?" "Who's Myers Briggs?" "You don't know what Myers-Briggs is?" "No, I don't." "Well, it's a personality profile system." "And you just answer..." "Just a few questions and you get this four-letter code that you look up in a book." "Yeah, that-that's really..." "That's the kind of thing a vocational counselor would be helpful with." "Alright." "You know, I..." "I am a psychotherapist." "So are Myers and Briggs." "Yeah, Myers and Briggs individually might be psychotherapists, but you team them up..." "They're vaudeville." "I'm sorry." "What is it that prompted you to come to therapy?" "I got a lot of things on my mind." "I'm going through a divorce." "That must be very painful." "Actually, it's very liberating." "That was my next guess." "Yeah, they lied to me." "They told me that marriage was a contract." "No, it's not." "Contracts have start dates and end dates." "I mean, contracts have warranties, right?" "Well..." "They have warranties..." "If something goes wrong, you can take it back to the manufacturer." "Well, that's true." "Your husband starts acting up, you can't take him back to his mama's house." "Talkin' 'bout, "Uhh... he broke."" "There must have been other things about him that bothered you." "And he was so cheap, cheap cheap cheap." "Yeah." "Whenever we would go out, I paid all the tolls." "Really?" "Oh yeah, doc... he back up to the toll so that the booth would be on my side." "That's cheap." "I think we need to update the marriage vows." "Mm-hmm." "'Cause I had to stand there in front of god, my family, sayin' "Til' death do you part"." "We need to update 'em, because that's old testament stuff." "Right." "Moses and them wrote that." "True." "They didn't have a problem makin' that type of commitment back then, 'cause they didn't live that long." "They had good plagues, and stuff like that." "Y'know, so as soon as you were gettin' tired of somebody, here come some locusts who'll come in and just eat his ass up for you." "We don't have plagues, now." "Now we have tofu, and antibiotics, and personal trainers." "Yeah." "So we just live forever." "Yeah." "Until one day you just end up lookin' at each other, just," ""Ugh, I see you got up today." "Y'know, you should start smoking."" " Dad?" " Speaking." " My only dad." " You got him." " Hey, dad." " Yes." "I spoke to the, uh, brief therapy center." "It's in Yorba Linda, California." "That sounds like baby talk." "I love saying it..." "Yorba Linda." "But I'm not Belinda." "And either are you, oddly enough." "I spoke to a woman there mm-hmm." "For like, four hours." "Is it an 800 number they have?" "No no no." "That's a long call to California, that's all." "Well, I was mostly on hold." "So you called them..." "So I asked, um..." "So I spoke to them." "They have a whole center dedicated to the study of brief therapy." "Jeez, I wonder how they can afford a center with the zillions of dollars they've made on that brief therapy scam." "Dad, I'm telling you, it's not a scam." "I asked them if it were a scam, and they said "no"." "That's reassuring." "They're really doing some ground-breaking work there." "They already built the clubhouse... squash courts that's great, Ben, but I..." "They have a juice bar." "I told you, I'm not inter..." "Juice bar?" "And I'll tell you something, when I talked to the woman we got involved in a little brief therapy of our own, and it turned out really well for me." "Mm-hmm." "After, like, the first minute she had already uncovered the summer camp issue that I had." "I-I didn't realize you had an issue with summer camp." "Dad, there was an incident..." "The summer camp situation?" "What incident?" "Refresh my memory." "Well, I don't want to go dredging it up, now." "I just did, with the woman." "Pretend I'm a brief therapist." "Tell me about it." "Y'know, she... it was much more easy to talk to her." "Well, that's because she's not your father." "See, she didn't go, like, respond, and there wasn't all this long-winded crap that you do." "Oh, Ben." "It was just very quick, snappy." "It's called "being thoughtful"." "Hydrophobia." "Thank you, but no thank you." "No, I mean that's what she said I had, hydrophobia." "Oh, why does she think you had hydrophobia?" "You're not afraid of the water." "Yeah, see, this is part of the problem." "You have no recollection of the big issue in my life, and after two minutes, she, you know, she deals with it." "Maybe she'd like to make you dinner tonight." "Well, thanks for ruining my life, according to the woman." "Well, tell her I think that she's wrong and I'm right, if you talk to her again." "You're an evil man." "I love you, and good-bye." "Do you, really?" "I-I do..." "She said you didn't." "Uhh... she's afraid of water." "Rich, you think it's because you still live at home?" "If you live at home, people perceive you differently, I find." "Now, if you're a guy and you live at home past a certain age, 20 to 25, you're lazy and irresponsible." "Right." "And 30 and over, y'know, you're a serial killer." "I am not a..." "I'm not a serial killer." "I have been unstable on occasion..." "Look, I'm sorry, when are you turning 30?" " Uh, I'm 32." " Mmm." "'Course the mother angle..." "I always get that from women..." "They always figure you have an unhealthy relationship with your mother." "They don't come right out and say it, it's just that tone of voice." "Y'know, they'll be like," ""Ohh, you're still living with your mother." "Nice, mmm?"" "I never know what to say to that, I'm always like," ""Yeah, we're still just living together." "Guess I'm not ready to take that next big step."" "And it's so ridiculous, my mother isn't even my type." "I mean, she's got kids, that's a real turnoff." "I had some good experiences." "I went on a couple dates with the little sister of someone I used to go out with years ago." "Mm-hmm." "That's weird... dating two people in the same family." "Right." "The most awkward part was going through the incredibly awkward situation of meeting the parents..." "Again." "Mmmm." "Dr. Katz's office." "Laura." "Hi." " How you feelin'?" " Fine." " Really?" " Mm-hmm." "You don't sound it." "Oh." "Well, maybe something's wrong with your ears." "Well, gal like you has a lot of problems, y'know?" "No." "Well, it's true." "We all have our problems, Laura, we just have to kind of admit it." "You know, to ourselves?" "You don't want to bottle everything up." "Mmm." "Hey, Laura, did you know about this brief therapy thing" "I'm researching for my dad?" "Is it anything like Myers-Briggs?" "Mmm... isn't Myers-Briggs the uh letter system?" "Yes!" "Yeah, that's... it's not like that." "It's not a... it's not a joke, it's a real thing." "No, Myers-Briggs is not a joke." "Yeah, y'know, Myers-Briggs is, like in the self-help section." "Brief therapy is in the psychology section." "Myers-Briggs is-is just for, like... it's like a party game." "It's not a party game." "Okay, Laura, here's the deal..." "I will ask you a couple of questions, when I'm done, you tell me that it doesn't work." "Alright?" "'Kay." "What's your first name?" "Laura." "Hi, Laura, I'm Ben." "Hi." "Please, have a seat." "I'm already sitting." "Alright, this isn't working, do the Myers-Briggs thing on me." "Are you energized by being with other people or energized by spending time alone?" "Hmm..." "Theoretically." "Well, I don't know yet." "I have to spend time with people, first." "Do you like being the center of attention or do you avoid being the center of attention?" "Oh, baby, I love it." "Do you act, then think;" "Or think, then..." "No, I got that one." "Y'know what?" "I can fill it out for you." "Alright, let's see, you're e-n..." "See, aren't you, like, a little, like, dubious about anything that just assigns a..." "Shhh!" "E-n-t-p, that's what you are." "Tell you what I am right now, b-o-r-e-d." "E-n-t-ps love excitement and challenge, enthusiastic and ingenious, they are talkative, clever, and good at many things and constantly strive to increase their competence and personal power." " You're right, it's bull." " Yeah." "Here's the thing... it's that he is so convinced that I'm in the wrong business." "Why?" "Well, he's worried about my ability to make a living." "Well, sure." "Brief... is it like, quick therapy?" "Well, I guess there's a whole school of thought where you can get to the core of somebody's problems almost in a few minutes." "Really?" "I don't see how you can do that in such a short period of time." "I mean, how can brief therapy bring about real change when to change, you need to change your belief system." "Hmm." "Are you with me?" "You're preaching to the converted." "Yeah." "Do you put any stock in that?" "No, I spend too much time in the field." "It's like giving somebody like, one Prozac pill." "How did they get to this?" "How do they... do you know how it works?" "Yeah, they ask certain key questions." "Ohh." "Like, "What the hell is wrong with you?"" "I would love to talk about your childhood." "I had a great childhood." "Although, umm, I gotta tell you, I have a phobia." "I'm afraid of thunder and lightning." "Really?" "Yeahhh." "It was from my grandmother." "She's really religious, so whenever it's thunder and lightning, she'd say," ""Hey, turn off the lights, 'cause god is doing his work."" "And she would run around and unplug everything." "I mean, she'd unplug everything." " You could be on life-support..." " Umm." "And she'd say, "You know, it's thundering and lightning, baby." "Granny gonna have to unplug this." "I'm gonna send you to Jesus." "Tell him I said 'hi'."" "I have nephews and I love them to death, but kids, they aren't as tough as when we were kids." "I don't understand, y'know, the world is meaner but the kids is softer." "Right." "I'm lookin' at my nephew and he's standing there with a helmet, knee pads, shoulder pads, special gloves, special boots." "Talkin' about, "I'm a-gonna ride my bike"." "Wha... where, to a mine field?" "What the hell is all this?" "We didn't have no damn helmets when we were kids." "We used to get hit by cars when we were kids." "I'd get scared... woooo!" ""Don't tell my mama I got hit by that car, she'll beat me."" "And we used to play good games when we were kids." "Now the kids, they just want to sit in the house and play Nintendo and... ahh, there's all this soft stuff." "We played fun games like "Catch the axe"." "And uh, "That didn't hurt"." "And "How many times can I hit you in the head with this hammer before you pass out?"" "I passed a car the other day and had the little sun screen in the back window." "Mm-hmm." "I thought it was an ugly baby hider." "I was like, "Damn, that's an ugly baby back there." "They have to hide it behind a curtain."" "Right." "But it's a sun screen." "Can you believe it?" "Babies can't take sun now." "They so soft, they just explode in the sun." "Well..." "When we were kids, you had little babies all across America just baking' in the back of buicks." "My mother would always say something stupid, y'know," ""Oooh!" "I tell you the baby always takes a nap when we go for a ride"." "Hello?" "Speaking." "I'm sorry, try again?" "This is Dr.... who?" "Dr.... you're with the brief therapy center?" "Yeah, that's probably..." "Okay." "Ha ha ha, oh Ben!" "Yeah, he shouldn't have done that." "I am practicing." "In fact, I'm gonna start practicing it again in about two minutes." "So... can you send me some, some literature?" "Okay." "Well, y'know, I'm... it's not so much that I'm skeptical as I-i am... what's the word I'm looking for?" "Yeah, yeah." "I'm more cynical, with a little side order of skepticism." "Now when you say "brief", how fast are you talking about?" "Wow, that is fast." "Hey, did Ben make the boxers vs. briefs joke?" "Okay, then I won't." "Y'know, my jokes don't always work in Yorba Linda." "Hey, Laura, I wish you would screen my calls a little more carefully because, I really was not interested in talking to that woman." "At the end of the conversation, why did you say," ""Hey thanks so much for calling and I'll get back to you?"" "Well, I was trying to be polite." "But, I don't need someone selling me on a three-week seminar in Yorba Linda, California." "Sounds kinda nice." "They have a 30-acre estate." "Hmm." "With a pool and..." "Yeah, it doesn't really seem like it has very much to do with therapy or training." "No no, there are daily sessions." "Three hours a day, you talk about brief therapy and you're trained in the use of that technique." "And then the rest of the time, you're on your own." " It sounds like a uh picnic." " Wow." "But I just don't, I don't need that kind of call in the middle of my work day." " Are you going?" " Probably." "I shouldn't have ate a pre-dinner." "Y'know, your interpretation of hors d'oeuvres is so broad." "Umm." "You're one of the few people that's sentimental about food." "Yeah." "I think that's actually a charming quality." "Well, I have a huge soft spot." "Yeah." "You know the soft spot on the top of your head?" "Well actually, I'm one of the only adults to still have theirs..." "I mean, press in here." "Wow, that's squishy." "Yeah, that's my brain." "What are you thinking?" "What-what, change your mind quickly." "Ohh, I can't move my left side now." "Take your finger out." "Okay." " Oh, dad, did you uh, get a call today...?" " I got the call." "You got the call from the brief therapy center." "Yeah." "And she was very nice." " Chummy." " She was?" "Yeah." "Did she hit you with a diagnosis, like me?" "I asked her about that and she never diagnosed you with hydrophobia." "She said, you were the one who brought it up." "Oh, maybe I did, but it was her that gave the courage to finally reveal it." "Ben, you can't just make up having a phobia." "It's not healthy." "Well, but I want one." "See, I think you have plenty of real problems to deal with." "You definitely don't need to find a fake phobia to do it." "Well, what else did she say?" "Well, she described what brief therapy was..." "But she wasn't that brief about it." "Yeah, the therapy is brief but the description of it can get pretty long." "Yeah, she's a little long-winded, the woman." "Yeah." "I actually may go to the center, though, and take one of their seminars." "Go to Yorba Linda?" "Yeah." "Well-what-but-for- for how long?" "Well, it lasts for three weeks." "When?" "It always lasts for three weeks." "Yeah but when?" "When do you go?" "Oh, next month." "Huh." "Well, what about me?" "Well, Ben, it's only for therapists." "I don't think you would fit in there." "Hey, dad, this whole thing was my discovery." "This is a business trip, Ben." "I-I-i couldn't bring you." "Dad, y'know, if anyone should be going on a brief therapy trip, it should be me." "Look, Ben, I thought you'd be happy that I was inspired by one of your ideas." "You know, this is so typical." "The ground-breakers never get the attention they deserve." "They're always passed over and then the plagiarists..." "Mm-hmm." "They're the ones who get all the limelight." "Take a look at my fingers, Ben." "Wh-what?" "Take a look." "Fingers crossed." "Yeah, I was kidding." "I'm not going anywhere." "They... she's a quack." "What are you talking about?" "I heard a quacking in the background." "Dad, I talked to her." "She's not a quack." "Why did you just...?" "She kept talking about mixed doubles and squash, and..." "Well, it might not have been the best idea... brief therapy, right?" "Well, no damage done." "But I don't see why we can't go to California." "And are we too old to go to Disneyland?" "Umm, parts." "You mean parts of us are too old?" "No, I think you're never too old to go to Disneyland, right?" "Are you writing for Disneyland now, like they're not doing well enough?" "I didn't smoke in high school." "I wish I could've, it looks cool." "But I have asthma." "I couldn't even hang out with the kids who smoked." "Just had to hang out with all the other kids who had asthma." "So just a bunch of guys with their inhalers?" "Yup." "That could look pretty cool, y'know?" "Okay." "When I was a kid, we had to bring our garbage to a dump, which I liked, 'cause the dump was a dump when I was a kid." "It was a big hole in the ground." "You go to the edge of the hole, you wing all your crap in and yell out the names of people you hate." "It was very therapeutic." "Now, though, it's a recycling center." "The whole thing's paved over, you gotta separate everything." "My dad will not separate his garbage." "He's always trying to sneak things in." "He's turned every weekend trip to the dump into this covert operation." "We're always trying to smuggle an old water heater into the shrubbery-only section." "I go, "Dad, why don't we just put it where it belongs?"" ""Shut up and put your ski mask on!"" "Now I'm, y'know, gettin' divorced." "I'm looking forward to hanging out with my single friends now." "You know, 'cause I don't like hanging out with them when I was married." "They never let me have fun." "I never had a good time." "Y'know, we go to a club, y'know, a guy comes over," ""Hey can I buy you a drink?"" "They're like, "No, she's married."" "I'm like, yeah I'm married, but I'm thirsty." "Would you shut the hell up and let me get my drink?" "No, I-I understand." "You know women love free drinks." "I didn't realize that." "Ohh, we love free drinks." "I dunno, they just taste better." "I don't know what it is about a free drink makes you want another one." "It might be the alcohol." "I remember the good old days, you just go to your local pub, y'know, and the bartender would come over," ""Excuse me, uh, the gentleman over there in the corner would like to buy you a drink."" "Y'know, and you'd get your drink and all you had to do was just shake it at him." "That was the beautiful thing about it." "He would keep his ugly ass way over there." "No, now if a guy buys you a drink, he feels like that gives him the right to stalk you for the rest of the night." "Right." "Soon as you get the drink, he's right there in your face." "You know, "Ha, ha, ha." "Yeah, mmm." "How you doin', girl?" "How you doin'?" "Yeah, you can call me 'drink man'." "Yeah, drink man." "What's your name, what's your name?" "Wanda." "Umm, Wanda-danda." "Yeah, I'm wand-rin' how you goin' pay me back for that drink later on."" "Hmm." "So meeting men is difficult for you, Wanda?" "It's... y'know what it is?" "It... we're on different levels when it comes to sex." "Men are driven... they're motivated by sex." "I think that's why there's still people walkin' around on this earth." "That's very possible." "Yeah." "But men still have that primitive thing in them where they're like, "Hey, we gotta make more people, we gotta make more people, we gotta make more people, we gotta make more people."" "And women are like, y'know, we're caretakers." "So we're like, "Hey, who the hell are gonna take care of all these people?" "Get off of me." "I got people to take care of."" "Right." "And you know what the number one fantasy for most guys?" "No, what is that?" "Two women at the same time." "That's what they want." "I think that's a bit lofty if you ask me." "Yeah." "I mean, 'cause think about it." "If they can't satisfy that one woman, why they want to piss off another one?" "It's ambitious." "But maybe some fellas are great lovers." "Maybe they deserve two women, maybe they do." "But you know what, I think they should have to earn it..." "It should be earned." "Y'know like in a video game, you get so many points, you get an extra life?" "I think it should be the same thing with sex." "Y'know, you're doin' such a great job, she's like," ""Ohh, ohh, I can't take any more!"" "Ding!" "You get an extra woman!" "Whoops, you know what the music means, Wanda." "I get an extra woman." "No, no, we're gonna have to stop." "I'm kidding."