" Don't read at the table." " I'm reading that!" "I didn't finish!" "No!" "And stop playing with your hair." "You're gonna make it fall out!" "You can stop worrying about my hair 'cause I'm going to shave the rest off!" " What?" "!" " That's right, I'm shaving my head." " Oh that's asinine!" " It's not asinine, it's hip." " Hey, we're out of milk." " Help yourself." "Want to hear the latest?" "Your father wants to shave his head." "Why don't you just stick your head out the car window?" " Where's my razor?" " Oh sit down." "We do not shave our heads in this house." "It's my house and my head!" "I'm not going to be seen with you like that." "Another advantage!" "I'm hiding all the razors." "You're not going to shave your head." "Of course not." "I just want to read the paper." "Wow, did you do that yourself?" "They're coming!" " Hey." " So?" " Did you read my thing?" " The article?" "Yeah." " Yeah, yeah, yeah." "Give me a second." " Okay." "Pretty good for a first try, huh?" "What about the point of it?" "See the point I was trying to make?" "Do you see the coffee I'm trying to make?" " Come on, go." "I'll be right there." " Okay." "All right." "So, how are you?" "How's everybody?" "Glad to hear it." "What do you think?" "!" "Okay." "Ah..." "You're drinking it now." "very funny!" "You are hilarious!" "What a funny friend I have!" "Talk to me!" " I like it." " Yeah?" "Yeah." "I just" " I have some minor, minor things." "Oh God, I'm gonna be a stat guy for the rest of my life." "Stop it, all right?" "It's very good." "Don't say that!" "What?" "What do you think very good means?" "very bad!" " Do you want my notes or not?" " Yes!" " All right." " Oh my God!" "Look at all the red marks!" "This is a mob hit!" "Andy, if you weren't my friend," " I'd say, "It's great," and walk away." " Yes, do that!" "Listen, listen." "What separates the men from the boys is the willingness to take notes, rewrite and make it better." "Okay?" "I'm giving you the key to the mint here." "All right." "Go ahead, I can take it." "I want it." "Give me the key to the mint." "All right." "Look, right here, you get a little repetitive." "Oh!" "Oh!" "I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it!" "I get it, thanks!" "Okay, now here" "There's more?" "!" " Yeah." " Can we take a break?" "I'm just getting started." "Don't you want to hear this?" "I just need a moment." " Andy." " I said a moment!" " Hey, Deb, where's my toothbrush?" " I threw the old ones out." "I got a bunch of new ones when I took the kids to the dentist today." " So which one's mine?" " The red." "I don't want to be red!" "Take the blue one." "The blue one is wet." "I just used it." "Ew!" "You know, I used the soap in there too." "Not my soap?" "I have no toiletries." "Would you please, all right?" "I already had to deal with three maniac kids at the dentist today." "By the end of it I needed the Novocain." "Couldn't believe Geoffrey." "Yeah well, I had a bad day too, okay?" "I had to talk to Andy about his article." "Oh well, that must have been awful-- sitting and talking with an adult." "Jeez!" " Michael gets into the chair" " It was awful." "You know how Andy wants to be a writer." " So I gotta help him." " I'm trying to tell you something here." "Okay, but you know, I read his stuff and then I got to think about it, and then I gotta make notes on his stupid thing." "Maybe it was your attitude." "What attitude?" ""His stupid thing"?" "Did you call his article a stupid thing?" "Not to him." "To him, I said it was very good." " Oh God." " What?" "very good?" "Hmm, yeah, I know what very good means." "What'd you said about my stir-fry last night?" "That was very good." " Mmm-good." " Yeah." "Nice try." "I'm just saying it probably meant a lot to Andy to get your feedback, and maybe you could have been a little bit nicer." "Hey, you weren't there." "I was very nice." "I tried to give him the key to the mint." "The key to the mint?" "You didn't say that, did you?" "It's an expression." "Oh, and you are the keeper of the key to the mint?" "No, I" "I happen to have one of the keys." " Listen, I was very nice." " Is that the tone you used?" " There was no tone." " There's tone right there!" "Yes, with you I'm having tone right now." "Okay?" "But with Andy, I was very nice." "I was very understanding." "very patient." "And then he embarrasses me by crying." "You made him cry?" "!" " Ray!" " He wasn't crying crying." "He was just kind of breathing hard and shuttering." " Everybody's looking at us." " Oh, I'm so sorry you had to sit next to your crying friend." "Listen... it's a lot harder to watch the person in pain than it is to be the person in pain." "You said that to me when I was in labor." "You were screaming." "I'm surprised you heard that." "Poor Andy." "Why do you think he gave you his article?" "Because I'm a sucker." "Because he looks up to you and respects you and whatever you say to him he's going to listen to." "Yeah, he didn't listen when I told him to stop crying." "Listen, you are very successful and he's just starting out, and you really have to try to go out of your way to be encouraging to him and kind." "You've got to understand that other people have feelings too." "All right!" "Now can I finish telling you what happened to me today?" " What happened to you today?" " At the dentist!" "Oh, yeah." "Yeah, yeah, yeah, go." "Michael gets in the chair and the other two want to get in first." "That's when the fighting starts, so Dr. Gibbons tries to turn on the choo-choo train." "That's when Geoffrey kicks him!" "They all start screaming-- the kids and Dr. Gibbons, the hygienist." " Oh no." " That's right." "No, not that." "I have a dentist appointment next week." "What?" "I listened!" " Hey!" " Hey!" " I want to talk about the article." " Oh yeah, listen." "Listen, last week when I gave you the notes," "I think maybe I wasn't really thinking about your... feelings or whatever." "No." "No." "No." "I wanted to thank you." "I didn't take it very well." "No, no, no, you were fine." "And your article's really good." "And I wanted to tell you that you should stick with it" " and I'll help you however I can." " Here's the good news." "You don't have to." ""Sports lllustrated" bought it!" "What?" "I sent it over there and they bought it." "They're gonna print it!" "Can you believe it?" "!" "Ha-ha!" "Yah!" "Wow!" "So I guess" " Debra thought I wasn't being encouraging." "but I guess whatever I did kind of helped." "Yes, yes." "In a way, yes." " What do you mean?" " Well..." "I didn't exactly take your notes." "I mean, I went home and I thought about it." "I decided I liked the way I had it and I sent it." "Oh." "Imagine that, man." "But thanks anyway." "Your notes were very good!" " Hey, monkeys." " Hi." " Hi, Daddy." " Hey." "Hi, hi, hi." "Hi." "Hey." " How you doing?" " Great." " What's for dinner?" " Fish." " What are the kids having?" " Peanut butter and jelly." "Oh?" "You're getting scrod." "Here's your mail." "very nice." "very nice. very nice." "Here's your "Sports lllustrated."" "very nice." "Wait a minute." "What was that?" "Oh, uh, I don't like it anymore." "So you're giving up reading altogether?" "I still have cereal boxes." "Unless Count Chocula suddenly lowers his standards." "Do you want to tell me what's going on here?" "Nothing. "Sports lllustrated" used to be good, now it's bad." "They have no credibility, no taste." "Oh, Ray." "Did "Sports lllustrated" reject you again?" "No." "As a matter of fact, I'm proud of those rejections now, 'cause that rag is amateurville Jack." "They're publishing Andy's thing." "Oh, that's great!" "No, it's not!" "But Ray, you should be happy." "Oh my gosh!" "'Cause you helped him." "Oh, oh, oh." "He didn't take your notes, did he?" "Ray... how did he get into the mint without your key?" "He knows the janitor." "You can't even enjoy his success." "I'm enjoying it, okay?" "Just, when that piece of crap comes out in "Sports lllustrated,"" "Andy's gonna be impossible." "'Cause he might think he's a real writer?" "Yeah." " And he might get full of himself." " Right." "And he might think he's as good as you." " You don't understand." " I understand." "Today was all about Andy and it wasn't about you." " No, no, no, no." " Yeah." "Come on, admit it." "You're a little self-centered." "Self-centered?" "!" "Yeah, all you can see is how this news affects you." "And can I tell you something?" "This isn't just with Andy." " Where is this coming from?" " It's coming from those of us orbiting around you." "You think I'm self-centered?" "Me?" "Me?" "Me?" "You know I-- I work hard." "I try to make enough money to feed this family." "I have to put up with friends who ask my advice and then ignore what I tell them." " Daddy!" " Then I put up with traffic." " Then I have to come home..." " Daddy!" "...and explain myself to a wife" " who thinks I'm self-centered..." " Daddy!" "...which makes me think-- I hear her!" "What is it, honey?" "I have 1 ,000 pennies." "Did you see that Daddy was talking, sweetie?" "And I would love to see those pennies later, okay?" "Huh?" "!" "No reading." "Hey, hey, what are you doing there?" "I'm cutting an English muffin." "You don't cut it." "You use a fork." "You don't use a fork to cut things." " Not to cut, to split." " What?" "Yeah, it says it right on the wrapper there." "Look at it." "Fork split." "Fork!" "With a fork!" "All that means is they've split it with a fork at the factory." "If they split it at the factory it'd be open already and I wouldn't have to talk to you!" "You want this or not?" "Not now." "Look what you've done with your knife!" "Not only have you killed the crannies, you smooshed them into the nooks!" "I'm gonna smoosh you into a nook." " Hey." " Hi, dear." " Want an English muffin?" " Don't do it, it's cut!" "Oh stop!" "Raymond, when they say on the box, fork split, doesn't that mean they've started it for you already?" "Like in the factory with a fork?" "Do you have any unopened toothbrushes?" " Oh course." "You need a toothbrush?" " Yeah, I need" " A blue medium, right?" " Right." " Robby!" " Ma, Robby moved out." " What, Ma?" " He still has to do laundry." "Robby, go into the cabinet and take out a new blue medium toothbrush for your brother." "The blue mediums are mine." "I'm taking them with me." "Robby, I said, get a blue medium toothbrush for your brother and bring it out right now!" "All right!" "I am not eating that!" "Eat that damn muffin." "Am I catching you at a bad time here?" "No, dear, we're just having breakfast." "Here you go." "That's yellow." " Oh." " Ma!" "I said a blue toothbrush, Robby!" "Why does it have to be blue?" "Because that's what I wanted." "What about what somebody else wants?" "Do you ever think about anyone else?" "Have you been talking to Debra about me?" "No, I've been talking to Debra about Andy." "I hear he got into "Sports lllustrated."" "Wow!" "That's national." "Oh, yes, it is, Daddy." "Correct me if I'm wrong, Raymond, but hasn't that been a lifelong dream of yours to get into "Sports lllustrated"?" "How does it feel?" "Listen, I'm happy for Andy, okay?" "I'm not self-centered." "What?" "What?" "!" "What are you laughing at?" "Not self-centered?" "Hey, I love you like a son, but you always were a pig for attention." " A pig for attention?" " Yeah, even as a baby you would cry and cry and cry." "Look at me, I got colic!" "Yeah, yeah." "Or how about every time you walk in the door?" "You know, there's always a reason." ""I got married." "I got kids."" ""I gotta have a blue medium toothbrush."" " You're wrong." " Yeah." "When do you ever come over just to say hello?" "The hello is implied." " Mom, am I self-centered?" " Of course you are, dear." "Aha!" "But you have every right to be." "You're very special." "Here we go." "All aboard!" "You are handsome, you are charming, you're successful." "You're a marvelous father and a beautiful son." "And you wonder how you turned out self-centered." "You're the one who's self-centered." "I slave over those muffins and you don't even have the decency to eat it because they're not sliced right!" "How about you?" "I got to eat my muffin your way!" " I'll eat the muffin." " No, you go upstairs and get your brother a blue toothbrush." "They're not all for you!" "What are you saying?" "I'm self-centered now?" "You?" "Definitely!" ""I can't buy clothes where normal people buy clothes!"" ""I need my own apartment." "Everyone shoots at me!"" " You're the one that's self-centered!" " Yes, he is." " But you are too." " Thank you." "Hey!" "I understand now." "I can live with yellow." "The goodbye is implied!" "Hey, "Sports lllustrated," huh?" "Forget about "Sports lllustrated."" "They rewrote my whole article." " The whole thing?" " The whole thing." "But they bought it." "So they must have liked something." "Apparently they liked that it was about sports." "They just didn't like the words I picked or the order I put them in." "That stinks." "But who needs them, right?" "You did a good job and you should keep at it and I'm here for you." "Thanks, Ray." "I should have listened to you." "A lot of what those guys had problems with was exactly what you had problems with." "Yeah-- oh yeah?" "What, the "Sports lllustrated" guys, yeah?" "They had the same problems?" "Yeah but-- did you mention that I gave you the notes?" " Kind of." " Yeah, they know who I am, right?" "I mean, do they know who I am?" "Maybe, I don't know." "What did they say when you mentioned me?" "I'm not sure, Ray." "I was kind of crying." "Oh yeah, yeah." "I'm sorry." "You weren't crying when you mentioned me, were you?" "What the hell happened here?" "Fork split."