"Oh, yeah." "Oh, yeah." "Excuse me, miss." "Is this man bothering you?" "Bud, I warned you about eating all that cheese." "Where are the old people?" "Well, Dad's down at the store." "They're having that midnight sale." "You probably heard it on the radio." "They keep playing that old song, "After Midnight We're Gonna Sell a Lot of Shoes."" "Work's a bummer." "I'm glad I'm a pretty girl so I'll never have to." " Oh, that reminds me." "Where's Mom?" " Oh, she went to pick him up." "We got a call." "Something about him flipping out." "After midnight, we're gonna sell a lot of shoes." " Hi, Daddy." " Hello, miss." "You wanna buy a lot of shoes?" " I have shoes, Daddy." " He doesn't recognize you, honey." "Shoes?" "Come on, sweetheart, sit down over here." "We're home now, sweetie." "You remember." "Two kids, a dog." "A room upstairs where you disappoint your wife." "Well, there's only one way to snap him out of this." "That's how I like to see you." "Oh, Peg, it was horrible." "Sixteen straight hours of shoe- selling mayhem." "Last thing I remember, I was down on one knee waiting on an overflowing glacier of a woman." "First thing they teach you when you're a rookie shoe salesman is when you got a fat one in the chair, never look up." "Well, I looked up, Peg." "I saw underwear." "It said "Saturday."" " So what?" " Today's Wednesday!" "Anyway, the next thing I knew, I was insane." "Take a good look at your future, rat boy." "So, honey, tell us what the doctor said." "Well, he found two interesting things." "That's two more than I've ever found, I wonder where he was looking." "I'm just kidding, honey." "We really do care." "So, what did the doctor say?" "Well, he said from your home cooking my stomach is the size of a quarter and that I suffer from stress." "Stress?" "How could you get stress?" "You don't do anything but get up and go to work." "Well, maybe he got it from a toilet seat." "It would have shown up long before this, honey." "Stress." "Al, that is ridiculous." "How in the world would someone like you get stress?" "Well, the doctor thinks it might be the wife." "Well, very nice." "So now it's my fault that you have a go-nowhere job and absolutely no ambition at all." "Why, you know, if it wasn't for me telling you day after day to get up, get to work and do something, for God's sake you wouldn't be bringing home the chump change that you are." "Stress." "Mom, don't you think that we should be nice to Daddy?" "You know, with him being out of his M-l-N-E-D." "Yes, honey, you're right." "It is the woman's lot in life to always carry the man." "Always the helper, never the helped." "So, what did the doctor say you should do, you big sissy?" "Well, he said I should maybe find myself a relaxing hobby." "You know, start a vegetable garden." "A vegetable garden?" "Well, you started one of those when you had Kelly." "Hey I thought we were supposed to be making fun of Dad here." "You're right, honey." "A vegetable garden." "Can you see your father in a vegetable garden?" "Hey, I can see myself in a vegetable garden." "Out in the open air, working with the land and growing stuff and eating it." "Yep, that's what I'm gonna do." "I'm gonna grow myself the bestest vegetable garden in the world." "I'm gonna grow me beans and tomatoes, potatoes." "Ham and corn." "Fish." "Fish, them little shrimps that I like." "Bread." "Home- grown bread." "And butter." "And pizza with extra cheese." "Kids, does anyone else sense doom around here?" "Vegetable garden" "I think we all sense it, Mom." "Corn" "Kids, soon all this will be yours." "Well, golly." "Hey, where'd you learn to farm and speak like a hick, Daddy?" "Well, kids, all you really need for farming is the right tools a farming state of mind and your very own copy of Farmer Iggy's Almanac." "Let's see what the lggster has to say this morning." "" Plant in the morning, vegetables a-borning."" "Thanks a lot, Mom." "Keen choice of dads." "Look, Peg, the corn is as high as an elephant's eye." "Oh, honey, I couldn't be prouder of you if you thought you were Napoleon." "Come, look at my beans, Peg." "Been a long time since you've seen a bean that size, eh, babe?" "Yeah, you sure know how to grow them, honey." "Soon we will have a bountiful harvest." "And you'll be cooking, a-canning and a-serving." "And I'll be eating, a-belching and a-purging." "Yep, it's been a long time since we've been this happy, eh, babe?" "Wanna cheek a Red Man?" " You're still not well, are you?" " Not by a long shot." "But I'm happy." "And get thee in the house, woman." "As Farmer lggy says:" ""Wife standing near, soon comes a tear."" "Well, I thought she'd never leave." "Now it's just you and me, eh, guys?" "Old McBundy had a farm B-U-N-D-Y" "And on this farm there was no wife B-U-N-D-Y" "With a no wife here And a no kids there" "A hooker coming over On Friday nights" "With big luscious hooters And a pizza and a beer there" "Old McBundy had a farm B-U-N-D-Y" "I never felt so relaxed." "Hey, rabbit!" "Give me back my carrots." "Bite me, will you?" "Well, listen to this, buddy:" "No one bites Al Bundy and lives!" "Kiss your bonny bunny butt goodbye, rabbit." "Because you're one dead..." "Peg, he peed on me!" "Hey, Kel, did you hear about Billy's dad?" "He just made vice president of his company." "Hey, Bud, did you know that Holly's dad after many long years of work, started his own company?" "Well, this must be the year of the successful dad." "Let's see how yours is doing." "Let's see if you can swim as well as you can steal, you bucktoothed bandit." "Is he not successful too who foams from the mouth and lies sputtering on the ground?" "Gardening has calmed me down and you just can't stand it, can you?" "You'll be cheering me when this bunny comes floating belly up." "Yeah, you'll be a real hero, Dad." "We can hear them singing now:" "" Killed him a bunny when he was 43."" "No rabbit's foot for you, young lady." "Dad, you've had the hose on for four hours and the ground isn't wet." " Where's all that water going?" " How should I know where it's going?" "I don't know where it's coming from when it comes out of the hose." "I just..." "I just wish I could go with it." "I hear some squishing sounds." "What did you do?" "Hey, Marcie." " What happened to you?" " What happened to me?" "I finally got a date." "A successful man." "A handsome man." "Sure, he was married, but he was gonna leave her." "He told me so." "He told me his wife didn't understand him." "Like what's so hard to understand about a 40-year-old man who likes to be spanked for his sins?" "Anyway, we get back to my house I open the door and step into my living-room pond." "It seems that some idiot stuck a hose in the ground and left the water on all day." "So I was wondering, have you seen an idiot with a hose anywhere?" "Marcie, you've given me a good idea." "Bring your head here by the hole." "He'll think it's a cabbage and we'll have him." "Look, Al, we all appreciate the fact that you're insane and that you need a relaxing hobby, but maybe this gardening thing is just a little too challenging at this point in your life." "Have you tried Silly Putty on the comics page?" "He has, he just couldn't get the egg open." "Oh, well." "I will be sending you a bill for the damage." "And if you do not pay, I will sue you for everything you've got." "And that includes my garbage cans." "Great, that leaves us with nothing in the will." "Well, I guess we're just gonna have to make it on our good looks." "See you on skid row, bacon face." "We're all getting cranky, Al." " Did you get that rabbit yet?" " Are you kidding me?" "I must've poured a million gallons of water down that hole." "I flooded the whole block and every living thing in it." "Now, if that rabbit's still alive I'm yours tonight." "You know, the sad part is I don't really want him." "But a promise is a promise." "Now look what you've done!" "You haven't seen the worst of me, I'm telling you!" "I'll get you for this." "I'll make you pay for this, I'm telling you!" "Okay, I'm all through with the poison now." "You can take off your masks." "Not you, Peg." "Yours wasn't working anyway." "Bud, Dad said that you could take your mask off." " Eat Dad's okra." " Lick his onions." "Kids!" "Kids, let's not forget that Daddy is the enemy here." "There, now that's better." "Honey, do you think it's wise to indiscriminately spray poison on a windy day?" "If you wanna make a rabbit omelette, sometimes you gotta break some eggs." "But don't worry about it." "I read the directions very carefully." "It's nontoxic to everything but rabbits." "Hi there." "Anyone been spraying poison?" "Why do you ask?" "Well, there I was, out in our back yard, you know drying my TV from the flooding when a bald eagle came to drink from my bird feeder." "We haven't had a bald eagle spotted in this area for years." "I know." "They're very rare and beautiful." "Except when they're twitching and hacking their guts out on my lawn." "You really should have seen it, it was quite an excruciating death." "Way to go, Al." "Why don't you throw one of your socks out the window and try for the last dodo?" "Well, I like to think that I'm the last dodo, Peg." "But more importantly, I'm gonna have some vegetables." "Because there's no way that rabbit could have survived that death cloud I let loose on the neighbourhood." "It lives." "Okay, fine." "I didn't ask for a hobby." "I hate vegetables." "But I need that garden to relieve my stress, damn it!" "And I will have that garden if I have to kill every single living thing in this entire stinking planet." "This is war." "Al, what are you doing?" "Be very, very quiet." "I'm hunting rabbit." "Oh, boy." "Daddy, let me give you some advice." "I've been watching these television shows about rabbits." "Don't put the barrel of the gun down the hole." "Because what they do is they'll tie it in a knot so that it explodes in your face." "Or sometimes what they'll do is they'll make it really long and curved so that it comes up from a hole behind you and you shoot yourself in the butt." "To be forewarned is to have four arms." "Well, Princeton's loss is the Gap's gain." "Oh, Mr. Rabbit..." "Well, at least he didn't shoot himself in the foot." "Give him a minute." "Oh, my foot!" "What's he doing now?" "Well, he's got the flamethrower he's aiming it at the hole." "He shoots and misses." " Garden on fire?" " Yep." "And so is Mrs. Rhoades' fence." "Whoa, look at her big tree go." "Well, at least he didn't shoot himself in the foot." "Give him a minute." "Oh, my foot!" "I'm on fire!" "I'm on fire!" "So this is how it ends, eh, Mom?" "As long as it ends." " Daddy?" " What?" "Nothing." "Good." "Now, I put this down his little hole and I light the fuse and, " Bye- bye, rabbit."" "The fuse is lit, and we'll be hit by bunny bits any second now." "Now do you see the importance of an education, kids?" "Dad, before your fingers hit pay dirt you sure you didn't use too much dynamite?" "If dynamite was dangerous, do you think they'd sell it to an idiot like me?" "Now, nothing can go wrong." "I've taken every precaution." "Including making sure it was nowhere near a gas line?" "Hit the dirt." "You know, it's such a beautiful day." "I hardly miss the house at all." "It was a nice explosion, wasn't it?" "But on the good side, the ensuing fire did dry out my living room." "But the sun would have done that anyway since I no longer have a roof." "Well, that's odd." "We have two." "Yeah, one for each wall in my room." "Nobody's asked me how my stress is." "Oh, we're sorry." "How's your stress, lint-for-brains?" "I'm mellow." "You know why?" "You don't see a rabbit out here, do you?" "Sure don't, honey." "You did real good." "That's all I wanted to hear." "You know, I really feel good." "Carrot?" "That's Al, folks."