"So you're stuck with Debra's parents for the whole weekend?" "We hardly get to see them." "So when they come to town, we want to spend as much time as possible with them." "I've been told that's how I feel." "I don't know." "There's something about Debra's mom." "She gives me the willies." "What about the husband?" "He's the weird one." "He got all that lotion on him." "He's all slick and moist like a beaver running through the woods." " Ray, could you get that?" " Come in!" " Get the door, Ray!" " All right!" "Come in!" " Hello, Raymond." " Hey, there..." "Debra!" "Happy Turkey's Eve, Raymond." "Hey, same to you." " Deb!" "Oh, okay." " Hi, Mom, Dad." "You made it!" " Mm-hmm, in record time." " Yeah?" "Your mother kept an eagle eye out for Smokeys." "Oh, Warren." " Hi, Grandma!" " Hey, kiddies." "Hi there, babies." "Oh, isn't this nice?" "Connecticut Grandma and Grandpa and regular Grandma and Grandpa." " Who wants Tootsie Pops?" " Me me me!" "Oh, Lois." " Hi, Marie." " Hi." "Marie, you're looking wonderful." "Oh, I just think I look like a wreck." "I've been helping Debra cook." "You can imagine." " I'll get the rest." " Oh, and Robert... how nice that you're here." "Oh, he had to go." "He's... he's passing a stone." "Could you get up, Frank?" "Would you give me those?" "Pants, Dad!" "Pants pants." "You want them up or down?" "What kind of party is this?" "You can never complain about my parents again, ever." "I mean it." " Okay, well, this is all of it." " Did you get that?" " Yeah." " Oh my goodness." "How long are your relatives staying, dear?" "Well, we hardly get to see them." "When they come to town, we want to spend as much time as possible with them." "This is for our trip to Baden-Baden in Germany." "It's in the Schwarzwald." " Right on the banks of the Oosbach." " Oosbach?" "There are plenty of places with funny names right here in the U.S." " That's enough, Frank." " Milwaukee." "Dad." "Lake Tahoe." "What's funny about that?" "Ta-hoe." "Actually," "Baden-Baden has the most amazing spa." "It is amazing, or as they say..." "I got spit all over me here." "Ooh!" "My yams!" " Plenty of marshmallows, right?" "!" " Of course!" "Because without the marshmallows, it's a damn vegetable!" "I know!" "I'm right in the middle of my yams, so, Ray, could you show my parents upstairs?" "Uh, yeah, all right." "It's just..." "it's up those stairs." "Take them up to their room, Ray!" "We hardly get to see you." "When you come, we want to spend as much time as possible with you." " Cape Cod!" " Okay." "Yeah, Dad, we get it!" "I like the "Cod" part." "So... this is it... the bedroom." "You mean," "Yeah, that's what I mean." "It's so nice of you to give up your room for us." "I hope we're not putting you out." "No no." "No, except for the part where I've got to get out." "Okay." "I'll just get my jammies." "You know what's the best thing to sleep in?" "A hotel?" "Nothing!" "Au naturel." "It really gives the body a sense of freedom, huh, honey?" "Oh, let freedom ring!" "Yeah..." "This is wunderbar." "Ah... nice firm mattress, huh?" "Oh, yeah." "This'll be great for my hip." "My pillow." "Debra." " Debra." " What?" "Does your father shower before he goes to bed?" "I don't know." "We have to get a new bed." "Would you just go to sleep?" "You should be happy to have normal people in the house for a change." "Hey, say what you want about my father, he's never been naked in our bed." "Except for that one Super Bowl." "You told me he was wearing underwear." "Just socks." "We got to get a new bed." " Where are you going?" " I'm thirsty." "You know... if you listen real careful, you can hear my pillow screaming." "Everybody's getting naked in my bed except me." "I'm getting something to drink." "Well, you have to do the homework." "I was doing the homework, Commandant!" "No, you weren't doing it right." "The binder says to list our partner's positive qualities with examples." "Now, have you done any of the..." "Fine!" "Warren is very very good at being controlling!" ""Controlling" has two L's." "Let me see what else you wrote." " Get away from me!" " Lois, show me what you wrote." "I don't want to look ridiculous this week." "That's right!" "All you care about is how you look." "Don't even want to go to this thing." "Why can't we go to Baden-Baden like we told everybody?" "This thing is going to be a waste of time." "You are so damn negative." "You don't think we need a little help?" "How about the sex?" "What about the sex?" "I am not withholding sex from you!" "I'm tired!" "Can I ever be tired?" "!" "Is that allowed?" "!" "Well, I'm never too tired." "We're both down on this." "That's a good quality." "Oh, yes." "You'd like for everyone to see that, wouldn't you?" "What?" "All of a sudden, discussing our sex life is verboten?" "Ech!" "That face!" " What face?" " Your language face!" "Verboten?" "Oosbach?" " I never make that face!" " You have a face for everything." "Here is your how-is-my-hair face." "Oh, and my favorite," ""We're out of vermouth?"" "I need the vermouth to put up with your phoniness." ""Oh, we're off to Baden-Baden."" ""Oh, Robert, how wonderful... to see you again."" "Come on, you know the guy freaks you out." "You are exactly the same." "And these are not the people to tell that you're going to marriage counseling!" " It's only for a week." " Oh, yes!" "Only a week of marriage counseling in New Jersey." "It's like getting shot and then hung!" "Hanged." "What's going on?" "What happened to you last night?" "Did you go to over to your parents' to sleep?" "Why didn't I think of that?" "No, I slept in the damn garage." "What?" "You slept in the car?" "No." "I slept on the sled." "Honey, why?" "I was trapped down there." "Your parents were down here yapping and..." "I fell asleep waiting for them to go upstairs." "What, so you were hiding from them?" "They were talking about personal stuff." "So?" "You want to know what they were saying?" ""What's that smell in the garage?"" "It was about their trip." "Their fakey-fake trip." "To that foreign place." "What, Baden-Baden?" "Mmm, see?" "You want to know." "They're not really going there." "They're going to New Jersey." "New Jersey?" "For a week with a marriage counselor." "That's right!" ""Huh"?" "That's all you're going to say, "Huh"?" "Come on, this is big doings here, sister, huh?" "She... he hates that she's a phony, and she hates his Oosbach face." "You know what, Ray?" "It's a private matter." "And my parents, unlike yours, don't feel the need to inflict their lives on everybody else." "Or, maybe they're a little embarrassed, because as it turns out, they're not so perfect." "Yeah, or maybe they're just trying to work out their problems before their marriage degenerates into a screaming match like your parents." "Arguing about how deep a pan is before it's a pot." ""If it's three inches, it's a pot!" "Everybody knows that, Marie!"" ""If you can't boil an egg in it, it's not a pot, you jackass!"" "Hey, either way, your perfect little Connecticut oh-make-sure-you-cut-the-crust- off-my-cucumber- sandwich parents are frauds!" "You listen." "If my parents lit an orphanage on fire on Christmas Eve, they wouldn't be as bad as your parents!" " Huh?" " Yeah." "Oh!" "You dropped the turkey." "You dropped it." "I always wondered where the flavor came from." "No running on Thanksgiving." "Where am I sitting today, Deb?" "Between my mom and your mom." "Got any hard cider?" "Ah, the parade is on." "I love the parade." " What are you doing?" " What?" "You turned off the parade just 'cause I said I loved it?" "That was a coincidence." "Well... change it back." "No." "I'm scraping the marshmallows off the yams." "Your parents are a treasure." "Hey hey, happy Turkey Day!" "Thanks again for the lovely accommodations." "The coziest BB on Long Island." "Think it'll be as cozy over in Europe?" " Oh, I doubt it." " Yeah, so do I." "So where you keeping the libations locked up?" "It's got to be after 5:00 somewhere in the world." "I'm with you, Warren." "Let's get snockered." "Uh, Debra?" "Let me help you." "Thanks, Mom." "Yeah, right here." " So, how's it going?" " Yeah, how's it going?" " Everything's fine." " Yeah?" "I bet you're really excited about your trip to Haagen-Daagen." " Ray." " What?" "I'm having a conversation." "I can't talk to my... wife's mother?" "Pumpkin, can I interest you in an aperitif?" "Oh, that would be lovely." "Hey, Marie!" "Beer!" "Get it yourself!" " Here you are, meine Liebchen." " Oh, thank you, darling." " Just the way I like it." "Wunderbar!" " Mom." " Mom, that's enough." " What do you mean, dear?" "It's enough, okay?" "I know." "What?" "What's enough?" "What do you know?" "What?" "Nothing, Marie." "It's private." "Private?" "What do you mean "private"?" "Hey, private." "You know what?" "It's nothing, really." "I don't know what I'm talking about." "I'm sorry about that, Mom." "Okay!" "Let's all eat." "That sounds like a good idea, Debra." "Everything looks delicious." " Good." "Mom, you sit here." "Dad, sit..." " No." "What?" " I don't want to do this anymore." " Warren." "No, I don't have anything to hide." "I'm tired of these pretensions." "I'm tired of this charade." "As it happens, we're not going to Baden-Baden this week." "We're going to..." "Piscataway." "Hey, that's funny sounding." "Lois and I are going for a week of marriage counseling." "Well, it's not a full week." " Can't we talk about something else?" " Yeah." "Robert, has your stone passed?" "I will never understand you." "I'm sorry, but it's not healthy to go on pretending that everything is fine when it isn't." " You want to put the turkey down?" " No." "Who are you to talk about healthy with your anal-retentive behavior?" "Why don't you tell everyone about how you keep your left socks in your left drawer and right socks in your right drawer." "What's wrong with that?" "Maybe Dr. Sheely will have something to say about all of your pent up hostility." " My hostility?" " That's right!" "You ought to see this woman in traffic." " Curses like a stevedore!" " Not because of the traffic, Warren." "It's because of your insane whistling!" "This whistling drowns out the profanity!" "Well pucker up, Warren!" " Because here it comes!" " Okay, Mom, Dad." " Please, just calm down!" " Why did you tell Debra about this?" "!" " I didn't tell Debra!" " Then how did she know?" "!" "Ray heard you!" "He was hiding in the garage!" "I wasn't hiding." "All right, I checked the oil, okay." "And it's a good thing I did, because we were a quart low." "Well, wonderful!" "Now everybody knows!" "I hope you're happy, Warren!" "Sweet bastard, I'm getting happy!" "Is everything all right, dear?" "He is just impossible." "Go on." " Mom?" "Are you..." " It's all right, dear." "We're talking." "I am so tired of my opinion counting for nothing!" "Everything has to be his way!" "I swear, ever since he retired, it's not like I'm his wife anymore," "I'm his employee, and it's all I can do to keep from strangling him." "I feel so close to you." "Do you know he makes me iron his jeans?" "He insists that they have a crease." "At least he can wear jeans." "The last time I got a pair for Frank, it was from the maternity jeans." "And I told him they were just stretchy." "Oh my God." "Hey, your parents seem to be doing okay." "It's nice." "It's not nice." "My father just said, "Holy crap."" "What?" "You always wanted our parents to get along." "Yeah, but I didn't want my parents to convert." " Look at them." " You were right, Marie." "Debra could get this rug a lot cleaner." "Oh, Frank, I got to tell you." "I overdid it this year." "You know what you need, pal?" "A pair of my special stretchy pants."