copyright © 2002 Joshua Peskay

Mop and Bucket

By

Joshua Peskay

Lights Up

Guy sitting in chair roughly center stage, holding a block of cheese and very large kitchen knife. He should periodically eat bites of cheese off the knife throughout, wherever it seems appropriate.

Guy: I live alone in a house and though it does get messy, I don’t like to think of myself as a total slob.

Guy uses knife to slice of piece of cheese, eats cheese off knife.

Guy: I mopped the floors the other day. It had to be done. It was pretty traditional, you know, mop and bucket, Murphy’s Oil soap, scrub scrub. It went well I thought. I mopped my way out of the house and onto the front porch, set the mop and bucket aside and relaxed on the porch until the floors dried. The only thing that was left to do was put away the mop and bucket, but I figured that could wait while I tossed back a cold one out on the porch. That led to a couple more cold ones, then some room temperature ones, and then I remembered the Simpsons was on and I went inside to watch TV.

I kind of forgot about the mop and bucket.

Every day I would come home and think I really oughta clean that up, but somehow, I never did.

And gradually, over a period of weeks, or maybe it was months, it began to… evolve, into something more sinister.

Mop comes to life and moves a few feet across the stage.

Guy: One day, I came home and the mop was in the living room.

Guy walks up to mop.

Guy: How did you get here?

Mop: I don’t know.

Guy looks around.

Guy: Did you get here on your own?

Mop: No.

Guy: What are you doing here?

Mop: Nothing.

Guy: Okaaaaay.

Guy: (to audience) When you live alone, things like this can kind of creep you out, you know?

Guy moves downstage, mop moves again.

Guy: A few days later, I came home, and it was in the kitchen.

Guy: What are you doing in the kitchen?

Mop: Nothing.

Guy: How did you get here?

Mop: Took the bus.

Guy: Where did you get bus fare?

Mop: I took if off the coffee table.

Guy: Are you going to pay it back?

Mop: As soon as I can.

Guy: (to audience) I like to think of myself as a pretty laid back guy, but…you see, it was moving from room to room.

As guy says line above, Mop moves to bedroom and puts on guy’s shirt.

Guy: (walking back upstage, toward mop, who is now wearing his shirt) Now, that’s fucked up! You’re wearing my shirt.

Mop: It’s a nice shirt.

Guy: Yeah! It’s my shirt.

Mop: I don’t usually get to wear shirts.

Guy: No. You’re a mop.

Mop: I’ll give it back.

Guy: Are you gonna wash it first?

Mop: Of course, I’ll wash it.

Guy: (to audience) I started to have trouble sleeping. I’d be in bed, drifting in and out of sleep in this kind of half state that makes the nighttime seem like a thousand years, and I’d open my eyes and the mop and bucket would be there, looking at me. Clearly I should have cleaned it before, when I had a chance. But now I’m so tired.

Guy sets knife down on chair.

Guy: I’ll get to it later. I gotta sleep.

Guy lies down a few feet stage left of the knife. Mop and bucket crosses, picks up knife and begins moving toward guy as lights slowly fade.

Lights Down.

THIS SCRIPT IS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AND MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED, TRANSMITTED, PRINTED OR PERFORMED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

AUTHOR'S NOTES:
The pieces was written for one guy and one gal, but could be cast differently without a big problem.


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