La frontiere de l’aube (2008), from European Son

--

Lights on. Onstage, the italian bartender with the brown beret and the tourist - middle-aged, middle-classed. Yours truly sits at a corner, pen in hand.

Bartender: What brings you to Monaco? Work?

Tourist: No.

Bartender: Holiday?

Tourist: No. There was a girl... [Finishes his beer.]

Bartender: I'll file that under work then. [Pours tourist another.] Say, I have a joke for you. Back in the day, God called Adam and said "Adam, I have good news and bad news," and Adam said "It's such a beautiful, sunny day, gimme the good news." And god says: "Adam, I gave you a brain to think with and sex to reproduce with." But Adam is confused, he says: "God, I don't understand. This sounds great - what's the bad news?" "I'm sorry son," God says, "you only have blood enough to use one at a time."

Tourist: We've been suffering ever since.

Bartender: It is always the same story with love. If one person loves another, the other's never as interested.

They toast and speak no more.

--

Happy Valentine's Day,

(Grumpy Love by M.H. Jeeves)