….brought to you by the English Majors of America.

(ORGAN STING)

GK: It's the question that a married man has come to dread.

SS: Notice anything different about me?

GK: There are so many possible answers and you want to get the right one.

SS: Notice anything? (MUSIC UNDER, SUSPENSE)

GK: You don't want to say, "You got a haircut," if the correct answer is----

SS: I've been gone for the past three weeks. I was in the hospital. My left leg has been amputated. I lost my hair.

GK: On the other hand, you don't want to stall for time and hem and haw if the answer is something pretty obvious.

SS: I lost a hundred pounds and I'm buck naked and I'm covered with corn oil.

GK: So most men, when their wives ask----

SS: Notice anything different about me?

GK: We say, Excuse me, Be right back, I think I hear that raccoon in the backyard (FAST FOOTSTEPS, DOOR OPEN, CLOSE) and we go around back and look in through the kitchen window at her----- and study her----- Looks about the same. Hair. Blouse. Sweater. I've seen those before. Hasn't lost weight. Well, I guess I'll just try the old English major ploy. (FAST FOOTSTEPS ON GRAVEL. DOOR OPEN, CLOSE. FAST FOOTSTEPS.) Okay. No signs of the raccoon. What were you asking me a minute ago, honey?

SS: You notice anything different about me?

GK: Yes. Your face. It's absolutely luminous. One could even say, refulgent.

SS: Refulgent?

GK: Shining. With a luminosity from within.

SS: Well, how sweet. You really think so?

GK: I know so. Those filigrees of brunette hair curving onto your alabaster brow, your radiant eyes, your sable lashes like pendant finials, your swanlike neck and your voluptuous yet lissome figure under that diaphanous blouse, and most of all, your luminous refulgence. That's what's different about you.

SS: Wow.

GK: What did you think was different about you?

SS: I was only wondering if you noticed that I had my lower lip pierced and a large wooden disc inserted in it.

GK: Compared to your luminous refulgence, I don't think that the disc in your lip is that important somehow.

SS: Wow. What a guy.

GK: Only an English major knows the words she wants to hear. Words like luminous. And refulgent.

SS: You're pretty refulgent yourself, big boy.

GK: A message from the English Majors of America.

(c) 2001 by Garrison Keillor