This Might Be Risotto

     (A group of cavemen sit around a fire.)

KRORG:  Blerg, I have to tell you--

BLERG:  Yeah?

KRORG:  This? What you made? With the forest specks? It's delicious.

BLERG:  Aw, thank you.

SPLANG:  It's true, Blerg. This is--I've never had anything like it.

BLERG:  Wow. I mean, it took me a long time, but I wasn't sure that would mean it was good. Remember when I baked that rock for three days and we still couldn't eat it?

KRORG:  Flerm managed to get a few bites down before he keeled over and died.

SPLANG:  What did you do to these forest specks? They've never tasted this good.

BLERG:  I just boiled them in the bubble fruit juice I make in my cave.

KRORG:  So you just poured all the bubble fruit juice into the--

BLERG:  No, no, I added it slowly. A little bit at a time. One handful. Let that dissolve. Added a little bit more.

SPLANG:  I wonder if that's why it tastes so good.

BLERG:  Well, to be honest with you, this wasn't my first attempt at making it.

SPLANG:  No?

BLERG:  No. I had to keep trying it with different amounts. First half a handful, then a quarter of a handful, but it turns out, I just needed the whole handful.

KRORG:  Did you carve any of this into the wall on the cooking cave?

BLERG:  Why would I do that?

KRORG:  In case, you know, you want to make it again.

BLERG:  Oh, don't worry, I'll remember how to make it. I have a very good memory for that kind of thing.

SPLANG:  But what if we want to make it without you?

     (A beat.)

BLERG:  Why would you do that?

SPLANG:  Because, you know, the men in this tribe don't tend to...live very long--

KRORG:  That's because the rocks around here are so inedible.

SPLANG:  And if something should happen to you, it would be nice to know we could make this delicious meal again.

BLERG:  Well. I guess you can't.

KRORG:  We...could. You just have to...carve it out.

BLERG:  I'd rather not.

SPLANG:  Why not?

BLERG:  Because it's mine. I made it. You can't just go making it without me. Either I make it or it doesn't get made.

KRORG:  Blerg, why are you being this way?  We all make different things for mealtime. Splang makes roasted tree bark. I make water with some stuff in it.

SPLANG:  You never tell us what the stuff is.

KRORG:  It doesn't matter.

SPLANG:  It's beetle shells, isn't it?

KRORG:  I don't give away my secrets.

BLERG:  And I'm not giving away mine!  If you want to eat this meal, you need to ask me, and if I'm feeling up to it, I'll make it for you.

SPLANG:  So you might not make this again next week when it's your turn to cook?

BLERG:  Maybe I won't. As I said, it took me quite awhile.

KRORG:  Will you make something equally delicious?

BLERG:  I'm not comfortable making any promises right now.

SPLANG:  But I don't want to wait until you're ready to make this again. I don't even want to wait a week. You need to make more of this immediately.

KRORG:  She's right, Krorg. Look what you did. You made a woman be right. You have to pay for that. Your punishment shall be making more of this speck boiled in bubble fruit juice.

BLERG:  Risotto.

KRORG/SPLANG:  What?

BLERG:  I've decided to call it risotto. I made risotto.

SPLANG:  What's risotto?

BLERG:  It's whatever this is.

KRORG:  So you're just naming things now?

BLERG:  It's my thing. I'm allowed to name it.

KRORG:  So you own the forest specks?

BLERG:  They're not even really forest specks. We just find them in the forest. We have every reason to think they come from that field we're scared to go into because the Big Teeth Little Arms hang out there and they just drop them throughout the forest because their little hands can't hold onto them.

SPLANG:  And do you own the bubble fruit juice?

BLERG:  Nobody would even know that bubble fruit produces juice if I hadn't stepped on one accidentally and then stuck my finger in the mess and tasted it!

KRORG:  The point is, Blerg, this is a community. We commune here. That means nothing belongs to anybody and everybody can make demands of each other, like how we're demanding that you make more of this schmicky sticky.

BLERG:  What?

KRORG:  That's what we're calling it.

SPLANG:  I love that name.

BLERG:  It is called risotto.

KRORG:  You didn't ask if you could call it that.

BLERG:  I don't have to ask.

SPLANG:  I vote for schmicky sticky.

BLERG:  We're not voting.

SPLANG:  I vote to vote and I vote for schmicky sticky and I vote that Blerg has to make this three times a day forever.

KRORG:  I second all of those motions.

BLERG:  What are motions?

     (KRORG raises his hand.)

KRORG:  It's when you motion with you hand to do something and the other people motion their hands the same way.  See?

BLERG:  You can't force me to make more of this.

SPLANG:  But why would you not want to?  It's so tasty!

KRORG:  Don't you want to eat more of it?

BLERG:  Of course I do, but I would also like some credit.

KRORG:  What is credit?

BLERG:  It's when you say 'Blerg, you did this and nobody else and you are better than all of us.'

SPLANG:  Do we have to say it just like that?

BLERG:  Yes.

SPLANG:  I mean, I do want more schmicky stick--

BLERG:  And you have to let the person name the thing they did because they are in charge of it and nobody else and if you love it, you have to love them to.

KRORG:  Suddenly, the schmicky stick doesn't taste as good.

SPLANG:  Don't be an idiot, Krorg. We've never had meals this good.  The closest we ever came was that time the Long Arms One Horn fell into the fire and I accidentally spilled the green mush on it at the same time.

KRORG:  Maybe a Long Arms One Horn will fall into the fire again?

SPLANG:  I'm not sitting around waiting for that!  If Blerg will make us more of this...risotto--

     (KRORG gasps.)

KRORG:  Traitor.

SPLANG:  Then I am willing to meet his demands.

BLERG:  What do you say Krorg?  Tomorrow night is your night to cook. I will gladly take the job off your hands and slave away in the cooking cave unless you'd rather go chasing beetles around all day.

KRORG:  I do hate chasing beetles. But there must be give and take.

BLERG:  Yes, I give you risotto and you take it.

KRORG:  No, I mean, you have to be unhappy about something. That's how negotiation works.

BLERG:  I'm not happy that I have to toil away making this, but--

SPLANG:  You have to carve it out!

BLERG:  I already said--

SPLANG:  Blerg, if it really is as hard to make risotto as you say it is, do you honestly think any of us will try to do it even if you tell us how?

KRORG:  If anything, I'll just look at the instructions a bunch of times and wish somebody would make it for me so I don't have to.

     (A beat. BLERG thinks this over.)

BLERG:  It is true that you both are very lazy. As is everyone else in this tribe. We're still waiting on Oomph to finish making Round Thing.

SPLANG:  We'll be dead before he finishes Round Thing.

BLERG:  All right. I will carve the instructions for risotto and make it for you all every night if you continually shower me with praise, and, every few months, give me some kind of award.

KRORG:  What is an award?

BLERG:  It is a little piece of rock with a picture of me carved into it and a star next to the picture indicating that I am better than everyone that ever lived.

SPLANG:  Who has to carve the rock?

BLERG:  I can do it, but then somebody else has to hand it to me.

KRORG:  I'll hand it to you!

BLERG:  And you have to make a little speech about how great I am before you hand it to me, and then I will make a larger speech about how great I am where I pretend I'm not great and that you all helped me be great, but really I'm the greatest and everybody knows it.

SPLANG:  Can we eat risotto while you make the speech?

BLERG:  Sure.

SPLANG:  Works for me.

KRORG:  My goodness. Who knew making risotto was so complicated?

     End of Play