Narrator:

You haven't lived until you've had a listen into a true family show that champions family values, family meals and family troubles.

Listen in with us now as we peek in on a typical American family involved with typical American problems. Welcome to "I Married Tom".

The family is at the dinner table, having just begun on a delicious example of American home cooking prepared by the mother and wife, Zelda, who now speaks.


Zelda: Oy, dat vas a gute idea, to make inztant oatmeals.


Amy: Mother, dear, why are you talking like that?


Zelda: Got something caught in my tooth... Ah, there it is!

SFX: FWEE! SMECK!


Teddy: Aw, mom, you got me in the eye!


Zelda: I'm sorry. Are you injured?


Teddy: Is it bleeding?


Tom: Now, son, you shouldn't use such language at the table.


Teddy: I'm sorry. I forgot myself.


Zelda: Well, don't do it again. You shouldn't mention the bodily functions at the table.


Amy: That's right, not while everyone is trying to eat.


Tom: Little lady, that goes for you, too! You heard what your brother was just told. Now listen and behave.


Amy: All I said was...


Zelda: We heard you, it's enough. Now, no more of that, you'll make me lose my appetite.


Tom: Now, dear, you can't ask your children to do something you're not willing to do yourself. We have to provide a good example as long as we are parents with children in the house. If you all keep this up, I shall have no digestion at all.

SFX: Silence
Tom: Why are you all looking at me? I didn't say... oh. I guess I did, didn't I?


Amy: Yes. Some example.


Zelda: Now, young lady, don't talk to your father like that.


Amy: He's not my father.


Tom: Where did you get that idea?


Amy: I heard Granma say I had the milkman's eyes.


Zelda: That was just a joke, dear. Your father was a milkman when I met him.


Tom: You promised not to tell anyone! I want a divorce!


Amy: Mom, I'm sorry. What's wrong with being a milkman?


Zelda: I'm sure I don't know, dear. It's just a thing your father has.



Tom: Don't talk about me like I'm addled.


Zelda: I didn't say anything like that, dear.


Tom: It sounded like it. I can have my secrets if I wish.


Zelda: Dear, the whole town knew. How could they not? You were the only milkman.


Tom: But the children did not know.


Teddy: Why would you want to keep that a secret from us, Dad?


Tom: I refuse to discuss that. You'll just laugh at me.


Amy: We promise we won't. Gee, Dad, you treat us like strangers. Don't you know us by now?


Narrator: Later that evening, in the marital bedroom, with two beds separated by approximately four feet of space and two nightstands...



Zelda: Dear, you've never even mentioned the word divorce to me, not even in connection with others.


Tom: That's because I didn't want you to see the covetous gleam in my eye.


Zelda: I see.


Tom: Why can't you keep a secret?


Zelda: Why can't you keep perspective? It was my mother who brought it up... or your mother. Amy didn't specify. Am a I supposed to keep a secret the granmas can't?


Tom: You gave it away by explaining the joke. All you had to say was it was a joke. You didn't have to explain.


Zelda: It would have been much more embarrassing if someone had told Amy what the joke really meant.


Tom: And who might have done that?


Zelda: Oh, I don't know. Anyone might. A teacher, another parent, a priest. I might have, given other circumstances.


Tom: I don't want my kid's heads filled with filth.


Zelda: But, dear, if you don't fill them with what you want them filled with, then anything can seep into the void.


Tom: I'm tired of this 'child psychology' stuff. Why can't you just do as I ask? I know you went to college a few years, but I've been out in the real world...


Zelda: So, that's it! You don't want the children to think I'm better educated than you...


Tom: No, I don't want them to think I'm only good for making a living. That I'm stuck being a nobody.


Zelda: A milk man isn't nobody. You would never have the success you have as a paper clip salesman if you hadn't come to know everyone in town as a milkman.


Tom: Maybe. But you design aircraft in your spare time and correspond with Enrico Fermi.


Zelda: Oh, honey, don't worry yourself. The children aren't concerned with how smart you are, but with how bitter you are. If you could just resign yourself with being happy with who you are...


Tom: Are you saying that I'm too stupid to go to college?


Zelda: No, I'm saying we are who we are and we are married to each other because we found a common ground. The children are confused enough by childhood without out adding to it by showing them how confusing adulthood is. They'll find out in time.


Tom: More college junk! I want to be listened to! I want to be obeyed! I work hard and I want some respect for that!


Zelda: Regardless of how we really feel?


Tom: What do you mean? We? Are you saying you and the kids are ganging up against me?


Zelda: Do you want to write a script for us? You're the one who's against something. Your wife and your children being normal, that's what!


Tom: Oh, it's not normal for a father to be treated like a father? It's not normal to get some return on the investment I've put into my family?


Zelda: Are we deductable? I liked you better when you were a milkman. You didn't have delusions of superiority then.


Tom: I liked you better when you said 'Yes, Dear', no matter what I said.


Zelda: Well, I had to drink to do it. I was afraid you would hit me, you always coming home enraged at the world and horses.


Tom: How come I never smelled it?


Zelda: With your nose full of sour milk and horse?


Tom: So our marriage is a sham. You don't deserve me. I've never hidden anything from you.


Zelda: You can't.


Tom: I've never tried.


Zelda: Neither have I. You just can't see anything but yourself. You want the whole world to mirror you.


Tom: I am not selfish.


Zelda: Sure you are! We all are! It's how we maintain what little sanity we have.


Tom: Who's we? You and the kids, again?


Zelda: Lord, no... Everyone. You're only human. Salesman of the year in a two-man company does not qualify you for sainthood.


Tom: Are you making fun of me? Me, who go to bring the beer to the Elk's Annual Dinner ten years in a row?


Zelda: I've been meaning to talk to you about that.


Tom: I'm entitled to do something besides work my behind off and listen to you and the children belittle me. The Elks accept me for who I am.


Zelda: I don't doubt it. They let you bring the cards, too, don't they? Soon you'll be honored with bringing the pretzels.


Tom: I know that tone. You're being sarcastic. I don't see why you can't just leave me and the children alone. You're always trying to change us. You're never satisfied. There are rules in this house and they are simple...


Zelda: Don't bother Daddy with thoughts, don't bother Daddy with facts, and don't bother Daddy with feelings. Did I miss anything?


Tom: You want a fight? Is that what you want? Are you trying to wake up the kids so you can make me look like a moron again?


Zelda: You don't need any help.


Tom: Ah, sarcasm again. Don't you have any respect for me?


Zelda: Oh, sure, when you stick to what you know. When you start believing that you should know everything regardless of your abilities, then I can't respect something that doesn't exist.


Tom: So, how do you know so much more than me so that you can tell when I don't know what I'm talking about?


Zelda: It's simple. The wider you open your mouth, the less likely it is to spit out the truth.


Tom: I'm not a liar.


Zelda: Maybe. But you don't bother to make sure you're telling the truth.


Tom: You're calling me a liar!


Zelda: I am not.


Tom: Then you're calling me ignorant.


Zelda: Maybe. The more you really know, the less you realize you know. That applies to me, too.


Tom: You just said I don't know anything and I'm too stupid to realize it!


Zelda: Maybe.


Tom: What's with this 'maybe'? Either you're insulting me or you're not!


Zelda: You don't need any help there. You can offend yourself.


Tom: I wear deodorant.


Zelda: Not in your mind.


Tom: What do you mean by that?


Zelda: Some of your ideas stink. You've held on to them so long without looking at them that they've begun to rot.


Tom: So, why don't you just get away from me? Why don't you go away and leave 'stinking' me behind?


Zelda: I don't have to go anywhere to leave you behind. You've put on the brakes. You don't think about anything but your job and how nobody appreciates you.


Tom: I pay the bills. I should be appreciated for that.


Zelda: Okay. What else?


Tom: Isn't that enough?


Zelda: No. You should be appreciated for how you treat your friends and family.


Tom: Okay.


Zelda: You treat them like employees.


Tom: Okay.


Zelda: And they don't appreciate it. I don't appreciate it. And neither do you.


Tom: Okay. So what? If I'm living without their appreciation then I can live without it.


Zelda: You go away all day, sometimes all week, then come home and expect us to know and understand everything about you.


Tom: No. I just want you to know it was for a reason. And when I come home tired, I don't want to go to work again dealing with you. You've had all day to do what you want and I haven't. Is it fair for me to spend all my days doing what I don't want to and then come home and do as you want me to?


Zelda: No. But when the children go to school, are they doing what they want to all day? When I'm at the drafting table, am I doing what I want to? When everyone's day is done, that is family time, not just Daddy time. You do not have an exclusive right to be yourself while the rest of us shut up and watch.


Tom: When I come home tired, you're tired, too?


Zelda: Yes.


Tom: And the children are tired, too?


Zelda: Of course.


Tom: So, we're all irritable and ready to be left alone?


Zelda: Not exactly. We all want to be treated as a person, rather than a student or an employee or a salesman or just a kid. We all need to talk and be heard.


Tom: I don't want to have to speak. I want things to be understood without my repeating them. Certain things have to be understood. You and the children have lived around me long enough to understand what I want.


Zelda: Yes. An empty house, clean and quiet, where you can make any mess you wish and the servants will come in while you're gone the next day and clean it without comment.


Tom: That's not fair. I'm not asking for anything that any other father is not getting. I'm just asking for mine.


Zelda: You're not married to an M1 housewife, domestic, submissive and obedient, like some of those other fathers. I worked in the mills during the war, while you were counting paper clips in California.


Tom: I didn't know that! Nobody asked for my permission! I wouldn't have allowed it!
Zelda: Who cares? It had to be done. Anyway, I learned something about reality in the mills. And so did other women. But I've watched them since. They've been plowed under by their 'returning hero' husbands and boyfriends and sons and brothers. Our contribution has been down-played to second rate, even though our worst production rates were twice as good as the pre-war professional great rates. And we didn't strike or slowdown or beg for longer lunch hours. But when the war was over, the industry went back to it's old stupid ways and we went back to our aprons and chains.


Tom: You're talking like a Commie, now. That's what comes of ...


Zelda: Oh, shut up. I bring up the subject of reality and you cough up a blind man's fairy tale.


Tom: I want you out of my house right now!


Zelda: Sorry. My house. You put it in my name when you were drafted, in case you didn't make it back from the front lines of the War Materiel Procurement Board.


Tom: Who told you that? That was supposed to be a secret!


Zelda: I had a clearance at the mill. For some strange reason, they wanted us to know what we were building. A lot of the forms I had to handle had your signature on them. And a lot of the forms I sent back had my signature on them. I kept waiting for you to notice. But you never did.


Tom: I have an excuse. You know I can't read your handwriting.


Zelda: That, I'll buy. But you should be able to recognize it. And you didn't.


Tom: I was very busy.


Zelda: I know. Three times you sent back forms and their carbons asking for the triplicate forms only. What you never realized was that your office took a copy off the top before they handed them to you. So, once we found out, we sent you quadruplicate forms and you were happy. We were building things and making a contribution. I know that they also serve who only sit and shuffle papers, but it was weird to be treated like an errant stranger by my husband during the war. I've since gotten used to it. The war's over, Captain.


Tom: I was a Major.


Zelda: Your family is not your staff. We don't have to jump when you speak. We are civilians and so are you.


Tom: Have I been like that? I hadn't thought about it. And you want me to be who I was before the war?


Zelda: No. I want you to be yourself with your family being themselves.


Tom: I don't know if I can.


Zelda: We'll help you.


Tom: I don't know if I trust you.


Zelda: The same here. We'll start together and work together and get along together.


Tom: Okay, I'll try. But no more about my being a milkman.


Zelda: We'll work on the truthfulness later. For now I'll settle fro equality.


Tom: Are you sure that isn't Commie talk?


Zelda: Dear...


Tom: Even Communists have mothers.

SFX: 'Happy Birthday' played backwards


Ann: This had been 'I Married Tom', starring Edith Evans as Zelda, Robert Blintz as Tom, Felicia Filbert-Runnymede as Amy, Tolerance Mather as Tommy and Erich Von Stroheim as the friendly family dog, Donner. Tune in next week when the family we all wish we belonged to tackles the mysteries of dating and carburetors and dating carburetors.



And, remember, friends, if it ain't on IPR, YFITA, then it's probably a good thing!