A Porta Potty is my Thoreau Cabin

The room is dark where ANGELINE sits on a chair, profile view from the audience. There is a single spotlight on her.

ANGELINE (to the audience): I don’t believe that anyone understands how terribly lonely I am.

With a clicking noise, the lights turn on, and we see ANGELINE sitting at one end of the long dinner table with someone else. She had a book on her lap and was seen reading it. Her boyfriend is scrolling on his phone while eating on the other side of the table.

ANGELINE: What’s your stance on the death penalty?
BRAD: I don’t like death.
ANGELINE: Yes.. but think about it. Do you believe any human has the authority to kill another human? Or should this be a job solely in the hands of God?
BRAD: I don’t believe in God, you know that!
ANGELINE: (sighs): But if you were to believe in God..
BRAD: But I don’t.
BRAD: (chuckles while saying): You always bringing up such weird topics in the middle of dinner… that’s what I always tell Tim! You’re so cute when do you things like that, he thinks it’s funny too!
ANGELINE: How is Tim doing?
BRAD: You ask so many questions-
ANGELINE: -And you don’t ask enough.
BRAD looks down and scrolls on his phone, unbothered. ANGELINE is desperate now.
ANGELINE: Did you see the news? A NASA whistleblower leaked information about the government hiding alien spaceship wreckage in the DOD. Can you believe that?
BRAD: But I think it’s arrogant to believe Earth is the only planet with life.
ANGELINE: I didn’t say that…
BRAD: Oh sorry, it sounded like you did. But yeah, it’s pretty neat.
ANGELINE: What do you think the aliens would think is weirder: vegetarians or sex?
BRAD: There you go, being cute again.
A pause.
ANGELINE: I’m going to use the bathroom.
BRAD: What movie should I watch with Tim tonight?
ANGELINE walks away from the dinner table and instead sits on a toilet off-stage. There is now a spotlight on her.

ALL ANGELINE NOW:
I always wonder, in the most private situations we find ourselves, if those moments are when we truly understand ourselves.

I enjoy the bathroom. Something you learned to do by yourself when you were 5 or 6, you’re still the master of until you die. Or at least, until you can’t wipe yourself anymore. But even then, you know the right and wrong way to tell your caretaker how to do it.

There’s no better or worse way to wipe- just different ways. And is there anything in life like that? Something you don’t have to worry about whether you’re doing it right or wrong. And when you’re doing it every day, how could you not be getting better at it? If life could be deeply fulfilled by the talent someone has for wiping their ass, more people would die happy.

Sometimes I feel like I talk like a crazy person, and everyone knows it. I can say something so simple like wow, it’s bright outside today and just from that, everyone can tell that I’m really just some deeply, naturally-nihilistic individual that won’t ever understand what it is that she’s chasing. Or even worse, when people try to have a genuine conversation with me, they will perceive me as someone lost. Whose best is now behind her. And then I scream at them, and I say Where do I go then? Where does someone who feels terribly alone from their own selves, go?! And then, there I go again: asking questions that lead nowhere. As I’m always told.

But I don’t have to worry about that here. I don’t have to worry about a lot when I’m here. Right now, I’m the greatest person in the whole wide world.