2025 Playwriting Every Day in November - Day 14

Challenge #14 - Fruit and Straws


GALE

I know it looks bad but I really didn’t mean anyone any harm. 


OLIVIA
Okay, well, we understand that, Gale. So why don’t you tell us how we got here. 


GALE
I just wanted to make guacamole. I was so excited to have some fresh avocados, they were on sale, and so close to being ripe this morning I thought, today’s the day! I was thinking about it at work and on my way home and I stopped by the bodega on the corner. They make tortilla chips fresh. You know how good a warm tortilla chip is with fresh guacamole? 

Anyway I head up to my apartment with the warm chips, excited  for my after work treat and… and…
[starts to get choked up]


OLIVIA
It’s okay, what happened next, Gale. 


GALE
I checked them, they were not quite ripe in the morning but when I got home… when I go home they had already gone bad. They were so soft to the touch that just picking them up almost crushed them. It was unthinkable. I don’t understand…


OLIVIA

Listen, it sounds like you were in an impossible situation. I don’t know what I would have done. And you had those warm chips. 


GALE
I know, I know. 


OLIVIA
So, what happened next?


GALE
I couldn’t handle it, it was too much so I took the knife I was going to use to prepare the avocados and stabbed my neighbor 4 times. Once for every bad avocado I now had. But you get it, right? I mean, the warm chips, the precious nutrients, the cost of the Mexican avocados with the tariffs, I mean, what was I supposed to do? 


OLIVIA
I don’t know, Gale. But I think murder probably wasn’t an appropriate reaction. 


GALE

They weren’t quite ripe in the morning. If they had been I would’ve put them in the fridge. I would have.


2025 Playwriting Every Day in November - Day 13