unpublished.
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Interior: Emergency Room at Hollywood General Hospital. People sit patiently on director’s chairs in the crowded waiting area, staying cool by fanning themselves with copies of their screenplays. Manning the triage desk is Nurse Topanga Culthwaller, whose baby blue Versace scrubs fail miserably to hide the voluptuousness that’s gotten her banned from working within 30 feet of a male cardiology patient.
Nurse Topanga: Listen up, everyone! You’ll all be taken care of in order of importance! Now, we’ll take Oscar winners and nominees first, followed by Emmy winners, then anyone with a Grammy or a Tony. For those unfortunates with only Cable Ace Awards, there is a charity hospital just outside the city limits!
SFX: Ambulance siren, screeching tires. The emergency room doors burst open as two EMTs wheel a patient past the desk.
EMT #1: We’ve got a woman, 26 years old with a history of post-partum depression! She’s conscious but lethargic. Her medical alert bracelet says in an emergency to contact the William Morris Agency, but they won't take our call without a development deal. We found an empty bottle of sleeping pills next to her.
Patient: I tried to tell them I only took one. That’s all that was left in the bottle!
Dr. Suzanne Bummers, attending physician, enters and steps quickly with the EMTs. She asks the patient questions as nurse Toganga runs alongside the gurney taking notes on the admittance chart.
Dr. Bummers: How long ago did you give birth?
Patient: Six months.
Dr. Bummers: Are you or your baby under the care of a psychiatrist or other mental health professional?
Patient: I called Dr. Phil’s TV show last week.
Dr. Bummers: That's a “No.” Are you on an organic, vegetarian diet?
Patient: Why?
Dr. Bummers: If had you read my book on bio-redundant hormones titled, “The Secret to Better Health, Sex & Self Promotion,” you’d understand how to avoid these problems without doctors.
Patient: But aren’t you a doctor?
Dr. Bummers: Well, no, I didn’t actually go to medical school, but it’s a fact that most people prefer to get health information from good-looking celebrities.
Patient: I think I must be hallucinating.
Dr. Bummers: No. It’s me alright. You’re just lucky.
Patient: Lucky about what?
Dr. Bummers: That it’s me. Weren’t you listening? Nurse Topanga. Make a note in her chart that she's confused.
Patient: Look, I think my hormones are just a little out of whack from the pregnancy. Can’t you just give me something for it?
Dr. Bummers: Not until we bring in a specialist. Nurse Topanga! Page Scientology, stat!
Nurse Topanga: Right away, Doctor!
Nurse Topanga exits left as the gurney is wheeled into a treatment room. The patient looks frightened.
Patient: Am I going to be alright?
Dr. Bummers: Don’t worry. I’m sure your option will be picked up for many more seasons. We’ve called for the best man medical science has ever produced. As soon as he gets here…
Dramatic music up and under. The doors to the treatment room swing open. Enter dashing and handsome Dr. Tom Screwloose. He smiles boyishly, his teeth shining brightly like an arc light in a movie projector. The hospital staff squints in the glare. He flips a switch in his pocket. His teeth flicker once, then dim to a tolerable 500 candle power.
Dr. Screwloose: Alright, everybody! Clear!
Nurse Topanga: Doctor! Are you going to shock her?
Dr. Screwloose: No! I’m just saying, I’m a Clear! Through the marvels of Scientology I’ve rid myself of the demons that inhabit you medical monkeys and can now cure those which afflict the rest of the world. Where’s the patient?
Nurse Topanga: She’d be the one lying on the gurney, Doctor.
Dr. Screwloose: Right! What’s the problem?
Nurse Topanga: Post-partum depression. Looks like her hormone levels have bounced up and down like a lap dancer at a Republican Party convention during an 8.4 earthquake.
Dr. Screwloose: Aha! You think she has a chemical imbalance, but that’s completely wrong! You don’t need drugs to be normal, ma’am. When I was a child I was dyslexic, but I was cured through Scientology by expelling all my dobby Nathans.
Patient: You were cured because you stopped eating rancid New York-style weenies?
Dr. Screwloose: I said body thetans. What are you, dyslexic? Who’s the Scientologist here?
Dr. Bummers: I agree with Nurse Topanga that the whole thing’s hormonal, Doctor.
Dr. Screwloose: And I should listen to someone who’s never starred in a blockbuster summer hit movie? You haven’t studied the history of psychiatry like I have, which anyone will tell you is much better than actually studying the subject itself. You don’t know that psychiatry is a pseudoscience! But this isn’t the forum to debate mental illness. That would be a televised interview between a network newsman and a handsome actor.
Patient: So medical science…
Dr. Screwloose: Bah! They have this complicated theory that moods can be affected by a lack of serotonin. As a Scientologist I have a much simpler and more plausible explanation. Centuries ago the extraterrestrial Xenu brought the overpopulation of the galaxy to Earth and destroyed them with hydrogen bombs. It’s the souls of these murdered thetans which infest us and cause all our problems.
Patient: That’s more plausible?
Dr. Screwloose: Hey, chicks dig it.
Nurse Topanga: Doctor Screwloose, I’ve taken her blood pressure…
Dr. Screwloose: Well, put it back. She may need it later. Whoa! My next film’s definitely going to be a comedy!
Nurse Topanga: I mean her blood pressure’s back to normal. What should we do?
Dr. Screwloose: I say we audit her. Miss, you’ll have to relive the experience of your body thetans being murdered. I’ve got to warn you, it could be the most traumatic experience you’ve ever had.
Patient: Not really. I saw “Eyes Wide Shut.”
Dr. Ashton Kutchicoo, youngest staff member at Hollywood ER, enters.
Dr. Kutchicoo: Yo, Dudes! I heard you had an interesting case here. Maybe I can help.
Dr. Screwloose: There’s nothing to be done for her unless she embraces the genius of hell bound rubber.
Nurse Topanga: Rubber can go to hell?
Dr. Screwloose: I said L. Ron Hubbard! Doesn’t anyone around here understand English?
Dr. Kutchicoo: Hey, man, that could take years. Why not just give her one of these? Dr. Kutchicoo holds up his wrist, which sports a red string Kabbalah bracelet. It keeps away evil spirits from evil people who give us the evil eye to do evil in our lives.
Nurse Topanga: Where’d you get it?
Dr. Kutchicoo: Evel Knievel.
Dr. Screwloose: Get rid of evil spirits without auditing? Are you insane, man?
Patient: Look, I don’t want to cause an argument. Besides, I’m feeling a lot better now.
Dr. Kutchicoo: Chill out, Dude! This string only costs $30. What’s auditing cost?
Dr. Screwloose: $30? What kind of science is that? You want auditing, you’ll have to...show me the money!
The patient quietly slips off the gurney and out the door.
Dr. Kutchicoo: Oh, yeah? Kabbalah’s been practiced for thousands of years. How long has Scientology been around? 40 years? 50?
Dr. Screwloose: Hey! Kirsty Alley, John Travolta…
Dr. Kutchicoo: Travolta? How can he belong to a religion that HE’S older than?
Nurse Topanga turns to check the patient, but discovers she’s gone.
Nurse Topanga: Doctors! Doctors! We’ve lost the patient!
Dr. Screwloose: What? She’s dead? Oh, if only I’d gotten to her 3 years and $1.5 million ago, she’d still be alive!
Nurse Topanga: No! I mean she must have gone home.
Dr. Screwloose: Looks like I’ve done it again! Nurse Topanga, bill her insurance company the $1.5 million. I’m heading home in my new Porsche. I feel the need…for speed!
Dr. Screwloose exits the treatment room. A loud crash is heard, followed by the sound of dishes breaking.
Dr. Screwloose (from a distance): Who left this mood fart in the kiddle of the corridor?
Dr. Kutchicoo turns to leave.
Nurse Topanga: Oh Dr. Kutchicoo…!
Dr. Kutchicoo: Uh, I’m flattered, Nurse. Really. But, like, I’m into older women.
Nurse Topanga: What I was going to say was, your Kabbalah bracelet is caught on the defibrillator. If you move...
Dr. Kutchicoo yanks his arm away, in the process making contact with the fully charged defibrillator. He drops to the floor, unconscious.
Dr. Bummers: Wow! Those things are dangerous! Come on, Nurse. Let’s get a latte.
Nurse Topanga: (pointing to her chest): No, these things are dangerous, and with this body, I already get a lot-tay, if you know what I mean.
They both laugh as they exit the hospital. Theme music up and out.
©2006 Paul Giles