Scampi: See those flowers?

Peter: I do.

Scampi: They remind me of you.

Peter: I don’t know why.

Scampi: I do.  They’re just like you.

Peter: They are not.

Scampi: They are.  Look at them.

Peter: I am looking at them.  This is how I can surmise that we are nothing alike.

Scampi: Those tulips remind me exactly of you.

Peter: I don’t understand this.

Scampi: Well, they do.

PAUSE.

Scampi: For starters, you’re both sort of delicate.  And stemmed.

Peter: Stemmed?

Scampi: Uh, yes.  Yup.

Peter: Right.

Scampi: Although, to be fair, you don’t have a brilliant stripe of scarlet for a throat.  Do you?

Peter: That’s private.

Scampi: Well, the tulips are two-tone.  You, on the other hand, are a monochrome gentleman.  I mean, am I wrong here?

Peter: I’m lost.

Scampi: While the tulips are grounded.  They are rooted in the earth.

Peter: Sometimes I’m rooted in the earth.

Scampi: I know.  I’ve seen it.

PAUSE.

Scampi: I notice you don’t get calluses from reading books.

Peter: Me?

Scampi: Or anyone, really.

Peter: That’s true.  Theoretically, someone could have a callus.  Depending on how they held the book.

Scampi: Or how silly they were.

Peter: What?

Scampi: You like to read a book or two.

Peter: I don’t deny this.

Scampi: But this doesn’t give you, say, back pain for example.

Peter: Uh.

Scampi: Or you don’t lose all the cartilage in one of your knees.

Peter: It is true that there is cartilage in both my knees.

Scampi: Right.  Your patellae are as ripe as oats.

Peter: What?

Scampi: You don’t have pains in your knees.

Peter: No, I don’t.  Should I?

Scampi: Not at all.  You’re beautiful as is.

Peter: Oh.  Ah.

Scampi: You and those tulips.