The House Page #2

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Ladies and gentlemen,

Fox Meadow's most exciting project,

the town pool!

- (APPLAUSE)

- (GASPS OF AWE)

What?

BOB:
The actual pool

will be five pools,

picnic area, playground,

state-of-the-art

locker room,

and the best food court

in the tri-state area.

(CLEARS THROAT) All

right, the last item

on today's agenda is 207-G,

that is the Fox Meadow Scholarship,

rewarding one hardworking

high school student...

This is us. He's talking about us.

by paying their college tuition.

This year's recipient is none

other than Alex Johansen.

- Alex Johansen.

- Alex... Yes!

Unfortunately, the town is facing

some devastating

budget cuts this year

and I'm afraid the

scholarship is an indulgence

that the town can no longer afford.

- (GASPS)

- (CROWD MURMURING)

(BOTH STAMMERING)

All right, so if that is

it, then we can move on.

- Hold on, please.

- Bob...

Are you saying that you don't

have money for the scholarship,

but you have money for the town pools?

Look, I would love to give

Alex this scholarship.

Heck, I'd love to give

everybody a free education.

So, let's open it up to the town.

By a show of hands, who

here likes swimming?

(MURMURS OF AGREEMENT)

SCOTT:
No, wait.

- No, don't raise your hands.

- Oh, come on.

That's not what we're debating

here. It's a trick question.

I guess I'm a little torn

here, to be quite honest,

'cause I do love Alex.

But I also love swimming.

Shut up, Joe.

I love swimming. I'm Martha.

'Cause, you know, with

three kids and a job,

it's the only me time I get.

Of course you want the pool, Martha.

It's right next to your house.

You know what Laura brings to a potluck?

Her nasty mouth and no more.

How was I supposed to know that

I was supposed to bring food?

That invitation was vague.

And you don't have to keep telling

everyone your name's Martha, they know.

But that's who I am, I'm Martha.

All right, ladies, enough, enough.

Let's bring this to a vote.

Those in favor of

eliminating the scholarship

and building the

town pool, vote yes.

Those opposed, who want

one family to profit

while the rest of

the town suffers, no.

Yes?

All right, looks like

the yeses have it.

- (SIGHS)

- Oh, please.

I'll tell you one thing I'm gonna do is

I'm gonna take a hate crap in that pool.

SCOTT:
We can barely afford

our mortgage, and now this?

It's time we face the

truth, we're bad parents.

Remember that mother who

threw her baby down a well?

We're worse than that mother.

You know, when I became

a dad, I made a choice.

To be the dad my father wasn't. Right?

To play with my daughter,

to support her dreams and talents,

and, yeah, maybe I could

have spent a little more time

checking on what was in the bank.

But instead, I put my heart in the bank.

I deposited love, a lot of it.

And that's not gonna be the cover

story of The Wall Street Journal,

but it's the headline of my heart.

- Does that make sense?

- No, honey, I lost you halfway through.

Okay, the bottom line is that Alex thinks

we can afford tuition, and we can't.

We need to tell her the truth.

We always tell the truth.

That's what we always say.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

I think we should do it.

- I'm not gonna do it.

- Me neither.

We gotta lie about everything,

because that's what parents do.

The job of being a parent, number one job,

is to keep this crazy sh*t from their kids.

'Cause otherwise, the kids are gonna realize

that we don't know what we're doing!

- Exactly, that's what our parents did!

- Yeah.

My dad had cancer and never told us!

And what you didn't know, didn't hurt you.

It was weird. But I got over it.

And then he died, so...

- Yeah.

- Hey, guys.

Hi.

I heard about the scholarship.

So, I guess I can't go to Bucknell.

You're going to Bucknell University.

- KATE:
We're gonna send you there.

- Yeah. Yeah.

And if we can't keep the

promise that we make to you,

we are the worst parents in the world.

Oh, honey.

ALEX:
Thank you guys so much.

- I love you guys.

- SCOTT:
Love you, too.

(BOTH SIGH DEEPLY)

SCOTT:
So, as you know, Bob

took away our scholarship,

which we were kind of counting on.

But then we remembered

that we have a college fund

with our dear financial advisor, Dawn.

You don't have enough money.

I don't have any money.

Can I have a raise?

No way. No earthly way.

- I have an idea.

- Hmm?

- Can we apply for a loan?

- (GASPS)

Listen, I'm just gonna

come right out with it.

No one's gonna lend you sh*t.

But if I don't get my job back...

WOMAN:
Are you jerking off a giant?

No, I'm...

I just hung... I just hanged myself.

I don't know if you heard me.

If you don't give me a raise,

I'm walking out of this building

and I'm not looking back.

I don't believe you, and

I think you're bluffing.

Is this the face of a man who's bluffing?

Okay, right here.

It says right here, in this

account, we have $401,000.

- Jackpot!

- You missed it!

No, uh, that says you have a 401K account.

KATE:
Look, we have to tell him

that we're not going to Vegas, okay?

SCOTT:
Yeah. There's no way we can go.

Yikes.

- FRANK:
I'm not a loser.

- RAINA:
You are a loser!

- Frank? Where are you, bud?

- FRANK:
I'm not a loser! No!

RAINA:
What do you want from me?

FRANK:
What do you want from me?

- Sign the divorce papers, Frank!

- FRANK:
No, I don't wanna do...

What did I do to make you hate me so much?

We should get out of here.

Give them their privacy.

- Yep.

- RAINA:
You punched my dad!

FRANK:
He called m

a gambling addict!

- You are a gambling addict.

- BOTH:
Wow.

You lost your job, and

you stopped showering.

- We should go. She's coming.

- I know.

Just sign the f***ing

divorce papers, Frank.

Oh.

- Oh, hi.

- Hey.

Hey, Raina, you look great.

RAINA:
Oh, wow.

That was crazy.

- (LAUGHING)

- Yeah, it was kind of weird.

We don't really know. Yeah.

(SIGHS) He's your problem now.

(FRANK SOBBING)

Hey, Frank?

Hey, bud.

Hey. Hey, guys.

What's going on?

- I was fixing the sink.

- Uh-huh.

(CLEARS THROAT) Splashed

some water on my face.

- (SNIFFLES) That's what's going on here.

- BOTH:
Mmm-hmm.

'Cause I was fixing the sink

'cause the sink was broken.

Right, it's okay. We saw Raina.

I know my life seems totally awesome

and, like, things are going great, but...

Hmm. It looks pretty bleak in here.

Who am I kidding? I'm having

a pretty hard time right now.

- We get that. Yeah.

- It seems like it. Yeah.

Which is why I'm all in on this Vegas trip.

That's the only thing that is

keeping me alive right now, frankly.

So, let's get this party started!

Right.

You know...

- I need it bad.

- KATE:
We know you need it.

- Yeah.

- But, for us, it's not a great time.

So, we were thinking, maybe...

SCOTT:
Maybe...

- We...

- We could leave later than we talked about leaving.

- You said we were going to say...

- I said we have since...

- You have since...

- decided that we need to support a friend.

Who's this friend?

Vegas. Whoo!

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