Veal: A Marital Aid

from The Comedy of Neil Simon

by Neil Simon

(introduction)

Not long after we were married, my wife and I stood toe to toe in the kitchen, exchanging verbal punches that were as devastating and as painful as any thrown in a championship heavyweight match. Each accusation, each emotional blow found its mark, and we both reeled from the awesome destructive power of the truths we hurled.

Then suddenly, because there were no adequate words left to express her hurt, frustration and anger, my wife did what now seems to be the only sensible and rational thing she could have done. She picked up a frozen veal chop recently left out on the table to defrost, and hurled it at me, striking me just above the right eye. I was so stunned I could barely react; stunned not by the blow nor the intent, but by the absurdity that I, a grown man, had just been hit in the head with a frozen veal chop. I could not contain myself, and a faint flicker of a smile crossed my face.

Suddenly, the anger and hostility drained from me and I found myself outside the situation looking in, no longer involved as a man in conflict, but as an observer, an audience so to speak, watching two people on a stage, both of whom cared for each other, but were unable or unwilling to yield or to submit without having first gained some small vicious victory.

Add to the scene the fact that, like the two policemen in a Roald Dahl short story who ate the frozen mutton leg murder instrument for dinner, thus depriving themselves of their single piece of evidence, I would soon be eating the object that nearly destroyed my marriage.

(pause)

And I hate veal chops.