Iowa Nights

PROFESSOR:
Welcome to Ames.

WSJ:
Thank you very much.

PROFESSOR:
That's a lovely sweater.

WSJ:
Thank you.

PROFESSOR:
It looks especially taseful and appropriate.

WSJ:
Thank you.

PROFESSOR:
Although not enough to compromise the work environment.

WSJ:
Of course not.

PROFESSOR:
So what is a Wall Street Journal reporter doing here?  I mean, I know why you're in Iowa, but why are you at the University?

WSJ:
You're a professor political science, isn't that correct?

PROFESSOR:
Yes, but I'm not connected to any of the candidates and I don't.....

WSJ:
I'm not here to ask about that.  I was rummaging around the college library, looking for a new angle, and I found this masters thesis by a former student of yours, Nathan De La Feruccio?

PROFESSOR:
I knew someone would dig that up eventually.  Nathan's data collection was obviously flawed.  I wouldn't pay any attention to anything that he.....

WSJ:
Nathan's thesis just confirms something that reporters have been whispering about Iowa for years.

PROFESSOR:
Which is what?

WSJ:
Which is that Iowans don't really care enough about any of these candidates to come out in the cold and spend a whole evening in a drafty elementary school.

PROFESSOR:
So why are they doing it?

WSJ:
Oh Professor, you know.  I don't have to say it.

PROFESSOR:
No.  I don't know.

WSJ:
They want to meet someone in the same political party who lives near them so they can get romantic and have a love affair and not be alone the whole winter.

PROFESSOR:
What?  That's ridiculous.

WSJ:
So do you take issue with De La Feruccio?

PROFESSOR
Do I take issue with.....You're talking about him like he was the Brookings Institute.  He was a kid.  He did his thesis on an Atari computer.

WSJ:
So you don't think the Masters Program at the University has any credibility whatsoever?

PROFESSOR:
He was a nut case.  He took a shower like once the whole semester.

WSJ:
Mr. De La Feruccio conducted exit polls and he found that the people who attended were disproportionately divorced, single, and miserable.

PROFESSOR:
Who else would talk to him.

WSJ:
He found that there were twice as many marriages during presidential election years.

PROFESSOR:
That's a coincidence.

WSJ:
He interviewed a sample of caucus-goers two weeks before the caucus and found that they were fickle, changeable, didn't know their own mind, and were generally disagreeable.

PROFESSOR:
Iowa people can be like that.  But that doesn't mean.....

WSJ:
And on caucus night, the same group of people stayed longer than they were supposed to stay, and they came out in pairs, happy and laughing.

PROFESSOR:
Iowans are happy, sociable people.

WSJ:
He heard eleven couples saying to each other, "Follow me to the liquor store."

PROFESSOR
It gets very dark at night here.  Anyone can miss a highway sign.

WSJ:
So you're denying the whole thing.

PROFESSOR:
Nathan was crazy.  I gave him a B minus for his work, but he was an idiot.

WSJ:
What if I told you I've collected my own data from Motel 6?

PROFESSOR:
I would say you're going to have to show me your data.  You're going to have to show me all your data.

WSJ:
You're refusing to face up to the facts.

PROFESSOR:
That's not true.

WSJ:
You can't see what's staring you in the face.

PROFESSOR:
I know everything you know.  I feel everything you feel.

(WSJ springs out of her chair and kisses the PROFESSOR passionately.)

PROFESSOR:
All those stupid people in New Hampshire.  What is the point to going into one of those booths alone?

(He kisses her.)

PROFESSOR:
Promise me you'll never tell?

WSJ:
Never, darling.

(They kiss again.  The End.)