The story you are about to read is not entirely fiction. The names are invented. The numbers are real. There are 134 million households in America. This could be any one of them. It could be yours.
Today.
Have a Nice Day! The Adjustment
Episode Three
ACT I
“The Co-Pay”
A Wednesday afternoon. Phil has just come home from the pharmacy.
(Lights up on the kitchen. DORIS is at the table with the grocery receipt, the gas bill, and a calculator. She is doing what Doris does: making numbers confess. The legal pad is open. The pencil is in her hand. PHIL enters through the front door. He is carrying a small white pharmacy bag. He sets it on the table harder than necessary.) 
DORIS: How much?
PHIL: Forty-seven dollars.
DORIS: For the blood pressure medication?
PHIL: For the blood pressure medication.
DORIS: It was fifteen dollars last month.
PHIL: It was fifteen dollars last month.
(Beat.)
DORIS: That’s a three-hundred-percent increase.
PHIL: I mentioned that to the pharmacist. She said the VA formulary changed. Something about a “budget reallocation.”
DORIS: A budget reallocation.
PHIL: Apparently the VA shifted funding to cover munitions replacement costs. So the drug formulary got “adjusted.”
DORIS: They took money from veterans’ prescriptions to buy more Tomahawk missiles.
PHIL: That’s not how the pharmacist put it.
DORIS: That’s how the math puts it.
(Phil sits down. He picks up the grocery receipt Doris has been studying.)
PHIL: What’s this?
DORIS: Last week’s groceries.
PHIL: Two hundred and twelve dollars? For what?
DORIS: For what we always buy. Except everything costs more. Eggs are six dollars a dozen. Chicken is nine dollars a pound. The store brand coffee — the one you said tastes like it was brewed in a radiator — is eleven dollars a can.
PHIL: It does taste like it was brewed in a radiator.
DORIS: It’s the only one we can afford now.
(Phil picks up the gas bill.)
PHIL: And this?
DORIS: Six-fifty a gallon. I filled up on Monday. It cost me ninety-one dollars. Phil, we used to fill that car for thirty-five.
(Phil stares at the table. The prospectus. The letters. The charts. The napkins. The gas bill. The grocery receipt. The pharmacy bag. He picks up the prospectus and looks at the back cover.)
PHIL: “Past performance is not indicative of future results.”
DORIS: Turns out the future results are worse.
(Doris picks up the pencil. She writes on the legal pad.)
DORIS: All right. Let me add it up. The pharmacy co-pay went from fifteen to forty-seven dollars a month. That’s an extra thirty-two a month, three hundred eighty-four a year. Groceries have gone up about forty percent — call it three hundred extra a month, thirty-six hundred a year. Gas is up about eighty percent from before the war — that’s another hundred and twenty a month, fourteen hundred a year.
(She writes the total. She stares at it.)
DORIS: Phil, the war is costing this household an extra five thousand three hundred eighty-four dollars a year. Just in groceries, gas, and your medication. That’s before they send us the actual bill.
PHIL: The bill we can’t say no to.
DORIS: The bill we were never asked about.
(The doorbell rings. They look at each other.)
PHIL: If that’s Karen again, I’m not home.
DORIS: Karen got promoted. Remember?
PHIL: Right. She’s ruining kitchens at a higher pay grade now.
(Blackout.)
ACT II
“Tyler”
Continuous. Phil opens the door.
(TYLER stands on the porch. He is in his mid-twenties. He wears khakis, a blue oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a lanyard with a government ID badge. He carries a canvas tote bag with an eagle logo on it. His smile is the smile of a young man who finished a master’s degree in public policy eight months ago and is very excited to be making a difference.)
TYLER: Mr. Dalton? Hi! Tyler Beckman, Division of Domestic Consequences. Do you have a few minutes?
PHIL: Division of what?
TYLER: Domestic Consequences. We’re a sub-office of the Division of Foreign Adventures. We handle the home-front impact side.
PHIL: There’s a whole division for that.
TYLER: Brand new! We were just stood up in April. Part of the administration’s commitment to transparency and stakeholder care.
PHIL: Stakeholder care.
TYLER: May I come in?
(Phil looks at Doris. Doris shrugs. Phil steps aside. Tyler enters. He sees the kitchen table — the prospectus, the letters, the charts, the napkins, the bills, the legal pad. He looks at it the way a museum visitor looks at an exhibit.)
TYLER: Oh, wow. You’ve been keeping really good records.
DORIS: Someone has to.
(Tyler sits down. He reaches into his canvas tote bag and pulls out a glossy pamphlet. The cover reads: “Living With Temporary Economic Disruption: A Guide for American Households.” There is a stock photo of a smiling family eating salad at a sunlit table. Tyler places it on the table with the reverence of a man presenting a holy text.)
TYLER: So. I’m sure you’ve noticed some changes in the cost of everyday goods and services.
PHIL: We’ve noticed.
TYLER: Totally normal. What you’re experiencing is a temporary economic adjustment related to the ongoing Iran Freedom Initiative. The Strait of Hormuz disruption has created some upstream pressure on energy markets, which has cascaded into food supply chains, transportation, and healthcare cost structures.
DORIS: Everything costs more because of the war.
TYLER: That’s a very direct way to put it.
DORIS: I’m a bookkeeper. We’re direct.
(Tyler opens the pamphlet. He points to a section with a little lightbulb icon next to it.)
TYLER: The good news is there are steps you can take. For example, on page three, we have a section on transportation optimization. Carpooling, combining errands, planning efficient driving routes. The Department of Energy estimates that strategic route planning can reduce fuel consumption by up to twelve percent.
PHIL: I drive to the pharmacy and back. It’s four miles. There’s not a lot of route optimization available.
TYLER: Have you considered biking?
PHIL: I’m sixty-eight years old and I have a bad knee.
TYLER: E-bikes are a great option. There are federal tax credits available.
DORIS: For the tax credits, you need taxable income. Phil’s on a fixed income.
TYLER: Right! Okay. Moving on.
(He flips to another section. This one has a little carrot icon.)
TYLER: On page five, we have some terrific guidance on food cost management. Eating seasonal vegetables, buying in bulk, reducing food waste. Did you know the average American household throws away thirty percent of the food it buys?
DORIS: We don’t throw away food, Tyler. We eat everything we buy. We always have. The problem isn’t that we’re wasteful. The problem is that a dozen eggs costs six dollars.
TYLER: Have you considered raising chickens?
(Long pause.)
PHIL: We live in a subdivision.
TYLER: Some municipalities are updating their backyard poultry ordinances. It’s a growing movement.
DORIS: Tyler.
TYLER: Yes, ma’am?
DORIS: My husband’s blood pressure medication co-pay tripled because the VA shifted its budget to munitions. The pamphlet — does the pamphlet have a section on what to do when the government takes money from veterans’ healthcare to buy missiles?
(Tyler flips through the pamphlet. He flips carefully. He flips all the way through. He closes it.)
TYLER: That’s not specifically addressed in this edition.
DORIS: What is addressed?
(Tyler brightens. He reaches into his tote bag again and pulls out a small card.)
TYLER: We have an app! It’s called HomeFront. You can download it from the App Store or Google Play. It tracks energy prices in your area, suggests fuel-efficient driving tips, and sends you weekly alerts on grocery deals at participating retailers.
PHIL: An app.
TYLER: It’s really well-designed. It won a GovTech innovation award.
PHIL: Tyler, my prescription tripled, my grocery bill doubled, and gas is six-fifty a gallon. And the government sent you to my kitchen to tell me to download an app.
TYLER: And the pamphlet. The pamphlet is very comprehensive.
(Phil picks up the pamphlet. He looks at the smiling family on the cover eating salad at their sunlit table.)
PHIL: Tyler, what do you think this family on the cover pays for gas?
TYLER: That’s a stock photo, sir.
PHIL: They look like they’ve never paid for gas in their lives.
(Doris takes the pamphlet. She turns to the back cover. She looks at it. She looks more closely.)
DORIS: Phil. There’s a QR code on the back.
TYLER: Oh yes! That links to additional resources.
DORIS: What kind of additional resources?
TYLER: Government assistance programs, community support services, that kind of thing. Very helpful.
(Doris looks at Tyler. Tyler smiles. Doris sets the pamphlet down. She does not scan the code. Not yet.)
DORIS: Tyler, can I ask you something?
TYLER: Absolutely!
DORIS: How old are you?
TYLER: Twenty-six.
DORIS: Do you know what a Tomahawk missile costs?
TYLER: I don’t handle the defense side. I’m strictly domestic consequences.
DORIS: Three and a half million dollars. Each. The government has launched hundreds of them. At the same time, it cut my husband’s prescription benefit by two-thirds and sent a twenty-six-year-old to my kitchen with a pamphlet about seasonal vegetables.
(Tyler stands up. He straightens his lanyard.)
TYLER: Mrs. Dalton, I hear your concern. I really do. And I want you to know that the Division of Domestic Consequences is committed to listening to stakeholder feedback and incorporating it into future program design.
PHIL: What does that mean?
TYLER: It means we’ll take notes.
PHIL: And then what?
TYLER: And then we’ll circulate them.
(He picks up his tote bag. He heads for the door. He turns back.)
TYLER: Thank you both so much for your time. And please — download the app. It really is excellent. We appreciate your continued support.
(He exits. The door closes. Phil and Doris sit at the table. The pamphlet is now on the pile. The smiling stock-photo family grins up at them from between the gas bill and the pharmacy receipt.)
DORIS: He was a nice young man.
PHIL: He was. In twenty years he’ll be Karen.
(Blackout.)
ACT III
“The QR Code”
A few minutes later.
(Lights up. Same kitchen. Phil and Doris are still at the table. The pile has grown: the prospectus, the Division letters, Karen’s charts, the napkins, the gas bill, the grocery receipt, the pharmacy receipt, the newspaper, the legal pad, and now Tyler’s pamphlet. Phil is staring at the pamphlet.)
PHIL: You didn’t scan the QR code.
DORIS: No.
PHIL: You want to?
DORIS: Do you?
PHIL: I have a feeling about it.
DORIS: What kind of feeling?
PHIL: The kind of feeling I’ve had about every piece of paper that’s landed on this table since February.
(Doris picks up the pamphlet. She takes out her phone. She holds the camera over the QR code. The screen loads. She stares at it. Her face changes.)
PHIL: What is it?
(She turns the phone so Phil can see. A long, long silence.)
PHIL: That’s a recruitment ad.
DORIS: That’s a recruitment ad. For the United States Army.
(Phil takes the phone. He reads aloud from the screen.)
PHIL: “Ready to make a difference? The U.S. Army is looking for men and women who want to serve their country in a time of need. Competitive pay. Full benefits. Education assistance. Join the team that’s defending freedom around the world.”
(He sets the phone down.)
PHIL: They sent a pamphlet about eating seasonal vegetables and carpooling. And on the back, they’re recruiting our grandchildren to fight the war that’s making the vegetables cost six dollars.
(Doris picks up the pencil. She opens the legal pad to the running total. She writes a new entry. She labels it carefully.)
DORIS: Phil.
PHIL: Yeah.
DORIS: I’ve been keeping track. The war costs that come to this household directly — the gas, the groceries, the prescription, our share of the tax bill. It adds up to about eleven thousand dollars so far this year. And the war is four months old.
PHIL: Eleven thousand dollars.
DORIS: That’s the cost we can count. The cost we can’t count is what happens if they scan that QR code.
(Long silence. Phil picks up the pamphlet. He looks at the smiling family on the front. He turns it over and looks at the QR code on the back. He sets it on the pile with the rest.)
PHIL: The front of the pamphlet tells you how to live with less. The back of the pamphlet tells your kids to enlist.
DORIS: That’s not a pamphlet, Phil. That’s a funnel.
(Phil looks at the table. The whole story is there. Every document, every letter, every napkin, every bill. And now a pamphlet with a smiling family on one side and a recruitment ad on the other.)
(He turns to the audience. Directly.)
PHIL: Check your mailbox.
(Doris turns to the audience.)
DORIS: The bill is yours. It has always been yours.
(Phil holds up the pamphlet.)
PHIL: And if you can’t pay it, there’s an app for that.
(He turns the pamphlet over. The QR code faces the audience.)
DORIS: Have a nice day.
(Blackout.)
- • •
END OF Episode Three
- • •
“The Adjustment” is the third in a series of ten short dramatic works titled “Have a Nice Day!” accompanying the essays “The Return on Investment of War” and “The Art of Escalation” by Charles Cranston Jett. The first episode, “The Prospectus,” introduces Phil and Doris and the visit from Elmer. The second episode, “Have a Nice Day,” brings Karen from the Escalation Division.
Charles C. Jett | criticalskillsblog.com | civicsage.com