Cheating

Gender: Any (can be changed to be delivered by a young man)

Description: A young woman tells a co-worker about her lifetime of cheating.

Genre: Comedic

(Actor pantomimes washing and drying dishes intermittently during the

monologue.)

How’d I wind up here? Well, I wasn’t supposed to be washing dishes for a living. That’s
for sure. What finally got me was Harvard. The school I’ve been dreaming about since I
was a little kid. It’s all I’ve been thinking about since graduation. As soon as I finished
my Valedictorian speech I was done and out of high school. My mom told me it was the
most beautiful speech she’s ever heard. She got calls for weeks after that praising my
academic achievements. She got calls like this often even as far back as third grade. I
guess I might as well tell you that that’s when cheating began. Since then I have been
able to cheat my way through school like the best of them. One time at fifth grade field
day, I cut holes in my potato sack to win the race. How did no one notice, you might be
wondering? Two words: brown shoes. They matched the potato sack perfectly.
Everyone else was left hobbling around like idiots while my brown shoes trudged
through the grass. No one suspected a thing when I was first at the finish line. I was
better than everyone else and that is how I like it. In middle school I got trickier. Every
test I took in middle school was a breeze. Stealing the Teacher’s Edition textbook
helped I guess. The night before each test I wrote the answers on my thigh and made
sure to wear a skirt because if the teacher tells you to pull your skirt up, they are bound
to get in trouble. As I entered high school, the cheating became serious business. I was
known for how smart I was. My Junior year I hired someone to take the SAT for me.
This wasn’t an easy task, but I was able to forge a test ticket. Let’s just say copy and
paste is the best thing ever created. Now that you know how I got into my dream
college, it’s time to tell you how I got kicked out. I was sitting in my Intro to Law class
taking a test with flashcards tucked under my thigh. You thought the cheating would
stop after I went to college? I walked out of the class knowing I aced it. My hot pink
flashcards though were left on the seat. You can probably guess the rest of the story.
The professor called my parents to inform them I was kicked out. My mom came and
picked me up in her white Benz. She was speaking to me the whole way back to this
Podunk town. Something about her reputation being ruined. I was too busy thinking
about how fast my life has gone downhill and how easily it could’ve been avoided. If
only I would’ve written the answers on my thigh and not on the hot pink flashcards.
 Bitter Eulogy
Gender: Any (can be changed to be delivered by a son)
Genre: Dramatic
Description: A daughter delivers an honest eulogy at her father’s funeral.

(A teen delivers a eulogy at a podium in a packed church.)

Wow. A lot of people here today. No pressure, right? (Pauses, unfolds paper, takes
deep breath.) They say the worst things happen to the best people, but I disagree. My
father was a great person, at least to most of you. He told stories and did impressions
every chance he got. I hated them. They were never accurate anyway. His impression
of Daniel Day Lewis doing Abraham Lincoln sounded more like Al Pacino. Those of you
who were his students knew a caring, dedicated, and hilarious teacher. Sounds like a
great guy. It’s too bad I never got to meet him. The man I knew was short-tempered,
distant and narcissistic. The day I found out he was going to die, I was unfazed. That’s
bad, I know. Sounds like a horrible thing to say, but he didn’t love me. He’d ignore me
when I asked him questions or shared my opinion. I was his daughter; he was
supposed to care. His work occupied all his time. I didn’t see why it mattered so much,
he was just a teacher and they were just students. I was the one who deserved his
time. I was the one who deserved his care. I was his daughter. As I watched him fade
away in a hospital bed I thought for once, just once, I would have his undivided
attention. I didn’t. Even in the last days of his life all he could think about was you. His
bloody students. He wrote some of you letters. They weren’t just any fair-well letters
though. He wrote you to tell you what you meant to him. I never got any letter. It’s
selfish really, I know, but I deserved one. I did. I thought it was okay, though. I
thought he would surely change in the end. He was dying. Maybe things would be
different. He was going to tell me that he loved me, and he would mean it. He never
did. I read some of the letters he wrote, one was to a boy named Jacob. Maybe you are
here today. My dad told Jacob that he had made him see the world in a different way.
Opened up his eyes, he said. Shifted his perspective, he said. My dad was a phony and
a liar and I hated him. As my father took his last breath I cried, but I wasn’t sad, I was
angry. Where is my letter? I deserved it, didn’t I? I was his daughter! But he was dead.
You can all go on and mourn the loss of a “great” man, but I knew the real Albert Scott.
He had you all fooled. (Throws paper on ground and leaves the podium.)