Mona and Phil are both in their late 30's. They have three children. Phil is an advertising executive and Mona works part time as an atrium landscape artist. This drama depicts a classic marriage: while at home with the family, Phil underfunctions, while Mona overfunctions.

When I go to Luke and Mindy's house, it's always so chaotic. The kids are running around half- naked, even in winter. It's all she can do to get clothes on them. They're usually filthy after an hour or two. And she never changes them. She doesn't even bathe them every day.

Why isn't my mother-in-law more loving to the kids? She's only interested in them when they're sweet. If they say something naughty or have a tantrum, she doesn't want to have anything to do with them. She says that we're too lenient with them and that's why they misbehave. Well maybe we are but it's not so easy when you're pregnant and have two little ones. I don't have the energy to discipline them. She makes me feel guilty, like I'm a terrible mother. She should help or shut up.

In this drama, Sue unconsciously sets up a situation that confirms her expectations. She is convinced that Ethan will not give her what she needs: support, attention and understanding. But notice how Sue contributes to the negative outcome that she so much wants to avoid.

Roger and Lisa, the parents of a 14-year-old daughter, are in the kitchen, discussing their daughter.

My father can't eat. He can't keep anything down. A sip of water, a bite of bread. Even an ice cube pressed to his lips makes him gag violently. But the doctors don't know what's causing his terrible nausea. They claim it's not the cancerous tumor in his kidney. My parents had just moved from New York to Florida when my father got sick. He began to lose weight and feel nauseous. A few weeks later, the doctors discovered tumors in his thymoma gland and in his kidney. They operated on the thymoma. The surgeon insists the operation was a success.

It's 5:00 in the evening, just before dinner. Justin, 14, and his mother are discussing his schoolwork. Mom: Do you have homework? Justin: I did it in school. Mom: Forest's father said that he had an algebra test tomorrow. I thought you were in his class. Justin: I am. But you can't study for algebra. Either you know it or you don't. Mom: Of course you can study.

The summer after my senior year, I had one of the most boring jobs imaginable. But since I needed the money, I was grateful to work at anything, even if my job was washing cars for a university that rented out its fleet of cars to its staff and visitors. I had to be at work each morning at 6 a.m. Getting up was hell, but I saw the sunrise on my way to work in the morning.

It is a rainy Sunday afternoon in November, with nothing I want to watch on TV. All of my friends are away. My sister is at Green Acres Shopping Center. I walk through the house. My father is stretched out on the Lazy Boy recliner in the den, watching football. I sit down on the couch. A commercial comes on. A cute guy is in a sports car, driving a beautiful woman through a snowstorm in the mountains. When they arrive at their destination, a Victorian inn, every window is illuminated with a candelabrum. I walk to my parents' bedroom. The door is closed. I peer in.

I need ten hands or two bodies or another leg or something or somebody to help me get through all of this. Mrs. Nodiff gave us a report on the effects of democratic policy on the urban dweller in the former Soviet Republic. Like I care. And I have to do a report in English on the psychology of Stephen Dedalus in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.