That's what those smily things are for !

The lights come up on our stage. Theatre flats have been arranged to form a corner, facing out into the audience at a 45 degree angle. We see the back of Seraph. He is facing into the corner wearing a large white paper cone on his head. When he turns to face the audience we can see a large letter 'D' printed on the front in vivid marker.

Seraph - "What? You're kidding me, right ? I don't have to tell THEM about this, do I ?"

Disembodied electronically disguised voice - "It's the LEAST you can do - you scumbag."

S - "Hey ! That wasn't cool !"

DEDV - "You're telling me it isn't warranted ?"

Seraph sighs.

S - " ... No"

DEDV - "Alright then. Get on with it."

Seraph faces the audience.

S - "SOooooooooooo ... I bet you're wondering why I'm wearing the dunce cap, huh ? It's a symbol of contrition. I did something PRETTY dopey earlier this week. But I DID learn a valuable lesson. I learnt that things that I think are funny might not be received in the same way ... Especially if said funny thing is transmitted through the medium of an e-mail."

"I'm at work - and I'm in a good mood even though the production is KILLING me, because our office is FINALLY getting the renovations done to such a degree that I actually get a proper desk. Life is good ! I get an e-mail from a friend - who has just done an incredibly cool thing for me by downloading a large and rather silly piece of animation via broadband. She jokingly refers to a couple of my fellow teachers as scumbags - they missed out on some cool deal or something because they didn't reply to an e-mail.

'AH ! She just called D. And C. A scumbag ! They are so not scum-bags ! I delight in the contradiction !'. I have no real idea of what kind of deal they missed out on - there was technical language. I copy and paste the comment into an e-mail to both of my colleagues - 'They'll know what this means better than me ... and they'll enjoy the scumbag reference as well ! Laughs all round !". I mention in the e-mail ( in what I thought was a pretty clear way) that I "didn't know if M. is joking or not !". I title the e-mail "And the horse you rode in on !" - referencing a well known joke ( what I thought to be well known anyway ).

I then have to lose my connection to the network while some renovation things go on.

When I get back onto the network ( it must have been an hour or so later ) - there were two e-mails waiting for me.

One was from my colleague D. It simply said "I'll deal with this personally."

Uh oh. I didn't like the sound of that tone.

The other one was from M. It said something like "Holy crap S ! It was a JOKE for Christ's sake!" Following it was the message that D. had sent her. The 'I'll take care of this' one. It was pretty stone cold ! It went on about how he did not appreciate being called a scumbag. He did not appreciate his colleague being called a scumbag. There were other words. They were bad.

Fuck !

I felt pretty bad about the whole thing. Needless to say I apologized to both parties ( with a more 'how the hell could you NOT tell this was a joke?' vibe to D. ).

Gargh."

DEDV - "This isn't the first time your so-called sense of humour got you into trouble, is it ?"

S - "What ? You're not going to mention - "

DEDV - "Remember how Jodie broke up with you after that joke you made ?"

S - "Shut up man ! I don't want to think about that ! That was freaking traumatizing !"

DEDV - "Or what about the time you told that bunch of vegetarians that you hated vegetarians because they were taking an evolutionary back-step ?"

S - "Oh come on ! They weren't listening to the tone ! It's all about the TONE ! Those fuckers needed to chill out ! It was a party for crying out loud !"

DEDV - "I think it was when you said that they didn't deserve to have eyes on the front of their face that really offended them. You should have seen the way they looked at you when you asked how a lack of peripheral vision hampered their chances in the herd ..."

S - " ... You might have a point. Okay - so I should be more careful about sharing things that I think are funny. Especially in e-mails. But YOU have to concede that SOME people should lighten the hell up !"

DEDV - "Fair enough"

S - "... Does that mean I can take this thing off now ?"

DEDV - "Oh, I think you'll have to be wearing that for a while yet."

Lights fade

S - "Awwww man."