(From p. 42-46.)
(The security checkpoint at an airport. A guard stands, examining bags of passengers we can’t see. Candy waits in line. She holds a bag and a bunch of flowers. Bard comes to stand in line behind her. Pause. He sees her. Pause.)
BARD
How do flowers get their names?
CANDY
Hmm?
BARD
Flowers. Who names them? (Pause.) Say there’s a flower you want to call…I don’t know…chrysanthemum. And some other people want to name it something different. Like…dewdrop.
CANDY
Dewdrop is a shitty name for a flower.
BARD
Or anything, I don’t know. What’s your name?
CANDY
Candy.
BARD
Or Candy. So this one group wants to call a flower Candy and this other psychotic sect of flower namers wants to say chrysanthemum. Or dewdrop. Or whatever. Why are we, the flower buying public, subservient to a nomenclature force fed to us by others. Is what I’m saying. Who gets to make the final decision?
CANDY
Oh. Okay.
BARD
Who are these people?
CANDY
Mmm.
BARD
You see?
CANDY
Yes.
BARD
Who are –
CANDY
Botanists.
BARD
(Pause.) What?
CANDY
Botanists. They’re called botanists. Botany: The study of plant life.
BARD
I know what botany is.
CANDY
That’s who gets to name them.
BARD
I was speaking in the theoretical.
CANDY
I know.
BARD
Botanists.
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