She: For the three of you who haven’t heard, there’s a writer’s strike going on. Since Zak is a member of the Writers Guild of America, he has refused to write our column this week.

Z: (chanting) Webcasts, DVDs, we won’t write them, not for free!

She: As I said, he’s refused to write our column this week, allowing me the rare opportunity to actually put words — unedited — directly into the donkey’s month.

Z: (chanting) What do we want? More residuals! When do we want them? At some time that rhymes with residuals!

She: What he meant to say is that he has a truly lovely and talented wife. He’s very fond of saying that I’m the one who has all of his ideas for him.

Z: (chanting) We write the story-a for Eva Longoria!

She: See that? Even his strike chants aren’t original. That one was stolen from a Desperate Housewives  picket line.

Z: It’s called borrowing. Shakespeare  did it all the time. Therefore, I’m Shakespeare.

She: Did Shakespeare ever go on strike?

Z: No, Shakespeare was a playwright. Playwrights are the smart ones who never gave up ownership of their works. Screenwriters gave up ownership long ago, so now we have to beg for scraps.

She: Scraps like vacation homes?

Z: Have you visited our vacation home lately? It’s that Costco tent  that’s too big for our backyard.

She: Point taken. So you’re the perfect example of why the WGA should go on strike. Think of all the money you could be making from Internet residuals on all of your un-produced scripts.

Z: That’s not quite how it works.

She: I thought residuals were all about passive income, making money without working.

Z: They are. But you still have to have worked in the first place.

She: That makes it harder.

Z: Sadly, yes. I’m doing very well up until that getting hired in the first place thing.

She: Doesn’t it drive you crazy not to write?

Z: Have we met? The whole point of a screenwriter’s life is to try to find excuses not to write. As someone who hasn’t been paid to write a movie in almost eight years who is now additionally on strike from not getting paid to write movies — I’m in heaven.

She: If only there was some way to make it pay.

Z: That’s what you’re here for.

She: I barely covered my latte bill last month.

Z: Don’t reporters get residuals when their stories are rerun? I thought that’s how all the Vietnam War reporters were making it through retirement, by doing repeats for the Iraq war.

She: No residuals for reporters. And, we don’t get to just invent things. When we get stuck writing a story, we can’t have a bolt of lightning make a dog and a human swap bodies.

Z: Don’t belittle my craft.

She: I’m taking this very seriously. Do you know how hard it is for me to go to sleep without some pillow talk from Jon Stewart?

Z: And don’t get me started on missing The Daily Show. That’s makes me angry with those greedy screenwriters, too.

She: When they run the last episode of The Office, this strike had better be over.

Z: It shouldn’t be that hard. If just one studio president would give up his stock options for a year, he could pay the 12,000 striking writers what they’re asking for.

She: Those greedy, greedy screenwriters. How do you people live with yourselves?

Z: We marry people with real jobs.

She: Hey, look at that! All that whining about being on strike, and it looks like we got a column out of you anyhow. Now we just have to do some editing.

Z: (also heard on the Desperate Housewives picket line, to the tune of Amy Winehouse‘s “Rehab”) They tried to make me do a rewrite, but I said, No! No! No!

She: Yes, dear.

Z probably won’t write back, but She can be reached at leslie@lesliedinaberg.com.