It's a restaurant. A very expensive restaurant. The waiters don't walk, they glide. Colors are muted and tasteful. The menu is hand-written. It's mostly French, with a sprinkling of Japanese and English. Three people sit in a corner table, overlooking the action. Bob Barker is resplendent in a lovely powder-blue suit and tie. Kathie Lee Gifford is wearing a Norwegian-style sweater and simple slacks. Richard Simmons is slumped over a plate of foie gras lasagna, wearing a sweatsuit and headband. One hand clutches an oversized fork. The other is curled around a $400 snifter of brandy. His voice is low and slow, and grinds like sandpaper.

Richard Simmons [not looking up from his food]: I hate people.

Kathie Lee Gifford: You what?

Simmons: I hate people. In general. No qualifers. I appreciate what people cook, but only particular people from France. I like my steak paper thin, almost raw and Japanese, and you can only get that at a few places. When people are fixing me steak the way I like it, that's when they seem okay. Otherwise, I hate 'em.

Bob Barker [waving his hand lazily, dismissively]: Don't be so extreme. You don't hate people.

Gifford [suddenly snapping to attention, and raising her finger to make a point]: No, he's right. People are dogfood. People aren't even dogfood. At least dogfood feeds dogs. Dogs are generally patient and loving. Dogs don't demand autographs or haggle over percentages or mess with the script.

Barker [shrugging]: You guys need to have another mai-tai and lighten up. Look, y'all are burning out. There are lots of would-be superstars out there nipping at your heels if you slow down.

Simmons: Bob, how do you keep it real?

Barker: Keep what real?

Simmons: You know #151; how do you stop yourself from going crazy and just spazzing out?

Barker: Oh, it's easy. I just pretend I'm in a room full of robots.

Gifford: That's the secret?

Barker: Well, that's my secret, anyway. I just imagine I'm in a themepark, and the theme is "crazy robots that yell things and jump up and down." If I behave myself, at the end of the day I'm given a check for $25000 and a full-body rubdown.

Simmons: And the novelty doesn't wear off?

Barker: Surprisingly, it doesn't.

Gifford: Bob, you're 103. How do you keep doing this, year after year? Don't you ever feel as though your life is being worn through? That other people's constant need for your attention just eats through your soul like a powerful bleach?

Barker: No. Look #151; y'all need to keep your eyes on the prize. You will become, or already are, answers to trivia questions. More people know of you than know of Sophocles, or Justinian, or Kublai Khan. Your memory will live on as long as your shows continue in syndication. And, my goodness, the money's allright. Simmons: I heard that.

[There's a pause. Simmons packs away the pasta.]

Gifford: You know what I said the other day, on air? I said, "I've always felt that the fastest way to make God smile is to care for a child."

Simmons: That's a good line!

Gifford: Golden. Pure gold. Showed up in a half-a-dozen magazines within a week. I didn't write it, but I knew it was gold as soon as I saw it. But you know, after I said it, part of me just wanted to say: "Hel-LO! Get real, Kathie Lee." I mean, we can't anthropomorphize a deity who is, by definition, unknowable by the human mind. I mean, the Holocaust, right? Hello? Special relativity? The vile rich regularly prospering while the noble poor are ground down and broken? We're clearly not dealing with a Hallmark character, here.

[There is silence around the table]

Gifford: You're not getting it. You know? It's like Hinduism. Cosmology is more complicated than that shit at the end of "Gladiator." I hate to burst bubbles, but we don't wander off into a soft dissolve of warm sunlight to be greeted by our dead families. If anything, heaven is a place where your dead family lives, but not so close that they can visit, or even call all that often. And God walks around with a 2-ton hickory stick he uses to beat the living crap out of telephone solicitors.

Simmons: God is hardcore.

Barker: Amen.

Gifford: Yeah, so that's what I was thinking when I was actually talking about the length of my underarm hair. Which I guess everybody thought was quirky and fun, or something. Ugh. I need another. Hey! Waiter!

Gliding Waiter: Yes, ma'am?

Gifford: Another.

Waiter: Right away ma'am. What were you having?

Gifford: Something strong. Chop-chop.

Waiter: Goldschlagger it is.

[There's a long pause. Barker looks at his watch, and gets up from the table, leaving a couple of fifties under his wine glass.]

Barker: Listen, I'm going to go snoop around Hell's Kitchen and see what's standing on the corner. I'll catch you kids later. Remember the robots, and keep it real.

Gifford: Later, Bob!

Simmons: G'night.

[Bob leaves the restaurant.]

Simmons: Were you guys ever an item?

Gifford: Yeah.

Simmons: How was he?

Gifford: The best.

[Simmons takes a swig of brandy and thinks about it for a moment.]

Simmons: Yeah, I'll bet.