Betty: Hello, Laura, are you there?

Laura: Yes, I'm here. Your secretary had me on hold for almost 20 minutes.

Betty: Well, at least your patience was rewarded, in contradistinction to those hapless souls who used to call your little show.

Laura: Now, wait just a minute babe --

Betty: Laura, please bottle your trademark "caustic impatience" shtick for the paying public. I have something rather important to discuss and it will take far less time if you drop the tough-dame banter. Or, better yet, say nothing at all.

Laura: Oh, not this again. Betty, I'm not going to convert back to Christianity! So save your breath, babe.

Betty: It would never occur to me to save you, dear. Heaven would hardly live up to its name with you there. Besides, if my afterlife is just going to involve running into all the same people I avoided here on Earth, honestly, what would be the point?

Laura: Why don't you get to your point?

Betty: Gladly. You know how you are scheduled to speak at Landover Baptist Church next month?

Laura: Yes, but I still haven't gotten my check for the $30,000 speaking fee.

Betty: Goodness, not even $3,000 an N-word! Well, don't run out and add something vulgar to your collection of amusingly ostentatious jewelry just yet, dear. You see, the B.I.T.C.H. Silver Spatula committee had an emergency meeting last night, and with little more than an arched eyebrow, prevailed upon me to disinvite you. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to be the one to tell you.

Laura: Wait a minute here --

Betty: We just came to the regrettable -- no matter how obvious -- conclusion that you are just not or sort, dear.

Laura: Well, coming from you. I'll take that as a compliment.

SFX: "Laugh" (c)1984 Dr. Laura Industries, Inc.

Betty: As you so rarely receive a sincere compliment from someone with any self-esteem (which naturally excludes your husband and callers), I shall overlook your obvious inability to recognize one, dear.

	"If we wanted sluts in our church, we'd be Catholic!" - Betty Bowers

Laura: Let me tell you what I think about that --

Betty: Excuse me, dear, for interrupting. But you appear to be working under the notion that I care about what you think. Whatever instinct led you to this erroneous conclusion should, under no circumstances, be trusted in the future. As I was saying, Mrs. --

Laura: Doctor!

Betty: Pardon?

Laura: They call me "doctor."

Betty: Well, they call you so many things, it's rather difficult to keep track. But since you are neither a medical doctor nor hold a doctorate degree in your chosen profession, calling yourself doctor is no more reflective of fact than a Scientologist calling himself straight. What Jesus and I call you is a rather shoddy example of family values.

Laura: Let me tell you something: I am known throughout this whole country -- yes, little me -- as being a loud voice in the wilderness for family values and -- .

Betty: Darling, no one is disputing the shrillness of your voice. Although, had it been a bit less brassy, you might have heard your mother cry for help just before she was left for two months to decompose into her Empire carpet. Our Lord called on us to honor our mothers. Somehow, I don't think having her leave this world as a decorative compost heap was what He had in mind. And if that's not bad enough, you're a Jew.

Laura: Jesus was a Jew!

Betty: Yes, but he wasn't a braying divorcee with a tongue that could lacerate a diamond cocktail ring. You were married before your current so-called marriage, weren't you?

Laura: What do you mean "so-called"?

Betty: Well, according to the Bible -- the very same one you talk about, but I follow -- a woman can be married only once. One. Is that such a hard number to keep track of, dear? Just think of it as the number of seasons your TV show almost ran. Indeed, if a woman marries again, both she and her "husband" are committing adultery. Matthew 5:32. So you're just "shacking up with your honey." Such disgraceful behavior! But hardly shocking, coming from a hussy who flaunts the fact she has a bastard on national radio.

Laura: A what?

Betty: Well -- babe -- it stands to reason that if you're not married in the eyes of God, then any children are the spawn of an unholy union and are, therefore, bastards. Such a harsh word, don't you think? Never cared for it. Fortunately, I seldom have occasion to use it as I don't socialize in circles where a woman who has one makes it past the help who opens the door.

Laura: I will not stand for you calling my beloved bunchkin a bastard!

Betty: And my beloved Lord won't stand for you making the little mess one! Or for those alarmingly hirsute photographs taken in your distant youth.

Laura: They were art pictures!

Betty: Nudies! Taken by a man not even one of your many husbands!

Laura: Those pictures were taken before I changed.

Betty: Well, one look at them and anyone would have changed. Preferably into a camisole.

Laura: Listen Miss High and Mighty: It's time someone told you that you --

Betty: Laura, I'm trying to care about what you think. Truly, I am. But -- so far -- nothing is working. And as you seem so utterly unable to one-up me, might I suggest that you instead settle for one-up yours? Good day.

[DAIL TONE]