(restaurant. time passes, bottles amass)

GILES: (drunkenly) You know what gets me? This is what gets me. Twenty years I've been fighting demons. Maggie Walsh and her Nancy-ninja boys come in and six months later, demons are pissing themselves with fear. They never even noticed me.

Ethan: (drunkenly) Who's Maggie Walsh?

GILES: Oh, she's awful. She said I was an absent male role model. Absent my ass. I'm twice the man she is.

Ethan: (OS) You know you're really very attractive.

GILES: Hm?

Ethan: (to the waitress) Here's my name and number. You give me a call, I'll show you a good time.

Waitress: (unimpressed) Yeah, thanks.

GILES: We gotta face it, we've changed. We'll not you . . . you're still sadistic and self-centered.

Ethan: (toasting himself) Here's to me.

GILES: The world has past us by. Someone snuck in and left us a couple of has-beens in our place. This Initiative, I mean, their methods may be causing problems, but they're getting the job done. Where am I? I'm an unemployed librarian with a tendency to get knocked on the head.

Ethan: Well, we won't have to worry about that anymore now, mate. (serious tone) When you went to the loo I slipped a small pellet of poison in your drink. You'll be dead in an hour. (pause) Just kidding!

They both burst out laughing, blood alcohol returning to their high intoxicated levels.

GILES: (calming down) I'm gonna feel like hell in the morning.

Ethan: Relax. Enjoy the night. We're just a couple of sorcerers. The night is still our time. Time of magic.

(They raise their glasses in a toast.)

GILES: To magic.

• Giles' mid-life crisis

written by: Jane Espenson; Transcribed by Joseph B. Full transcript at:
http://www.studiesinwords.de/68anewman.html