Chapter 4 of 12 · 2'46"
On the surface they debate hiding a pregnancy from work to keep the maternity leave. Underneath sits a worse fear: a child sends every other plan out the window. "I bust through the border and I'm a free man!" is confessed as only a flash, and the others have to decide whether that fear can be said aloud.
A Good Plan Until the Shoes
When Dreams Go Out the Window
❝ Monologue · 7 lines The Border Flash of a Free Man
Someone says they won't tell work about a pregnancy: firing them would be illegal, and staying means maternity leave. Others praise the plan, then undercut it with water breaking on Robert De Niro's shoes. Talk shifts to dreams going out the window and a year in India, then a flash of a white Ford Bronco racing for Canada. Allison gets pulled into a time machine joke.
The workplace plan is the easy part: keep the pregnancy quiet because firing would be illegal and staying brings maternity leave. The De Niro shoes joke laughs at the one moment that plan would go public. "Isn't it weird, though, when you have a kid and all your dreams and hopes just go right out the window?" The India year is denied a few lines later. "I bust through the border and I'm a free man!" sounds like a confession, then gets walked back: it was a flash, and that was all they kept thinking. Someone says fears can be talked about here, and that it was not actually done. The DeLorean offers Allison a ride and asks what she wants to do. The next line claims no part of her would have used it to go back and change that night. "This is my time machine!" turns the bit into a joke, and the talk ends on compliments and "This is fun!"
A1–C2 is the CEFR scale. Cards above the level you pick fade, and playback will not auto-pause on them.
“It is a good plan until her water breaks all over Robert De Niro's shoes.”
It pretends to agree, then wrecks the plan with one ridiculous disaster.
Informal
“Isn't it weird, though, when you have a kid and all your dreams and hopes just go right out the window?”
A soft question does the cruel work of declaring those dreams finished.
Informal
“You can do it. But you can't do it once you have a family.”
The repeat of do it opens a door and shuts it on the word family.
Neutral
“I bust through the border and I'm a free man!”
He cheers the fantasy of busting the border, as if that escape were already a win.
Informal
“Why don't the two of you get into your time machine, go back in time and fuck each other?”
It hands their own movie joke back as a sexual insult.
Informal
You know, honestly, like, when I found out about... I totally, like, I just had this flash of me, like in a white Ford Bronco, and I'm just hauling ass for Canada, man. The chopper's taping the whole thing, and I just... I bust through the border and I'm a free man! That's all I kept thinking, man. You know what I'm saying? It was a flash!
Up next · 05ask you to ask meThe scene: Caught at the Fantasy DraftThe person says they do not have to tell them. Firing them over it would be illegal, and staying means three months of maternity leave, so they are simply not going to tell them. The next line calls that a good plan.
No. The white Ford Bronco, the helicopter, and "I bust through the border and I'm a free man!" are told as a flash, the only thing they kept thinking. Someone else says it is not like he did it.
It is an example of a plan you could do before marriage and children and cannot do once you have a family. The following lines ask whether anyone wants to go live in India, and the replies say they do not.
A hypothetical driver. Someone pictures him screeching up in the DeLorean, opening the door, and asking Allison what she wants to do. Asked who that is, the answer is Christopher Lloyd, the man who made the time machine.
