A man ("T.") and a woman ("S.") are in a kitchen:

"Measure this for me," she said. "I need two tablespoons."

"Of what?" he asked.

"The butter. It's on the counter." He measured. She stirred. "How was work? What was the big problem today?"

"Capacity," he said. "Again."

"Of what?"

"The Server. Somebody thought the damn thing was full. Like that can even happen, really. And if I've told those people once, I've told them a million times, you can't try -- "

"System stuff again, huh?" she said, sighing.

" -- to back up the server with the same tape every day. It just doesn't work. Of all people, I should know, as many times as I've crashed it. And you know what happens to me? Once again, I -- "

" -- `Undergo serious heartaches.' Yup. And they don't listen, do they? It's as though they expect the problem to solve itself through some sort of magical process -- something mystical and other-worldly."

"Spontaneous generation or something of that ilk," he agreed, nodding vigorously. "What the hell are they thinking, anyway?"

"Change doesn't happen like that. It's more of a gradual thing."

"Thermodynamically, they should understand it. Two seconds after you adjust the heat, they want it to be warmer. As for the air conditioning -- hey! Why are you throwing that in now?"

"Specified by the recipe," she said, holding up the book. "And this one is written by the expert."

"By whom?"

"The one and only Martha Stewart, bless her stoneware." She stirred the cream in carefully, using a flat-bladed wooden spoon. It was slow going on a low flame, so as not to scald it. "Say," said S., "did you ever find the solution to that problem you were having? The one with the relationship?"

"Relationship? Which one would that be, my dear?"

"dS=dQ/T. That one."

"Where I got stuck before, you mean."

"dS," she said. "Yup. That." She smiled.

"Is this a trick question?" T. asked.

"An unusual accusation, that! Me? Tease you? Are you kidding? Why my chances of succeeding are tiny, microscopic, a speck on the tip of a speck where not even one angel could dance, not the width of half a cat's asshole hair, so small it exists on only the atomic level. `eentsy-weentsy,' if I may use such language in mixed company."

"Infinitesimal," he agreed. "Absolutely." He paused and lit a cigarette, more for dramatic flourish than from an urge. "In fact, I don't even know what you're talking about, Darling. That I, T., the one and only Great T., would be goaded by such a transparent attempt is not merely foolish on your part, but downright presumptuous, and hence insulting. No, my Sweetest S., this is not the day you will trick me!"

"Change seems impossible for the boulder," she said. "Yet, in the path of a glacier it comes, inch by inch, undeniably."

"In time," he agreed. "But I am no boulder. I am the tall grass that bends in the winds of the storm, while the oak, the `mighty' oak, is uprooted and thrown over."

"The lengths you'll go to in order to allude to Virgil always amaze me," she said, smiling and shaking her head.

"Measure that, will ya?" he said, pointing his cigarette at the pepper she was liberally grinding over the skillet.

"For duh," she scoffed. "Measure? Where you have been during the last three and a half years of this relationship? Nebraska? Measuring is for people who watch T.V."

"A soft blow," he said. "From you, anyway. But thanks; much appreciated." He bowed in mock respect. S. stirred the sauce, and ignored him. Then she squinted, frowned out of one side of her mouth, and bent down to look at the height of the flame, which she turned down.

T. started talking again. "What were we talking about? Work?"

"System stuff," she said, sounding bored this time. She threw the mushrooms T. had chopped into another, smaller skillet. T. stood silently, smoking. The mushrooms turned dark and released their juices. This was the moment of tension; if you're going to overcook mushrooms you might as well throw the whole basket into the garbage disposal as soon as you bring them back from the store. They are delicate: at a certain temperature, they give up their life in liquid form, and then, after a period of time measured only by experience (no clock -- no matter how atomic --- will ever help here) they start to drink it up again (like corpses re-animated) and it is at that moment and no other that they are ready, their sumptuous flavors perfect. S. knew the moment well, and watched keenly, stirring carefully. T. looked out the window. Then it happened:

Absorbing their juices again, the mushrooms reached that magical moment, and their pungency rose up and wafted throughout the room, filling it like invisible smoke. S. whipped the skillet off the flame, and slid the mushrooms into the steaming white sauce. She smiled.

An elegant dragonfly swooped past the window, and T. watched it go. "That's good luck," he said, as much to himself as to S. He leaned over the skillet, smelling the sauce. "What are the chances that your famous white sauce didn't turn out tonight?" he asked.

"Infinitesimal," she replied. "Zero, none, nil -- `tiny,' even. I'll leave out the angels and cats this time." She stirred the sauce thoughtfully. "Looks good, smells right, but there's not much of it."

"Quantity is inconsequential," said T. "It's what you do with it."

"Of course, you would say that, considering how `consequential' you are." She giggled. T. shook his head.

"Heat won't scare this bug away," he responded. "You need to turn on the full flame."

"dQ," she whispered, and smirked.

At that, T. fell back against the table, as if reeling from a blow, and his sneakers squeaked on the Formica. "Youch! That was below the belt!"

"Absolute victory has no proxy," she said. "Or, `Nothing succeeds like excess.'"

"Temperature risin', temperature risin'," he gasped. "Now she's sicked Oscar Wilde on me! What'll I do, folks?"

"T.," she said, laughing. "Just shut up and finish setting the table."