Ray: [on tape] "Hi, this is Ray. If I'm not here, I'm probably hanging at the quad with my girl, Karen. You know it!" [beep]
Karen: [on tape] "Ray, it's Karen. Listen, there's something I need to say. I wanted to tell you at the Kappa Delta Hoedown, but you were having so much fun playing foosball, so well, I'll just say it. I was thinking that maybe we should start seeing other people and, you know not each other. I'm sorry to kinda break up and everything on the phone, but I didn't wanna... Anyway. Okay, I gotta go. And you should change your outgoing message, okay? Bye."
Ray: I was wondering why she hadn't called.

Marie: Why are we yelling?
Ray: Geez, Ma, nobody's yelling.
Marie: Then why am I up here?
Ray: I don't know.
Robert: Hey, what's with the yelling?
Frank: Yeah, what's with the yelling?
Ray: Oh, come on. Could everybody please go?
Marie: Why are you in your underwear?
Ray: Because this is my bedroom!

Debra: I'm glad you're all here. Let me ask you something. Do you think it's weird that someone would keep a tape of someone breaking up with them for 20 years?
Robert: "Karen 1982"?
Ray: How the hell do you know about that?
Robert: I came across it one day when I was drawing genitals on your foosball trophies.
Ray: You really are a mental case, you know that?

Frank: So this Karen broad dumped you over the phone on a tape? [chuckles]
Marie: You never told me anything about a Karen. How long did you two date?
Ray: I don't know. Like five months.
Marie: You went together five months, and this is how I find out about it?
Ray: Oh, come on, Ma! It was 20 years ago!
Marie: What were you doing with her?
Robert: Nothing that kept her happy.

Debra: I keep things, too, but they're they're happy things. You know a letter, pictures. Someone wrote me a poem once.
Ray: Poem? From who? What poem? Who writes you poems?
Debra: A guy I knew in the 10th grade. But it's a happy poem, makes me smile when I read it.
Ray: You still read it?
Debra: Yeah, I have, once or twice. [Marie gasps]
Ray: You never told me about a poem.
Frank: Burn everything, I tell ya!
Marie: Such secrets from your husband.
Debra: I'm not keeping secrets! Ray, I didn't tell you because every time I mention an old boyfriend, you say, "I don't want to hear it." He doesn't want to know about it. Look. Look, this is not unusual. Everybody keeps nice stuff. What they don't keep are breakup tapes. Forget it, just forget it! You know where it's nice? In the basement.

Ray: Debra, I was thinkin' I now understand that it is kinda weird to keep that tape.
Debra: Can we just drop the whole thing?
Ray: No! I wish that I had told you about it. I should've been more open. We should be more open. I think from now on, we should both be open. Let's consider this "opening night."
Debra: Ray.
Ray: In this shoebox, I have everything from my past relationships.
Debra: Yeah?
Ray: Yeah. And I'm gonna show it to you. Just to show you that, you know, I can show.
Debra: Great, if you want.
Ray: I do! I do! I really do. You first.

Ray: Well, you got a poem, you said there's some other stuff. I wanna see what you got.
Debra: Why?
Ray: Are we gonna be open, or not?
Debra: Yeah. I mean, of course I wanna be open. But I don't think you're doing this for the right reason.
Ray: Is wanting to be closer to you not the right reason?
Debra: You are so full of it! But I do want to be more open, and I would like to be closer.

Ray: Yes! Let's do this. Show me your stuff. Good! This is good. I'm glad we're doin' this. This is gonna be good for our marriage. Wow! What do you got in there a poem, or the guy who wrote it?

Debra: "Debra's eyes. Brown as earth, Giveth life to tree and brush. Speckled green, like the breast of a thrush.
Yellow ringed as the sun on a web. So many colors in thine eye, My Deb."
Ray: [laughs] Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Whoo-hoo! Oh, man! That's the poem?
Debra: Don't make fun of it!
Ray: I don't have to. Read it again.
Debra: It happens to be very romantic!
Ray: Yeah, yeah. Read it again.
Debra: No! You don't appreciate it. For your information, he wrote this in the 10th grade, and he ended up going to Yale.
Ray: Not on a poetry scholarship.
Debra: Well, I don't see you writing me any poems!
Ray: I can't now. Chad killed poetry.

Ray: So that's all you got? Some rhymes about your many-colored eyeball?
Debra: No. There are letters and gifts.
Ray: Gifts? What gift? You didn't tell me about any gifts. What? Show me a gift.
Debra: They're not in the box.
Ray: Where are they?
Debra: Around.
Ray: Around where?
Debra: I don't know. I got that bird feeder out in back.
Ray: That was from a boyfriend? That's a great gift. Guarantees the birds are nice and full when they fly over my car.