Hannibal Lecter: No! I will listen now. After you fired your landscaper, you had nobody to do the yard work. You were thirty years old. You answered a Craigslist ad by some Mexican landscapers looking for work, and hired them the next day. And …?
Clarice Starling: [tears begin forming in her eyes] And one morning, I just couldn’t take it anymore.
Hannibal Lecter: Not “just”, Clarice. What set you off? You got angry at what time?
Clarice Starling: Early, just getting light outside.
Hannibal Lecter: Then something woke you, didn’t it? Was it a dream? What was it?
Clarice Starling: I heard a strange noise.
Hannibal Lecter: What was it?
Clarice Starling: It was … buzzing. Some kind of buzzing, like a loud wasp.
Hannibal Lecter: What did you do?
Clarice Starling: I went downstairs, outside. I crept onto the patio. I was so scared to look, but I had to.
Hannibal Lecter: And what did you see, Clarice? What did you see?
Clarice Starling: Mexicans with weed-eaters. And they were buzzing.
Hannibal Lecter: They were trimming the Azaleas with weed-eaters?
Clarice Starling: And they were buzzing.
Hannibal Lecter: And you fired them, or brought them all glasses of lemon flavored iced-tea?
Clarice Starling: No. First I tried to stop them. I … I got the electric bush trimmer from the garage and was going to let them use it, but the extension cord was retracted and I couldn’t pull it out.
Hannibal Lecter: But you could pull it out and you did, didn’t you?
Clarice Starling: Yes. I pressed the BIG, OBVIOUS button on the side that said CORD RELEASE, and pulled the cord out easily.
Hannibal Lecter: Yes, how could you miss the BIG, OBVIOUS button on the side that said CORD RELEASE?
[Clarice looks away, ruefully]
Hannibal Lecter: What were you going to do with it, Clarice?
Clarice: I don’t know. I didn’t have any experience as a landscaper, and it was very hot, very hot. I thought, I thought if I could save just one Azalea from the Mexican’s weed-eater by showing him how to use the trimmer, but … it was so big. So bushy. I didn’t get more than one side of it, then one of the Mexicans approached me. He was so offended that I didn’t trust him using a weed-eater on my beautiful Azaleas.
Hannibal Lecter: What became of your bush trimmer, Clarice?
Clarice Starling: I … I sold it.
Hannibal Lecter: You still wake up sometimes, don’t you? You wake up in the dark and hear the buzzing of weed-eaters.
Clarice Starling: Yes.
Hannibal Lecter: And you think if you save one Azalea, you could make them stop, don’t you? You think if you could flag ads posted on Craigslist by Mexican landscapers who are too broke to buy electric bush trimmers, you won’t wake up in the dark ever again to that awful buzzing of the weed-eaters.
Clarice Starling: [choking up] I don’t know. I don’t know.
Hannibal Lecter: Thank you, Clarice. Thank you.