George begins to describe to police officers how his neurobiology research lab is funded by his wife's generous endowment for her work in theoretical physics, which makes him beholden to her for success. His wife, Martina, controls his life at home too, with a set of impossible rules that he must live by. Representative of these rules is the tennis ball she has hung in their garage, and the dot on his car windshield she placed to ensure he would always park correctly — in accordance with Martina's standards. George struggles to park perfectly on the dot several times before he abandons his vehicle. Enraged by the impossibility of living to Martina's standards, he rips down the tennis ball, has a drink in the kitchen, and stumbles upstairs to find his wife in a perplexing state. Nothing in the room is perfectly aligned, and Martina lies in the bath, drunk. She confesses that she has lost her endowment; the one that secured both of their research. When George says it's time he got a job at Taco Bell, she belittles the minimal effort he puts into his job and asks him to be her secretary. George is furious; Martina spills her wine and attempts to seduce him into forgiving her. But she cannot manage the seduction without focusing instead on the spilled wine and her desire to clean it up. George realizes that Martina is as much a prisoner of the impossible rules as he is. George moves Martina's beloved white noise machine out of place on the shelf above her head, and knows that when she inevitably repositions it, it'll fall into the bathtub and shock her to death. He concludes his confession to the police officers by telling them that he feels freed, yet also sad; he lost the incredible value of Martina in his conquest to destroy the trap they both fell into.