 In 1973's The Last Detail, a career sailor on hard duty, also played by Jack Nicholson, is asked if he's ever been married. He says, and not wistfully, Yeah, once. She wanted me to go to trade school and become a TV repairman. Driving around in all that smog, fixing TVs out of the back of a VW bus. I just couldn't do it. It's a speech that captures the last detail of feared tedium.