Dumb Dialogue

Generally, the textbook for my freshman 2+2 class is practical and helpful. This week the chapter was on asking for and offering help. We practiced sentences like, "Would you be so kind to . . ." and "Let me know if there is anything that I can do." Ok, that's fine. Then after the example sentences there was a dialogue. Now, I can think of dozens of situations to make a dialogue about asking for and offering help: an old person crossing the street, a salesperson in a clothes store, a fellow classmate needing help with homework. No . . . here's the dialogue for the "Asking For and Offering Help" chapter.

A: (sees B crying) Are you O.K.?
B: No, I'm not O.K.?!
A: What's wrong? Is there anything I can do for you?
B: Not unless you can bring my cat back to life.
A: On no! What happened?
B: Well, I was playing with Ziggy outside in the rain. So I decided to dry him off. But instead of using a towel I used a microwave. I can barely talk about it.
A: Tell me what happened.
B: He blew up!
A: Oh dear! That's horrible! Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.
B: How about cleaning my microwave?
A: Not a chance.

!?!?!?!? What??!! Seriously, I'm supposed to teach this to the students??!! We did say it in class but the whole time I was thinking this is the craziest, most ridiculous bizarre dialogue ever. Who in the world wrote this? Why in the world would they write something like this??? And, let's think if this is practical or not. I sure hope none of my students ever find themselves in this situation needing to use this dialogue as an example.