GK: .....brought to you by Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
It's January, the holidays are over, and you notice that when you pull on your pants in the morning (RIP. TR: What?) and when you find a pair that fits, you have to struggle to get the belt buckled (TR STRAINING. STRAIN OF BELT CREAKING. BUCKLE SNAP. TR SIGH), so, just out of idle curiosity, you get out the bathroom scale (CLUNK. TR: This thing is way off. Ought to get a new one. LONG SPROING, RATCHET. TR GASP: WHAT? IT CAN'T BE. NOT ME. I'M A LITTLE GUY.) Not any more. And now memories of Christmas come back to you (PIG SNORTING, FOOD SCARFING) and New Year's Eve (GLUGGING) and that night in the restaurant with the four pounds ribs (TR SNARLS) when someone asked if you'd share (TR SNARLS) and you took your plate under the table---- (TR HOWL) you're going to have to hibernate for awhile, bucko. (TR: I swear, from now on, it's gonna be celery and carrots and water, cross my heart, hope to die.) So you have celery (SQUISH) with a truffle pate' and you have celery (EATING, MOUTH FULL) along with your steak, and you put water (POURING) in your Scotch, a little water, and two weeks later (LONG SPROING. TR: What?), you're a little heavier, so---- (TR: This is it. Health club.) --- you join a health club and (FAST RATCHETING, TR PUFFING) you're on the treadmill, (TR STRAIN, SLOW RATCHET) you're on the weight machine, you're (CREAKING, TR PUFFING) on the rowing machine, and then you're on the scale (SHORTER SPROING. TR: All right! Okay! That's more like it!) and you go out to eat (TR: But only celery!) and you go in a restaurant (HUBBUB) and the waiter shows you to the table (TK FRENCH) and you go to sit down and (SPROING. CROWD HUSH) your pants fall off (TR CLEAR THROAT: Sorry.). Everyone is looking. You're mortified. (TR: Never happened before....UNEASY LAUGH) And you go up to the food line. (FOOTSTEPS) It's a buffet, a health buffet. But between the buffet tables are these fast moving sidewalks. (HUM OF MACHINERY) To get to the food, you have to walk pretty fast. (RUNNING FOOTSTEPS, TR: That fruit salad looks pretty good. If only I can catch up to it. RUNNING FASTER.) There are a lot of other people there, running, with plates in their hands. TWO PAIRS OF FEET, RUNNING RAPIDLY (TR: Is it always this fast? SS: You think this is fast? TR: It seems pretty fast to me. SS: No, this is about normal. Is that salmon mousse up there? TR: I guess so. SS: Well, I'm going to try to catch up with it. See you later. TR: Okay.) ONE SET OF FEET RUNS AHEAD. And you're almost to the fruit salad and (TR: If I can just grab that spoon----) you reach ahead for the spoon and instead you grab the table cloth (RIP, CRASH, GLASS BREAKAGE, GLOP CRASHING, SEQ.) and there you are sitting on your rear end (TR CRY OF DISMAY) in a pile of fruit salad racing fifteen miles an hour towards a (CRASH, GLOP) wall. (RHUBARB THEME) Wouldn't this be a good time for a piece of rhubarb pie. Yes, nothing takes the taste of fear out of your mouth like Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
But one little thing can revive a guy,
And that is home-made rhubarb pie.
Serve it up, nice and hot.
Maybe things aren't as bad as you thought.
DUET:
Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb,
Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb,
Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
© 1996 BY GARRISON KEILLOR