GK: ....after this word. (WARM FURRY MUSIC)
TR: This is a picture of my son....Dave....good kid. I coached his Little League team. He was a second baseman. Hard worker. Did okay in high school, worked hard, and went to college and became a driver's ed teacher. A good guy. And then about a year ago, Dave got his ears pierced and he started going around with Christmas ornaments for earrings and he had a nose tack put in and he let his nose hair grow and he had it permed and he wound it around the tack and he quit his job and started writing prose poems. And he asked us to start calling him Rick. I said, "Dave, how can we call you Rick --- it's not your name." And he said, "Rick is the name of the person I really am. I am a prose poet now. And my name is Rick." I said, "Dave, we need to talk. I'm your dad. I love you, son. And I need to know. Are you sure you're getting enough ketchup?"
And he said, "Ketchup. I almost forgot."
And I said, "Dave, let's go have a hamburger. With ketchup. The way we used to."
He's better now. The hole in his nose is healing up and he isn't writing prose poems, he's teaching driver's ed. Thanks to ketchup.
GK: A message from the Ketchup Advisory Board.
© 1997 by Garrison Keillor