(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell, RD: Rich Dworsky)
Tonight's show brought to you by the Ketchup Advisory Board. (MUSIC)
TR: These are the good years for me and Barb. The kids have left home and we got an unlisted phone number. I managed to return the photocopier I had stolen from the office. Barb went to her thirtieth high-school reunion and her old boyfriend who dumped her had gained a hundred pounds and was bald as a bowling ball. So we've got every reason in the world to be happy. But the other night, I woke up and found Barb in the basement, gluing a frame together ... What's wrong, honey? It's three in the morning.
SS: I'm despondent, Jim. I went out today and bought a copy of Martha Stewart Dying and I'm making my own guillotine.
TR: But why? We're happy. And it's the holiday season.
SS: My point exactly.
TR: But I thought you liked Christmas.
SS: I did like it. When I was eight years old. Since then, it's lost a lot of its appeal.
TR: But why?
SS: Jim, it's the national festival of guilt. It's the day when we decide that everybody has to be happy! And if they're not, it's our fault.
TR: But Barb -
SS: Every year we say we're not going to do it and then we go right out and do it. We whip out the plastic and we buy a lot of junk for people and they take one look at the stuff and put it into deep storage. For what we spend on useless gifts, we could fly to Paris for two weeks.
TR: So let's do it.
SS: Sure, we'd go and we'd get to Paris and you'd check voice mail and your mother'd be on there all confused and wondering if we were going to come over and sing carols and you'd be depressed for the next ten days and we'd sit in the hotel room watching CNN.
TR: We don't need to feel bad at Christmas, Barb.
SS: We don't?
TR: No. We need to make our own Christmas. A ketchup Christmas.
SS: I almost forgot about ketchup -
TR: Everyone knows that ketchup has natural mellowing agents that help a person get through challenge and change.
SS: You're right, Jim.
TR: This year, instead of cranberry sauce - let's make it ketchup. (MUSIC)
RD: These are the good years, in the golden sun.
A new day is dawning. A new life has begun.
The river flowing, like ketchup on a bun.
GK: Ketchup. For the good times.
RD: Ketchup ... ketchup.
(c) 1998 by Garrison Keillor