(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell)
GK: Tonight's show also brought to you by Bebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
You're walking (TRAFFIC, FOOTSTEPS) back to the office from lunch one day and you see this fat guy walking towards you (TR: Wow, what a chunkster), when you realize you're walking towards a mirror. (TR SHOCK) That chunky guy is you. (TR WEEPS) So you go to your office (TR: Throw out all my M&Ms, Miss Fenwick. SS: Yes, sir.) and you call up the health club (TR: Enroll me in your 24-hour crash diet course, please.) and you report to the club and meet your trainer, Dietrich (TK GERMAN ORDERS) and on the treadmill you go (RUNNING FEET, TR PANTING, MECH RATCHETING) and you run for miles until you can hardly stand (TR PANTING, RUNNING SLOWS) and the Mars bar in your pocket melts from the heat (TR DISAPPOINTMENT) and your trainer is not happy (TK GERMAN ORDERS), he sends you to the Aerobics for Potatoes class (SS: One! two! three! four! Okay, now the other eyelid.), and finally, exhausted, (TR EXHAUSTION) you slink off to the showers (SHOWER SFX) feeling humiliated. But wait - those voices coming in (SS LAUGHTER) A woman! (TR: What??) You're in the women's locker room! (TR: Oh no!) You grab your towel (TR ALARM) and streak out the back (RUNNING BARE FEET ON WET SHOWER FLOOR) and there's a door that says Emergency Exit (TR ALARM), well, this is an emergency, you open it (DOOR OPEN, TRAFFIC) and you're outside (TR CONSTERNATION) - don't let that door (DOOR SLAMS SHUT) - close. What now? You're out in the street. (TRAFFIC) With nothing but a small towel around your waist. And it's January. (TR SHIVER) Ten minutes out here, you could die of exposure. (TR BANGING ON DOOR: Lemme in! lemme in!) Wait! Who's this coming down the street? It's your boss! (TR PANIC) And you leap over the snowbank (TR EFFORT), or almost leap over the snowbank, and you dash around the corner
(RUNNING BARE FEET) and (BUS STOPPING, AIR BRAKES, DOOR OPEN) a bus stops and you leap on board (TR: Oh thank you, thank you. I - I can explain. SS: Hey, I'm from San Francisco. We see this all the time. BUS START UP) And she is so kind. (SS: Where can I drop you?) Your mother's house is a few blocks from here. (TR: How about the next corner?) So she drops you there (SS: Bye! TR: Thanks! BUS START UP) and you hustle up to Mom's front door (KNOCKS ON DOOR. TR ANXIETY: Come on, come on, come on. KNOCKS) and nobody seems to be home. So you (GLASS BREAKAGE AND DOOR OPEN) let yourself into the front porch and - (DOG SNARL) Mom doesn't have a dog. Does she? (DOG SNARL) It's a big Rottweiler, up on the couch. (KNOCKS) You knock on the front door and - (TK INSIDE: Who's there???? TR: It's me, Dad.) And he opens the door with the chain on. (TK: You got any identification on you, fella? Oh. I guess not. DOG SNARLING. TR: You don't recognize me because you have Alzheimer's, Dad. TK: Alzheimer - I don't know any Alzheimer. Where you from? SIREN TR: Oh no.) And you (TR BIG EFFORT, WOOD AND GLASS BREAKAGE)
break the door down as the dog leaps (DOG SNARLING) and you dash in the bathroom (DOG WOOFS IN PURSUIT) to get a bathrobe and you step on the scale (SFX) and see that you've gained five pounds. (TR: Oh no!)
(RHUBARB THEME)
Wouldn't this be a good time for a piece of rhubarb pie? Yes, nothing gets the taste of humiliation out of your mouth like Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
(RHUBARB SONG)
(c) 1999 by Garrison Keillor