(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell)
....after a message from the Profession of English Majors. (PASTORAL MUSIC)
GK: You wake up one morning and life is so good and then your teenager walks in.
SS (TEEN): I hate you! Do you hear me? I hate you!
GK: Your sweet little Melissa. She turned into a bitter and ugly person. It used to be that kids dressed up as vampires and ghouls for Halloween and went around scaring people. Now they do it everyday. Honey---- you cut your hair and dyed it black? And the black mascara-----
SS (TEEN): It's cool. It's happening. But what would you know about that? Nothing.
GK: And you spray-painted your dirndl and made big rips in it.
SS (TEEN): And I'm taking the car! I hate you! (SLAM DOOR) (BEAT) (SQUEAL OF TIRES)
GK: She's gone. My little sweetie became a terrorist. What can I do?
TR (PATERNAL): Try therapy. Melissa could come to me and explore some of her issues and we could work out compromises and find appropriate ways to deal with her anger and----
GK: Doctor?
TR (PATERNAL): Yes?
GK: Do you have teenage children?
TR (PATERNAL): Yes, I do.
GK: Did this work with them?
TR (PATERNAL): No, it didn't.
GK: I didn't think so.
SS (REVERB, ANGELIC): Maybe I can help. (GLISS)
GK: Who are you?
SS (REVERB): I'm a fiction writer.
GK: Fiction?
SS: (REVERB) The first step to change is to imagine change. And to pretend it already happened.
GK: I never thought about it that way.
SS (REVERB): Let's give it a try. (TYPING) "The rosy-fingered sunset lit the western sky and filled him with a profound sense of happiness as he stood, looking out toward the sea, (SURF, GULLS) his daughter standing next to him, her arm around his waist, looking up at him, her dad, her hero.
SS (TEEN): You are so wise, I write down the things you tell me and I keep going back to them and finding new meaning in them.
SS (REVERB): ---she said, serenity in her young face.
SS (TEEN): I feel that three or four hours a day is not enough to spend with you and mom. I long to take a vacation together, the three of us. And perhaps my boyfriend Ernest.
GK: Ernest is a fine lad.
SS (REVERB): he said.
GK: The boy has a fine future in the field of mechanical engineering, if you ask me.
SS (TEEN): Did you know he's a devout Lutheran?
GK: I sensed that, yes. What happened to Darryl?
SS (TEEN): He got an electrical shock when he spilled beer on his guitar amp and now he's a hopeless vegetable.
GK: What a tragedy.
SS (TEEN): I'll never frequent those nightclubs again, now that I know how dangerous they are.
GK: Excellent.
SS (TEEN): And now I must go broil the fish and then--- we'll dine ----en famille.
GK: Wonderful, darling.
SS (REVERB): Fiction: it's how we change the world. By envisioning it.
SS (TEEN): You're the best daddy a girl ever had.
GK: A message from the Profession of English Majors. (DECOROUS CHORDS OFF)
(c) 2000 by Garrison Keillor