(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott: TR: Tim Russell, TK:Tom Keith; RD: Rich Dworsky)
GK: ...after this message from the Ketchup Advisory Board.
(MUSIC)
TR: These are the good years for me and Barb. The kids are busy paying off their credit card debt by selling lottery tickets at rest homes. The neighbor kid whose band, The Gothic Love Monkeys, rehearsed every night in the garage accidentally knocked a can of paint thinner onto an amplifier and now next door is a vacant lot. Barb's hand-made wooden coasters won first prize at a crafts fair. And I won a prize at the charity rodeo... an event called "cattle dancing." And that night I came home and found Barb huddled next to a radiator, wrapped in a quilt.
SS: Oh Jim---- (WEEPING) ---- I'm so worried.
TR: Honey---- you turned the thermostat down to forty-two????
SS: We've got to start cutting back, Jim, so we can pay our taxes.
TR: We don't owe taxes-----
SS: I did our tax return today and----- we're in hock to Uncle Sam for a couple grand!
TR: Barb, we need a trained and licensed tax preparer to do our return----
SS: Thanks to those liberals who keep pouring money into the public schools, you and I are going to wind up living on macaroni and cheese.
TR: But we can't live in a house that's forty-two degrees-----
SS: Eskimos do. Nanook of the North did.
TR: Something's wrong with that tax return, Barb.
SS: I used a pocket calculator.
TR: The one that came with the big box of detergent...back in 1978...?
SS: Yes.
TR: Barb, it doesn't work. It's never worked. That's why the kids flunked math. The calculator has soap particles in it or something.
SS: So I don't need to cancel the morning paper and have the phone disconnected?
TR: Barb, I can't help but think you're not getting enough ketchup. Ketchup, you know, has natural mellowing agents that help to reduce panic.
SS: Oh Jim.....
TR: What do you say we go make ourselves a nice ketchup sandwich right now----
RD: (SINGS)
These are the good years, hold the rudder steady,
Turn the ship upwind, the mainsail is ready,
Life is flowing, like ketchup on spaghetti.
GK: Ketchup - for the good times.
RD: Ketchup... Ketchup...
© Garrison Keillor 2002