(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott; TR: Tim Russell; FN: Fred Newman; RD: Richard Dworsky)
GK: --..after this word from the Catchup Advisory Board.
(MUSIC)
TR: These are the good years for me and Barb. The woman in the cubicle next to mine at work was laid off and suddenly it's quiet again and I can concentrate on solitaire. What we thought might be a mole in our garden turned out to be a buried canister full of $20 bills and we used the money to fly to Las Vegas, where Barb won big at the canasta table. For the past few months, whenever telemarketers called, we simply set the phone down on the table and put on a record of Bob Dylan singing, "It Ain't Me, Babe," and now we're starting to not hear from some of them. We should have been happy. Then one night I found Barb in the kitchen, poring over the sports section.-Honey, what's wrong?
SS: Oh, Jim. Why haven't we been following the World Cup Soccer matches? It just bothers me that we've missed it.
TR: We missed it because we're Americans, Barb, and to us soccer is about as exciting as watching bathwater go down the drain.
SS: But our own American team is in it. Or was.
TR: Barb, soccer is not an American sport. We are a hands-on people. The idea of moving the ball by bouncing it off your head is strictly for sea lions. Americans grab the ball and run with it.
SS: But Europeans love it.
TR: Europeans think Jerry Lewis is a genius, too.
SS: But why would they love a game that's boring?
TR: They don't have access to all the medications we do, Barb. Tranquilizers. Sedatives.
SS: But they get all excited at games----
TR: I wouldn't know. I'm always asleep.
SS: Maybe if we understood the rules better.
TR: Barb, it isn't the rules. You know what they serve at soccer games? They serve salmon, Barb. Not hot dogs, not beer. Salmon and a Sauvignon Blanc. You and I are ketchup people.
SS: Oh, Jim.
TR: Ketchup's natural mellowing agents let you focus on the things that really count. Like the Red Sox.
RD: The smell of the wet grass, the flash of monarch wings,
The sound of the silence and then the blackbird sings,
The taste of ketchup on your onion rings.
GK: Ketchup-- for the good times.
RD: Ketchup--..Ketchup.
© Garrison Keillor 2002