(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott; TR: Tim Russell; TK: Tom Keith)
(ORGAN STING)
GK: It's the moment that every married man has learned to dread. Everything was going along just fine, everybody was happy, and then she asks:
SS: Notice anything different about me?
GK: There are so many possible answers and you want to get the right one.
SS: Notice anything? (MUSIC UNDER, SUSPENSE)
GK: You don't want to say,
TR: Your hair looks a little darker than it was.
GK: If the correct answer is----
SS: My left leg has been amputated.
GK: You don't want to look bad by saying----
TR: Did you have a facial?
GK: When the correct answer is----
SS: I've been gone for the past three weeks on a business trip to Malaysia.
GK: Or----
SS: I lost fifty pounds and I shaved my head and got a tongue plug.
GK: You need to play for time in this situation. So you say----
TR: Excuse me----- I forgot---- I gotta go check the gas line ---- be right back----- (FOOTSTEPS AWAY)
GK: And you dash down the basement and (CREAK OF RUSTY OLD DOOR) you go out the cellar door and you tiptoe around to the kitchen window (FOOTSTEPS) and you look in at her. Your wife. What's different?
TR: Hmmmm. Hair looks about the same. Eyebrows. Mascara. Looks about the same to me. WAIT --- A -----COTTON-PICKIN MINUTE! She's buck naked. Gosh. How come I missed that?
GK: An English major would never get in that predicament. When a woman asks----
SS: Notice anything different about me?
GK: An English major says, "Yes. Your face. It's radiant, luminous, almost phosphorescent with simplicity. Yet its classic decorum cannot hide the seduction writ large in your cobalt eyes and your resplendent smile, your lips like morsels of crimson plush.
SS: Wow.
GK: What did you think was different about you?
SS: It's not important. You really think my face is luminous and I have a resplendent smile?
GK: Absolutely. Luminous, almost phosphorescent.
SS: Wow. What a guy.
GK: Only an English major knows the words she wants to hear. Words like resplendent.
SS: You're pretty plush yourself, big boy.
GK: A message from the Professional Organization of English Majors.
© Garrison Keillor 2002