(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott; TR: Tim Russell; TK: Tom Keith)
GK: January is a time for regret and thinking back over the past year and how much better life would be if you'd just done some things differently. If you'd worked harder, saved your money, quit drinking, lost some weight, and if you'd said no when that guy you met online asked you to meet him for coffee. Why did you do it?
SS: I don't know.
GK: You knew he was a loser----
SS: I know.
GK: Why did you agree to meet him?
SS: I don't know.
GK: You talked to him on his webcam, and he was boring.
SS: I know.
GK: And then you met him and he still was boring and you started dating him. Why?
SS: I don't know.
GK: This is going nowhere, you know that.
SS: I know.
GK: Are you going to break it off?
SS: I don't know.
GK: You've got to.
SS: I know.
GK: So why can't you?
SS: I don't know. (MUSIC)
GK: Regret. Remorse. They say you're supposed to look forward, not back ---- that's easy for them to say. How can you not look back? If just six numbers had been different on your lottery ticket -----
TR (BREATHLESS, HYSTERICAL): Oh my gosh--- I can't believe it ---- I can't believe it. We won, Rex. (WOOFS) We won. We're rich. (WOOFS) Three hundred million dollars! I can't believe it. We're rich. You and me, Rex. (LOW GROWL) Rex? (SNARL) Rex, no. No--- please---- (MUSIC)
GK: You look back and you have a lot of regret. The road not taken --- that sort of thing. You can't help but think, what if I'd done things differently.
TK (TEEN): Do you have regrets, Mr. Wyler?
GK: Yes, I do, Jimmy. I regret that I passed up a career as a competitive tango dancer and gigolo. (TANGO UNDER, WITH CASTANETS) A glamorous life in a tuxedo and black pumps, a cigarette dangling from your lower lip, dancing with wealthy widows aboard transoceanic steamers (BOAT HORN) on your way to Bogota and Johannesburg, Sydney, Hong Kong, Honolulu. (MUSIC CONTINUES)
SS (IN HIS ARMS, DANCING): Your hips ---- they speak a language of their own. Where are you from?
GK: St. Paul.
SS: St. Paul????!!
GK: I mean, Sao Paolo.
SS: Brazil.
GK: Yes, of course.
SS: Do you speak Brazilian?
GK: I used to. As a child. Now I speak with my hips. (CASTANETS, AND TANGO MOVES OFF) ----- Do you have regrets?
SS: Me?
GK: Yes.
SS: (PAUSE) No. Not really.
GK: You don't regret anything?
SS: I really don't.
GK: You don't ever think to yourself, What if I hadn't shot my husband last fall?
SS: I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO BRING THAT UP!!!! THAT IS SO LIKE YOU.
GK: Well?
SS: THAT WAS PRACTICALLY FIVE MONTHS AGO.
GK: You don't ever regret shooting him like that?
SS: Look. The Twins had won their division in the American League, they were in the playoffs, he was never so happy as he was the day they beat Oakland, he was absolutely confident they'd go on and defeat Anaheim and get into the World Series, and I thought, "Now is the time to shoot him." So I did.
GK: Just to save him the pain of losing?
SS: Albert was a very serious baseball fan.
GK: Oh come now.
SS: He lived and died for the Twins.
GK: Well, I guess so. But don't say you did it for him.
SS: I did.
GK: You didn't either.
SS: Partly for him.
GK: You did it because you knew he'd never leave Minnesota and you hate winter. Isn't that why----
SS: Partly. Yes.
GK: You killed him because you hate winter.
SS: Not entirely.
GK: And because he was boring.
SS: That too.
GK: Most Minnesotans do hate winter. It's our little secret. (BLIZZARD, WOLF CRY)
TR (EXTREME SHIVERING): God, it's cold.
SS (EXTREME SHIVERING): Maybe we should stay home.
TR (EXTREME SHIVERING): We are home. This is our bedroom.
SS (EXTREME SHIVERING): Maybe we should turn the heat up.
TR (EXTREME SHIVERING): I turned it up all the way.
SS (EXTREME SHIVERING): Maybe we should get in the car and drive south.
TR (EXTREME SHIVERING): I'm shaking so bad, I can't drive.
GK: (BRIDGE) Remorse and regret are common to all northern peoples. Russians have it. (TR RUSSIAN REGRET) Germans. Not in Bavaria, but in the north. (TR GERMAN SORROW) Japanese. From the north of Japan. (TR JAPANESE SORROW) Japan is a long long island chain and in the south of Japan you find much more calm and serenity. (TR JAPANESE SERENITY) But you go to the north and they're more like Minnesotans. (TR JAPANESE SORROW) And then of course there's the Swedes. (TR SWEDISH REGRET) There's a lot of Swedishness in Minnesota, and these are not Mediterranean people. This is a Mediterranean person. (TR ITALIAN EBULLIENCE) And this is a northern person. (TR SWEDISH REGRET) ----- Show me someone without regrets and I'll show you someone with memory loss.
TK (TEEN): Do you have any regrets, Mr. Wyler?
GK: I do, son. Years ago, many years ago, I was driving through Texas and I stopped to pick up a hitch-hiker. A wiry guy with a guitar and a backpack, heading south. (CAR PULLS AWAY) --- How far you going, sir?
TR (BUSH): Heading down to Mexico. Get away from my family. They
want me to go into the oil business. Far as I'm concerned, oil people
are just a bunch of evildoers.
GK: A lot of us would agree with you there.
TR (BUSH): Whole axis of evil, from Alaska to Texas to Saudia Arabia.
And I'm sick and tired of the way we waste our petroleum resources. So
I'm going to Mexico to write songs.
GK: Well, you didn't ask my advice, but I'm going to give you
some anyway, George.
TR (BUSH): How'd you know my name?
GK: It's on your shirt.
TR (BUSH): Oh.
GK: I think it's important for young idealists like you, George, not to give up but to work for change within our political system.
TR (BUSH): Work within the system, huh?
GK: Why not try it?
TR (BUSH): Maybe I will. Thanks for the tip. (MUSIC)
GK: He changed his plans about Mexico and he had me drop him off in Austin and for the rest of my life I'll wonder what if I'd kept my mouth shut and let him go south.
Mostly we regret what we did not do, young people, and the one thing I'll never regret is love ---- even the ones that didn't work out and ended, the ones that were like a head on crash, and you walk away shaken by the experience --- it is not the worst thing to be shaken. (MUSIC: ALL SHOOK UP)
© Garrison Keillor 2003