Garrison Keillor: ...after this message from the Ketchup Advisory Board.
Tim Russell: These are the good years for Barb and me. Barb signed us up for a health club. And so I get the house to myself more often. And we both bought daily planners, so now we can literally feel the weight of the passage of time. Mine weighs about two pounds. We should have been happy. But then one day I came downstairs and found Barb paging through a stack of sewing magazines. Barb-what are you doing?
Sue Scott: Oh Jim. It's October already, and we haven't thought about what we're going to be for Halloween.
TR: We don't have to be anything, Barb. We're old. That's enough.
SS: We're invited to a Halloween party, Jim. We're supposed to dress up.
TR: That's what they say, Barb. And then we'll show up dressed like Hansel and Gretel, and we'll be the only ones.
SS: But Jim, we can't go without costumes!
TR: Why not? We do it every day.
SS: It's a party! It's meant to be fun!
TR: We'll go dressed as ourselves. It's a metaphysical thing. It challenges the concept of costumes.
SS: It's no fun. Halloween is a time to be someone you wouldn't normally be.
TR: You could be a French harlot, Barb. In a little push-up bra and lace stockings. That's someone you never get to be.
SS: That's just demeaning.
TR: You never know, maybe French harlots dress like Midwestern housewives on Halloween, and have a lot of fun with that.
SS: I don't think so, Jim.
TR: Let's go to Woolworth's and pick up a couple of cheap flammable costumes we can wear over our clothes, and take off if no one else is wearing a costume.
SS: Are you kidding? One of those trash bags with a skeleton printed on it? No, I'm making ours from scratch. Papier mache. We're going to be a lemon and a lime.
TR: Barb.
SS: What Jim.
TR: Why don't we talk about this over a nice bowl of ketchup soup--.
SS: Okay.
TR: Ketchup has natural mellowing agents that help you realize you're good enough as you are. You don't need to come dressed as citrus to make a splash at a party.
SS: You're right, Jim. Maybe I haven't been getting enough ketchup.
TR: And in a pinch, ketchup doubles as fake blood. Which is cheaper than a real costume anyway. And you don't have to take measurements.
Rich Dworsky (SINGS):
These are the good times
Of ghosts and scary witches
Use black eyeliner to look like you have stitches
Life is flowing like ketchup on sandwiches
GK: Ketchup, for the good times
RD: Ketchup, ketchup.