GK: It's winter, and maybe your car won't start (CAR STRAINS TO START) so you have to think about public transportation, which in Minnesota means something other than what it means in New York or San Francisco or Chicago -- here, public transportation means that either you're going to sit next to a very idealistic person--
SS: Did you read the article about carbon emissions in the paper today?
TK: No, I didn't.
GK: Or you're going to sit next to someone whose lost his driver's license for DWIs--
TK: (DRUNK) Hey mind if I sit down here--
GK: Or you're going to sit next to a homeless person.
TR: You wouldn't happen to have a dollar, wouldja? My car ran out of gas and I need a dollar so I can get out to Excelsior and visit my grandma who's in a nursing home and not expected to last the night. Or fifty cents would help.
GK: You are not going to be sitting next to anyone you would want to exchange business cards with -- just the idealist--
TR (SINGING ALONG TO IPOD): Guantanamera...juahilla guantanamera...guantanamera...
GK: Or the DWI...
TK (DRUNK): Boy I never suffered from motion sickness before but now I feel --sort of sick-- ohhhhhhhh
GK: Or the homeless person...
SS (DEEP): You wouldn't have a dollar you could give me so I can buy a ballpoint to fill out a job application, wouldja?
GK: And so you try to start your car (CAR STARTER) and you spray the engine with inflammable fluids (SPRAY) and you try again (CAR STARTER) and now a friendly neighbor stops by (TR: HI THERE) and he gets out his jumper cables but he's a liberal -- he has liberal bumper stickers -- so he doesn' t know how to attach jumper cables and he gets it wrong so that when you turn the key in the ignition (BIG EXPLOSION) --
TR: WHOOPS. Sorry about that.
GK: And now your car is a blackened hulk (SIRENS) so you have to ride with him in his car. And of course he's listening to public radio...
SS (ON RADIO): We turn now to music of Dietrich von Dietrich and his Zahnschmerz for Chorus, Op. 41, No. 3...(QUARTET, MUSICAL GROANING)...
GK: And then his car dies... (QUARTET GROANING DESCENDS AND RETARDS TO END) ...and there you are alongside the freeway (SEMIS PASSING, CARS) and nobody is stopping to pick you up because they see the HONK IF YOU LOVE CHICKADEES bumper sticker -- so you start walking (FOOTSTEPS IN SNOW) and (WOLVES) there are predators closing in (FOOTSTEPS SLOWER) and you're feeling very sleepy and about to lie down in the snow and then-- (CAR SLOWS AND STOPS)
SS: Need a ride?
GK: It's a beautiful woman and she's wearing makeup and her hair is perfect and she's not bundled up at all so you know she's not from Minnesota --
SS: I'm going to Mexico.
GK: You've often thought about going to Mexico. Why not? (DOOR CLOSE, CAR ACCEL) So you get in the car and now you wonder--
TR: This isn't real. I've died. I've gone to heaven. It's all over.
SS: Would you care for coffee? I have a thermos right here.
GK: And she pours you a cup of java. (SFX) And now you know you're alive. That's what coffee does for you. (PIANO) It's proof that you're still among the living.
QUARTET (SCHUBERT SANCTUS)
Coffee coffee coffee
Fresh roasted coffee
Kenya, Kona, Cuba
Congo, Costa Rica,
Coffee from Jamaica
Sumatra and Uganda
Pour the java, bubba
Wowsa wowsa yowsa
Tea is good for illness
If you're feeling nauseous
Americans drink coffee
Especially in winter.
GK: Coffee...it's how you know you're alive. (GONG)