GK: You were trained as a computer programmer (TR: The Boolean parenthesization of the n1 and s1 in the Maximum Value Contiguous Subsequence...) and you're doing well in Nashville until the economy turns sour (HUMMED NOTE TURNS SOUR, DESCENDS, TO LOW BLEAUGHH) and then that fateful day (SS: I'd like see you in my office, Todd.) and that's it, you're gone (TR QUIET WEEPING),, the security men hustle you out (FN: This way. Out there. Bye. DOOR CLOSE) and you spend a few empty months on unemployment (TV AUDIO) and then you have to take a job that's quite different from that you were trained for (SHEEP). You're living in a hut on a mountain in Montana, responsible for 3000 sheep. (INTELLIGENT DOG BARKS) Shep, a border collie does most of the work (DOG BARKS, SHEEP), and you sit in the hut and listen to short-wave radio (STATIC, TR ARABIC) and try not to go crazy. There's no cellphone service, no Internet, no human contact up here on the mountain. Just the occasional coyote (SFX) and now and then a cougar (SFX) and of course there's Shep. (PANTING) One morning you find a note beside your sleeping bag...
TR (READING): Are you lonely? I am. Desperately. If you need a friend, hang a pair of pants from the pine tree.
GK: So you do. And that night. (KNOCKS)
TR: Hello? who's there?
SS: Me.
TR: Who're you?
SS: A friend.
(DOOR OPEN, SQUEAK SQUAWK)
SS: I'm the one who left you a note today. I brought back your pants.
TR: Oh. Okay.
SS: Mind if I come in?
TR: No.
SS: I see that you only had one pair of pants
TR: Yes.
SS: You're not deranged or berserk, are you?
TR: I don't think so.
SS: Then I want to marry you.
TR: I donno. I've sorta lost my social skills. When you've been up here with 3000 sheep and a border collie for six months, you start to lose the old charmola, you know?
SS: I brought you a present.
TR: For me?
SS: A bottle of ketchup.
TR: Ketchup. Wowser. Haven't had ketchup for six months. (OPEN CAP ON BOTTLE. POURING CATCHUP. HE SMACKS LIPS.) Wow.
SS: Good, isn't it.
TR: Awfully good.
GK: When you've been without it for awhile, ketchup can knock your socks off.
RD (SINGS):
It's New York on a sunny spring day
It's a pond of lilies by Monet
It's a 1988 Cabernet
When you've been away from ketchup for awhile
It's the epitome of suave.
GK: Ketchup...for the good times.