GK: It's been a kind of rough year for you and here it is only February. (TR WEARY GROAN) Your wife is mad at you (SS: Here's a shopping list. Think you can remember it?) And the car won't start (STARTER) so you're taking public transportation (BUS DOOR OPENS. SS: Move to the back. TR: Excuse me. Pardon me. Sorry.) and you have to stand in close proximity to weird people (TK: Hi, my name's Larry and this is my cat. MEOW His name is Curt.) and then you get to work (HUBBUB OF TEEN VOICES) at the high school where you try to teach English as a first language to teenagers (SS: Why are we studying this, I mean, what is this for?), teenagers with jewelry implanted in their noses and lips who slump into their seats (SS: Oh boy) and look at you as if you were Hitler (SS: GROAN) except they never heard of Hitler, for them history began with the invention of MTV, so there you are trying to drum English into them (TR: This is the subject. This is the verb. He felt lousy. Okay? Lousy is an adverb because it describes a verb. Everybody with me so far?), and it's miserable work, and so frustrating (TR: No. That's the subject. He. This is the verb. Felt. Okay?) that every hour you have to go to the teacher's lounge for two minutes and let it all out (TR: BERSERK DESPERATE SCREECH), and one day you let out a little bit too much (TR: HIGHER PITCH YELL. RIP OF FABRIC.) and you rip your pants (TR: Oh no) and it's a big rip (TR: I'm supposed to be in class in two minutes, .... ), and you try to fix it with some Scotch tape (TR: PANIC. TAPE DISPENSE. QUICK FUSSING WITH TAPE.) and that doesn't work at all (FABRIC RIP, TR PANIC) and now you hear footsteps in the hall (TR: Oh no! It's Miss Dickinson! ANXIETY, CREAK OF WINDOW) and you open a window and (WIND) it's cold out there but you crawl out on the ledge and (TR SHIVERING. CREAK OF WINDOW) and you close the window and you crawl along the ledge and (TR VERTIGO) it's fifty feet down to the ground and the ledge is only two feet wide (TR FEARFUL TREMBLING) and now you're crawling past the windows of the---- what is that in there? (TR: Oh no. Miss Dickinson .... It's the principal's office. She's not looking so (TR: Gotta hurry, gotta hurry, gotta hurry) you crawl real fast past her window and (CREAK OF WINDOW. SS: Mr. Johnson???) now she sees you. From behind. Where your pants are ripped. (SS: Mr. Johnson, come to my office. Now.) And you crawl through her window into her office. (KONK. TR: Ouch!) And she looks at you as if you were a fiendish criminal. (SS: I want you out of here. Now. Don't ever darken our school again. Ever. Or you'll be very sorry. DOOR SLAM) And you're gone. (FOOTSTEPS IN SNOW) And you trudge to the bus stop (CAR PASSES FAST, HONKING) and the bus comes (BUS. BRAKES. DOOR OPEN. TK: You goin' to the casino? TR: Huh? TK: This is the bus to the casino. TR: Oh. Okay.) so you get on and go to the casino and (SS: Hi, big boy. Care for a drink? GLASS WITH ICE CLINKING.) you take out your wallet and (TR: Twenty bucks.) you get that in quarters and (SLOT MACHINE LEVER PULL, SPIN. STOP.) you put that in the slot machines pretty quickly and then (TR: You have a cash machine here? SS: Right over there, handsome.) you get a couple thousand on your credit card and (DEALING CARDS) you play blackjack and (TR: Oh wow. CHIPS.) you win really big, and you put it all down on one hand (TR: C'mon, baby --- c'mon baby, c'mon baby) and you win again (TR: Oh, thank you, Lord. FLOOD OF CHIPS.) and now you put it all on the next hand (SS: You're betting forty-two thousand dollars, sir? TR: Yes! Yes! DEAL CARDS) and you've got a jack and a five and you call for another card (TR: Lord, I promise you now that I am going to be at church every week, on time, in my seat, gonna be there, that's a promise.) and you turn the card over and it's (TR: It's the Old Maid.) It's the Old Maid.

Suddenly you're surrounded by large men in blue pinstripe suits (TK: This way, sir. Just leave the chips right there. C'mon. Let's go.) and you're taken to an office and (SS: I'm Donna Devereaux. D.A.'s office. We've heard about you. DANGER CHORDS.) and they go through your pockets and find your wife's shopping list (TK: Lookit this. Scam, it says. TR: Spam! TK: Looks like scam to me. Watch yer head. (SIREN) (RHUBARB THEME) It's at times like that, you want Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie. Yes, nothing gets the taste of humiliation out of your mouth like Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.

But one little thing can revive a guy,
And that is home-made rhubarb pie.
Serve it up, nice and hot.

DUET:
Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb,
Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb,
Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.

© 1996 by Garrison Keillor