(GK: Garrison Keillor, TR: Tim Russell, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, RD: Rich Dworsky)
(MUSIC).....after a word from the Ketchup Advisory Board.
TR: These are the good years for Barb and me. Last year I gave up watching the Vikings and suddenly my blood pressure went down and I had no more desire for red meat. We became vegetarians and when our brains cleared of animal fat we discovered incredible mental powers and learned to use meditation as a conduit for spiritual energy and we joined a religious order called the Masonites who teach you how to find total bliss...and then one night I came out of a deep meditative state and found Barb watching the Home Shopping Channel. (TV AUDIO) ---You seem---a little agitated, honey.
TR: Barb, I thought we gave up TV.
SS: Look, Jim. A $750 diamond ring for only $19.95, plus shipping and handling.
TR: Barb, I thought you were meditating.
SS: Meditation doesn't cut it for me any more, Jim.
TR: But you meditate all the time.
SS: It only looks like I'm meditating. Actually, I'm napping.
TR: Oh.
SS: I've been working for years to find total bliss, Jim, and now that I've found it ---- it turns out to be sort of boring. I thought bliss'd be more fun than it is. I thought you'd sit and have interesting thoughts or something.
TR: Total bliss means emptying your mind of interesting thoughts and letting yourself be filled with spiritual energy.
SS: I guess I don't want spiritual energy. I actually prefer materialism. I'd rather be filled with Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey. And, Jim, I've really missed my ATM machine.
TR: Oh?
SS: To me, walking up to a machine and having money come out is the American dream. And I miss the drive-up window at fast-food places.
TR: You do? But the Dalai Lama says that----
SS: I don't care about the Dalai. I want deli. And when it comes to bliss, what's wrong with ketchup? I was reading an interesting article in American Condiment magazine, Jim. It said that families that keep a ketchup bottle on the table at every meal experience about 45% more equanimity than other families.
TR: Interesting.
SS: I want to get back to ketchup. Ketchup has natural leveling agents that make a person as calm as you need to be.
TR: Maybe you're right.
SS: You know I am.
RD (SINGS): These are the good years, in the golden sun,
A new day is dawning, a new life has begun,
The river flowing like ketchup on a bun.
GK: Ketchup....for the good times.
RD (SINGS): Ketchup.....
(c) 2001 by Garrison Keillor