(GK: Garrison Keillor; TK: Tom Keith; SS: Sue Scott: TR: Tim Russell)
... brought to you by the CATCHUP ADVISORY BOARD:
TR: These are the good years for Barb and me. Her mother hasn't been around much since she discovered that she can get on a bus that will take her, for no charge, to a casino and wait there and bring her back. Our son has become a novitiate at a monastery where they take a vow of silence and also make an excellent liqueur and he sent us four bottles. And our daughter. Our daughter volunteered for a closed-environment experiment for three years in the Grand Tetons. Meanwhile, we read an article in Readers Digest about putting the sizzle back in our marriage and we both went on a kelp and plankton diet and lost those little jiggly things on our chins and upper arms. So things were going well. And then the other day, Barb came in with an armful of groceries while I was reading the paper, and she said:
BARB: Jim -- can I ask you a question? I should say, "May I ask you a question?"---- I mean it's no big deal or anything, but I was wondering something and I didn't know who to ask, because, you know, my sister's been acting so crazy lately and I didn't want to trouble Dr. Johnson about it because, like I say, it's not all that important --- I mean, it's important to me but I don't think it's anything that, you know, is in his area of expertise, not that he isn't smart and all, he certainly is, but not in psychology necessarily, not that this is anything, you know, dark or anything, I mean it's just, you know, some bipolar thing, not that I don't get depressed, I do, but anyway --- but I mean, if I asked you a question, a sort of personal question, do you think you could be direct and honest and tell me what you really really think and not try to, like --- you know, be all calm and reassuring the way you always are --- I want your honest opinion, okay? Because I can take it either way and I've thought it through so whatever you say is fine, I have no problem with it --- I mean, I'm not a teen-ager, I'm forty-seven years old, for crying out loud --- I mean, if a woman my age can't face up to the truth about herself --- you know what I mean? I just donst want to be one of those people that everyone looks at sideways because they're a little off, you know what I mean? If I need to change, I can change, I just need someone to tell me the truth, so I'm asking you, Jim, as a friend - to give me an honest answer, no punches pulled.
JIM: (PAPERS)(flat) -- No problem.
BARB: Just give me your honest gut feeling?
JIM: Uh -- sure.
BARB: Do you think I talk too much?
JIM: You? Naw. You don't talk too much, you're just young and vital and zingy and your mind jumps around a lot. But you know, Barb ---- I've noticed that you're not getting as much catchup as you used to. And catchup has natural mellowing agents that make a person feel less jumpy, more mellow. What do you say we have some right now?
RD: Dancing in moonlight, singing at sunrise,
Here on the fruited plains beneath the spacious skies,
Life is flowing like catchup on French fries.
© Russ Ringsak 2001