(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott: TR: Tim Russell)
......brought to you by the Catchup Advisory Board. (MUSIC)
TR: These are the good years for Barb and me. Our son Jim Jr. decided to renounce materialism and become a Hindu so I guess he won't be asking us for money anymore. And probably won't be coming home for Christmas. Our daughter Jolene, the performance artist, is premiering a new work called "Elevator" in which she stands in a corner and doesn't look at anybody. So she won't be coming home either. So we're looking forward to a nice quiet holiday. Just what we always wanted.
SS: Do you like the Christmas tree, Jim? It's so scraggly. It looks like it was dragged behind a car.
TR: It's fine, honey.
SS: You don't think the red and white flashing lights are too much? I bought em because they seemed festive, and now they make me feel like I'm in a 7-11
TR: I like them.
SS: I don't know why I bought poinsettias ---- I despise poinsettias. They're so---- cold. .
TR: They're fine.
SS: Do you think so?
TR: They're just fine.
SS: Why are we doing this, Jim? Carrying on traditions we don't care about. Why don't we go away for Christmas?
TR: Go away where, Barb?
SS: Ann Arbor.
TR: Why Ann Arbor?
SS: We could visit my cousin Deirdre and her husband.
TR: The guy who wrote the book about gay/lesbians in the Confederate Army and their role in the Battle of Rappahannock?
SS: Yes. And she's a composer, you know. She writes music to be played on abalone shells and hollow logs. They're wonderful people. They don't do Christmas but they have this wonderful solstice celebration with bonfires and a lot of Celtic things --- it's very Celtic ---- like there are bagpipes and Morris dancers and woolen clothes and men hopping around and waving handkerchiefs and they eat haggis made from lentils and sit around a blazing fire and drink mead and recite sagas.
TR: What about catchup?
SS: What about it?
TR: I don't think you've been getting enough of it lately, Barb.
Catchup contains natural mellowing agents that help us visualize common sense so we can steer a steady course through life's uncharted waters without throwing the baby out with the bath. What do you say we fix us an eggnog and put a little catchup in it?
SS: Oh, Jim-----
RD (SINGS): These are the good times, living in Ann Arbor,
The nation leans to port and Ann Arbor leans to starboard.
Catchup is flowing, like hair down at the barber.
GK: Ketchup. For the good times.
RD (SINGS): Catchup.....Catchup.....
GK: A message from the Catchup Advisory Board.
© Garrison Keillor 2001