(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott; TR: Tim Russell; TK: Tom Keith)
GK: --Here's how you make a jack-o-lantern. You get yourself a nice big pumpkin (SFX: THUMPING PUMPKIN). You want to be sure there are no discolorations because that could indicate the presence of pumpkin gas. When a pumpkin goes bad and rots, it can create extremely disgusting gas and when you stick your knife in ---- (STABBING KNIFE IN, BIG RASPBERRY)--- that's pumpkin gas. Sort of reminds me of my Uncle Ken. Here's a pumpkin here (THUMPING) with no discolorations, so we cut into the top (CUTTING KNIFE, BIG RASPBERRY). But that pumpkin has gas, too. I guess that discoloration rule doesn't always hold true. That's methane gas and that's why it smells like that, so if you poke a hole in a pumpkin and (STRIKE MATCH) put a match there (EXPLOSION) you can blow the whole thing up. Don't do that indoors, though.
Okay. How to make a jack-o-lantern. You cut off the top of the pumpkin
so you can hollow out the inside, and it's a lot easier to use a chainsaw,
(START UP CHAINSAW, CUTTING), and that takes the top right off in just
a second, and (CHAINSAW STOP) then you can use a shop vacuum to (VACUUM)
get the innards out, all those stringy things and the seeds (VACUUM SUCKING
UP GLOP), you just vacuum all of that right out of there and ---- (CLINK
OF SOMETHING HARD)---- what's that? (TURN VACUUM OFF, IT DIES SLOWLY)
Something inside the pumpkin. What is that?
It's-- it's an old Volkswagen van. About a 1968, looks like. Painted
psychedelic colors. Old bumper stickers. Make Love, Not War. Power to
the People. (DOOR CREAKING OPEN) Someone's getting out-----
TR: What happened? Where are we? Chrysalis? Come out here, look at this. We're in some kind of cave or something ----- (SHOCK) Oh wow. Oh God. Oh God.
GK: It's okay. You're all right. I think. You just---- turned into a pumpkin, I guess.
TR: You don't look like what I thought you'd look like, God. I thought you'd have a beard.
GK: I'm not God. I'm just the owner of the pumpkin.
TR: Man. I knew when I ate those mushrooms it was going to be weird but I didn't think---- Hey Chrysalis----
SS: Yeah. Where are we, Lenny? How come it's so dark----- Lenny?
TR: Yeah, baby.
SS: Those weren't mushrooms, Lenny. Those were pumpkin seeds.
TR: Oh wow.
SS: Who's that?
TR: God. Who else---- Hey, what time is it?
GK: October.
TR/SS: (VARIOUS) Far out. Groovy.
GK: October-- of 2002.
TR: 2002! No wonder I've lost weight.
SS: I had the strangest dream and now I wake up and it's all true.
TR: Guess we missed that Grateful Dead concert.
SS: You mind reaching down and setting us free, God?
GK: I don't know. You might want to stay in the pumpkin.
TR: You're omnipotent, aren't you?
GK: Well, I have some power over this pumpkin, I guess.
SS: Why did you allow this to happen? Huh?
GK: Allow what to happen?
TR: Let people spend thirty years asleep inside a pumpkin.
SS: Don't question it, Lenny, he might get mad -----
TR: I don't care. What more can he do to us?
SS: What do you want, God?
GK: Listen. I'm not God.
TR: Prove it.
GK: I can't remember jokes.
SS: So?
GK: God is omniscient. He knows all the jokes. I don't.
TR: The one about the two penguins?
GK: I don't remember it.
TR: They're standing on the ice floe? Two penguins?
GK: I don't know that one.
TR: And one penguin says, "You look like you're wearing a tuxedo"?
GK: Yeah.
TR: And the other penguin says, "Who says I'm not"?
GK: I don't get it.
TR: You're right. You're not God.
SS: Get us out of here. (MUSIC)
GK: So I did. They're living with me now, Lenny and Chrysalis. It's going to be a long time before they're ready to make their own way in the world. Thirty years is a lot of change. So ---- be careful when you open a pumpkin. You never know what you might find. (CHORD, THEN REVERB) Hey? Turn on the lights. What's going on?
TR: Hello.
GK: Who're you?
TR: Just standing up here watching your show.
GK: Where am I?
TR: Inside a radio.
GK: Oh.
TR: Don't mind me. Just go on with what you're doing. (MUSIC OUT)
© Garrison Keillor 2002