(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott; TR: Tim Russell; FN: Fred Newman; RD: Rich Dworsky)
GK:--we'll be right back after this message from the Ketchup Advisory Board. (PIANO)
SS: These are the good years for Jim and me. We have a lot more spare time now that we've given up on our investment portfolio and we spend our time holding garage sales and selling off stuff we don't need anymore like our calculator and all those books about building wealth that we invested in back in the Nineties. The last of the kids' gerbils died, finally, and so did the hideous azalea plant that we got as a gift from the cemetery when we purchased a double plot there in March when Jim got what we thought was lung cancer but it turned out to be an allergic reaction to room freshener. So we should have been happy. But one night I came downstairs to find Jim busy writing something in a legal pad. --- Honey, what's wrong? It's two in the morning--.
TR: I know, Barb, but I can't sleep. I've got too much on my mind.
SS: What is it?
TR: When I went to bed last night, I was a Democrat, Barb, but now---- I'm just not sure.
SS: What happened?
TR: I had a dream that the Republicans had slashed the budget for serum for orphans, and passed a law to allow factory workers to earn 11 cents an hour and live in abandoned cars and the President appointed a guy to the F.A.A. who believes the earth is flat, and I woke up thinking, how can I stand by and let these terrible things happen? And the answer is, I can do it by becoming a Republican. So they nominated a guy to the Supreme Court who believes that thieves should have their hands cut off. It's okay. I'm a Republican. We Republicans don't look back. We're the party of the future. None of us can know the future. So focusing on the future is a pretty good deal if you'd rather not know.
SS: Jim?
TR: Yes?
SS: I wonder if you're getting enough ketchup. (MUSIC)
RD: These are the good years, although the weather's rainy,
And there's lots of ayatollahs just like Khomeini.
And the President maybe is Dick Cheney.
GK: Ketchup--..for the good times.
RD: Ketchup, ketchup, ketchup.
© Garrison Keillor 2003