....after a word from the Catchup Advisory Board.
SS: These are the good years for Jim and me. It's been three years since we put the dog to sleep and the lawn has almost recovered and we can plant bulbs again and we can leave food on the table and wear black clothes again which I did when I started playing drums again. I joined an all-girl heavy metal thrasher band called Death Knife. I picked up the hate sticks and pounded out all of the rage and frustration that's been building up inside me for twenty years and felt great except for the skin rash I got from the stick-on tattoos, so I went to a dermatologist for that and they were having a drawing and I won six free dance lessons which Jim couldn't participate in because he'd strained his back trying to get out of his Barc-a-lounger when he heard the doorbell and thought it was a package of walnut brittle and actually it was Mormons. So I took the dance lessons alone and learned to foxtrot, hip hop, and tango in the arms of a professional dance instructor, Raoul, whose body was that of a young animal which of course made Jim jealous to the point where he actually started doing housework and laundry and one night even made stuffed peppers for supper ---- these are wonderful stuffed peppers, Jim.
TR: Well, I did my best. Probably nowhere near as good as the stuffed peppers your Latin boyfriend could fix for you----
SS: He's not my boyfriend, Jim. He's merely a fantasy, a man who put his hand on my hip and suddenly made me into the most beautiful woman in West St. Paul and a slave to my own passions, but only on the dance floor-----
TR: How do I know he didn't take you home for a dance lesson and there were candles and wine and stuffed peppers----
SS: He was a wonderful daydream, Jim. He had beautiful hands and dark smoldering eyes and when we went cheek to cheek in the tango and we did that whooooooooaaa, I wanted to throw away everything and bleach my hair and follow him to Buenos Aires but it was all fantasy, there was no more to it than that.
TR: But what would you do in Buenos Aires, Barb?
SS: Raoul's family owns a nightclub there called the Electric Gypsy and I'd wear a see-through blouse and work as a dancer and cigarette girl, but of course I wouldn't, it was only in my imagination.
TR: But how do I know that? How do I know you won't go back for one more bonus dance lesson and you look into his smoldering eyes and the next thing I know the phone rings and it's you and it sounds like you're calling from next door but you're not?
SS: Jim, you know I wouldn't do that. You know it because, when it comes right down to it, my condiment of choice isn't salsa or Tabasco, it's catchup, the condiment of inner peace. Catchup has natural mellowing agents that help a person work out these difficult compromises-----
TR: Compromises?????!!!!
SS: Have some catchup, Jim.
RD: (SINGS) Let's all go Latin, it's very cool and macho,
Dance the meringue and Ill buy you a gazpacho
Just try to remember what's yo's and what's
nachos
GK: Catchup. For the good times.
RD: (SINGS) Catchup.... catchup...