Garrison Keillor: ...after a message from the St. Valentine's Day Society.
Valentine's Day is Wednesday, a day that doesn't matter to some people and matters a lot to some other people, many of whom are married to people in Group No. 1 (SS SOBBING.
TR: What is it? What's wrong? Why are you crying? What did I do?) so if you get one of those Valentines that come in a sheet and you rip one off (RIP ON SCORED LINE) and it tears so you fix it with Scotch tape (RIP TAPE) and sign your name (SCRAWLING) and give it to her. (
TK: Here.) along with a box of cheap chocolates that smells of motor oil, it may have repercussions.
Sue Scott: Milk chocolate with cherry centers. Made in Taiwan. Contains sulfites. SOBBING
GK: This woman spent weeks making her valentine for you. She boiled rags (BUBBLING POT) to make her own paper and she mixed the pulp in the blender (BLENDER) and she spread it and ironed it dry (SS HUMMING TO HERSELF) and sprayed it with rosewater (SPRITZ) and she painted a watercolor of a field of daisies (SS SINGING TO HERSELF, LA VIE EN ROSE) and she wrote out the message using a special broad-nib calligraphy pen (SS TO HERSELF AS SHE WRITES: Je t'aime, mon amour, mon Duane.) And so, when she gives you this priceless work of art and in return she gets a card with little bumps along the side.
SS (READING):
Hey Valentine-- you the one.
Where's my laundry? Gotta run.
Tim Russell: And here--
SS: What's that?
TR: Carnations.
SS: Where'd you get em-- out of a dumpster?
TR: No-- from a friend of mine.
SS: Well who? What friend?
TR: Oh I don't know. Just some girl.
SS: A girl?!?
TR: It's no big deal. We're just friends. I think she likes me more than I like her, so--I figured I could just pass them on to you.
SS: SOBS
TR: What's wrong-- What's the matter?
GK: What's the matter-- you may find out years from now when your ex-girlfriend publishes her memoir -- Choosing Not To Be Stepped On -- and it becomes a huge best-seller and she's on Oprah --
Jearlyn Steele: So when did the light go on -- when did you finally realize that he was a perpetual adolescent narcissist who was utterly incapable of loving you as the person you are?
SS: It was Valentine's Day, Oprah. I'll never forget it. He gave me a box of milk chocolate--
JS: Milk chocolate??? Oh girl. He gave you MILK chocolate?
SS: A little box of cheap milk chocolate and a 39-cent valentine. Used. You could see where he'd erased someone else's name and signed his own.
JS: That is just not acceptable, people. Listen-- we're going to make this right. Audience, look under your seats-- because everybody is going home with a new caarrrrrrrrrrr! (AUDIENCE SCREAMING AND WHOOPING)
GK: She's on Oprah and everybody is screaming and crying and you're watching the show in a cafe in Seward, Nebraska.
SS (DEEP): Warm up your coffee there--?
TR: Oh. Sure. (POURING) I used to know her. We used to live together.
SS (DEEP): You and Oprah?
TR: No-- me and the lady who wrote the book--
SS (DEEP): Really. You that milk chocolate guy???
TR: Some of them had a cherry center. (STING)
GK: After Valentine's Day when Maureen kicked you out, your life just sort of went down the tubes. The old story. Gin, credit card debt, a couple of felonies, and suddenly you were on the run. (TRAIN WHISTLE APPROACHING, FEET RUNNING ON GRAVEL, STEAM ENGINE PASSING). Your life is just one hobo camp after another, begging on street corners, eating dinner at the soup kitchen. (SERIES OF SLOPPING SOUNDS OF FOOD SERVICE). And there is Maureen, the woman you gave the cheap Valentine to, on national television.
JS: So what happened to Duane? Did you ever see him again?
SS: No, I didn't, Oprah. I don't believe in looking back. I embraced change and I learned to take care of myself and then I met Steve, the love of my life, who fills every day of my life with love and who shares my journey.
(APPLAUSE)
JS: That is so beautiful, honey. And now let's take a look at this video of your new home in Santa Barbara (OOOOOH) and your swimming pool and the garden (AAHHH)-- oh my-- gorgeous-- (PEACOCKS) what beautiful peacocks-- (WOOF) and a Russian wolfhound too -- I love those wolfhounds. Audience, look under your seats - everyone's going home with a brand new wolfhound!!!
(BARKS)
(SCREAMING, CHEERING AUDIENCE)
(FADING UNDER BRIDGE)
GK: There you are in a cold boxcar in Nebraska (TR SHIVERING, CAR RATTLING, DISTANT WHISTLE) and there she is in a mansion by the sea with a man who fills her life with love. -- Where did it go wrong?
TR (SHIVERING): Valentine's Day.
GK: What should you have done?
TR (SHIVERING): I should've given her dark chocolate and a valentine that wasn't previously owned.
GK: But Steve fills her day with love--
GK: Could you have shared her journey?
TR (SHIVERING): I didn't know she was on a journey.
GK: Well, there you are.
TR (SHIVERING): We just lived together. We didn't go anyplace.
(BRIDGE)
GK: Let's talk to Dr. Judith Flexner at the Harvard University Department of Personal Development -- Dr. Flexner--
SS (FLEXNER): Yes?
GK: What can Duane do to make it up to Maureen for the crummy Valentine?
SS (FLEXNER): Not a thing.
GK: What could he have done?
SS (FLEXNER): Nothing. Our research shows clearly that key character traits are fully formed by the age of ten and that any attempt after that to teach generosity or kindness or decency is just money poured down a rathole. People are who they are. Once a jerk, always a jerk. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. You can't change a leopard's spots. What's done is done, and there's no use in crying over spilt milk.
GK: There's no chance of redemption?
SS (FLEXNER): Sorry. You are who you are. Your course was set by the time you were ten years old. Live with it.
GK: Don't believe her, Duane. People can change. Just a few days until Valentine's Day. Enough time for you to make it up to her.
TR: But how--?
GK: Throw caution to the winds. Buy dark chocolate -- from this man here-- (TR FRENCH) he knows about chocolate --
TR: How much is this?
GK: Don't think about it. And now some caviar-- this man handles caviar (TR RUSSIAN) -- and don't forget to pick up some crackers for that. Good ones. And don't forget the pickled herring. It can't be Valentine's Day without pickled herring. (TR SWEDISH) Get plenty of that, and now you want to hire a band and a singer.
JS: A good singer.
GK: A soul singer in a glittery green sheath dress and her hair up high on her head and a big band with a horn section behind her. Not many women have left a man who hired a band with horns.
TRANSITION TO JS..."LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL"