SS: These are the good years for Jim and me. We decided to go to our caucuses this year so we drove over to the high school, which was jammed, no place to park, except for one place, but Jim kept saying he could find one closer so we circled around and around and around which is sort of the key to Jim's politics -- we don't caucus with the Republicans or Democrats, we caucus with the Freedom &Flat Tax party, which is just us and another couple, so it didn't matter that we were late. We endorsed Steve Forbes for president and Jim was happy. And then I woke up in the middle of the night with a screaming case of cabin fever. I got online and I started looking up vacation packages.
TR: Barb. It's 2:57 in the morning. What are you looking at?
SS: Florida, Jim. Look'we can fly on Tuesday for 150 bucks, round-trip plus a week at a hotel.
TR: Barb. The last time we tried a package deal, we were horribly disappointed.
SS: That's because our expectations were too high.
TR: We were in a gated community on a rocky beach and the gate locked from the outside. So we couldn't get out.
SS: We got out eventually, Jim. And the beach was okay.
TR: And we were attacked by jellyfish.
SS: Well. I try not to focus on that part.
TR: We sat in the emergency room for six hours with giant purple welts all over our bodies.
SS: It was a freakish combination of events.
TR: I'll say. We came back to El Dorado Loco and the sky turned dark and the barometer fell and a big wave came crashing against the house and a herd of alligators came galloping across the yard and we had to climb up on the roof and wave down a helicopter with a wet beach towel, just as the alligators were coming up the stairs, and we escaped by throwing oranges at them, and they backed off, but then we had no citrus fruit and we got scurvy-and had to get emergency dental work but we didn't have insurance so we had to pay out of pocket and we had to take the Greyhound bus home-a 72-hour ride and everybody on the bus was smoking--
SS: What are you're saying? That you don't want to go to Florida?
TR: I'll think about it. But I think I'd rather have some ketchup.
SS: Ketchup, Jim?
TR: Ketchup contains natural mellowing agents that help calm you down, and see that even in February, when it's cold and depressing and life is grim and you realize that your principles of freedom and the flat tax don't stand a chance in today's world, it may be better to sit and despair in your own living room than in some weird faked-up villa that's near a beach with a big jellyfish population.
SS: Well maybe you're right Jim.
TR: I am right. I know I'm right.
RD (SINGS):
These are the good times
To work for our ideals
To stand up for the candidate
Who expresses how we feel
Life is flowing
Like ketchup on oatmeal.
GK: Ketchup, for the good times.
RD (SINGS): Ketchup, ketchup.