GK: We were in Hawaii a couple weeks ago and found a lot of Minnesotans who have moved there and they claim to be happy about living out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And they asked me-----
SS: Are you still living in Minnesota?
GK: Sure.
SS: Oh.
GK: Why?
SS: Oh----- nothing.
GK: What?
SS: Just thinking.
GK: Something wrong?
SS: I lived in Minnesota. Forty-seven years, sixteen weeks, four days, and 13 hours. Lived in Two Harbors. I was waiting for the bus one day when it was thirty-two below zero and it was three in the afternoon and dark and I slipped on the ice and fell and my tongue accidentally touched a street sign and froze to it and I stood there helpless crying out for help ----- (CRY WITH TONGUE OUT) and a dog came and peed on my leg ---- and finally the fire department came and rescued me and that night I got on a flight to L.A. and caught a plane to Honolulu and I've been here ever since.
GK: And you like it here.
SS: I love it here. It's paradise. I couldn't live anywhere else. I don't know why I waited so long. Minnesota was a hellhole of suffering. I've never been so happy as I am in Hawaii. My life is beautiful. Every day. Morning, noon, and night. It's a place where people find love and happiness and serenity and beauty and----
GK: Sharon?
SS: What?
GK: Look at me, Sharon. You were brought up to tell the truth. Look at me and tell me the truth.
SS: I like it here.
GK: Sharon, your Sunday School teacher Mrs. Gunderson is looking down from heaven and though there is no sorrow in heaven, she is feeling sorrow that you are lying to me about Hawaii.
SS: How do you know about her?
GK: Minnesota is not that big a state, Sharon. We know each other. Tell the truth. Tell. Look me in the eye and tell, Sharon.
SS: (HYPNOTIC TRANCE) I hate the sunlight, it gives me a rash. I burn easily and the sun gets in my eyes and makes me dizzy and nauseous. I'm forced to live in a dark burrow like a rodent. The climate is boring. The sound of surf is depressing. I've become allergic to pineapple. Salt air is rotting my books. And my breasts hurt from the coconut shells.
GK: So it's good to be back. Back to Minnesota, back to winter. It got up into the fifties early in the week but that's over now, thank God. That is not who we are. We are not 50s in January people. We are God's chosen winter people. God trusts us with winter. When God has a blizzard he needs to send somewhere, or a cold wave to get rid of, God puts it in Minnesota because He knows it won't cause the suffering here that it would cause in Hawaii or Florida. God could put winter wherever He wants to put it. God is not limited to the north. But if God set winter down in Hawaii, there would be death and devastation. Winter is God's compliment to us. It says: I know you can handle this.
GK (SINGS):
There's a place up north
And I'm glad that I live there
It's between Wisconsin and Dakota
And if you really try
You can live here bye and bye
In this paradise that we call Minnesota
There are ways to get here
If you wear a warm parka
And bring snow tires, and light campfires.
It is cold
It is a winter place
It's cold and it's dark and that's just how things are
There are people freezing
And somewhere there is a reason
Why it's a better place for
You and for me.