(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott: TR: Tim Russell, TK:Tom Keith; RD: Rich Dworsky)
GK: ... brought to you by the Ketchup Advisory Board.
(MUSIC)
TR: These are the good years for Barb and me. Our son, as a joke, made a break for it while going through airport security and now he's getting some valuable counseling on impulse control. The neighbor's dog, who used to dig in our garbage, suffered a stroke and had to go to a nursing home. We discovered that the balsamic vinegar we've been using causes mild amnesia and after one big helping of salad, family reunions are no longer so stressful. Then one night I found Barb weeping over the business section of the newspaper. ---Honey, what's wrong?
SS: (SNIFFLES) Oh, Jim. It's the stock market. Our stocks just keep going down and down. Our retirement fund is eroding like spun sugar in a hailstorm. Pretty soon we won't be able to afford long-term care. We'll have to go to a nursing home where they put Thorazine in the waffles. Think of it! Our golden years spent watching daytime television and drooling!
TR: Oh, don't worry. I'm sure the market will come booming back in a year or two.
SS: I'm not. I read the other day that Alan Greenspan is putting his money into chinchilla futures. Oh, Jim. We stayed out of the market all through the Nineties, telling ourselves that the boom just couldn't last, the bubble was about to burst, and then we got in just in time to buy a whole lot of dot-coms that were heading south on a rocket-sled. We have such rotten luck when it comes to money. Remember the time-share canoe?
TR: Well, we made one good investment anyway. Good old AmaCon. Keeps going up, month after month. American Condiment Corporation. That's because ketchup has natural mellowing agents that suppress wild impulses and smooth out some of the turbulence of life.
SS: Oh, Jim.
TR: What do you say we pour us a big bowl of ketchup right now...
RD (SINGS): These are the good times, on the redwood decks,
Blue skies and treetops the hot tub reflects
Life flows like ketchup on your scrambled eggs...
GK: Ketchup. For the good times.
RD: Ketchup... Ketchup...
(c) Garrison Keillor 2002