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Ketchup Advisory Board
Saturday, October 21, 2000
Listen
(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell, RD: Rich Dworsky)
....brought to you by the Ketchup Advisory Board.
SS: These are the good years for Jim and me. We redid the living room and when we got rid of that Oriental carpet and that wallpaper, suddenly my headaches stopped. The kids are doing well in therapy. They were allowed home for a weekend and they didn't scream at us very much at all. Debbie said we had ruined her life but she didn't say it in a mean way. We replaced our lawn with rocks and gravel to give it a Japanese look --- and now the neighbors aren't speaking to us and that has saved a lot of time. And we both decided to lose weight and we went to a fat farm where you pay money to have people keep food away from you. (TV AUDIO) And late one night I woke up to find Jim crouched in bed, eating a Kentucky Fried Family Pac and watching pro wrestling. ---- Jim, honey? what's wrong? Can't you sleep? (TV AUDIO SWITCHED OFF)
TR: I don't want to lose weight, Barb. I don't want to be a millionaire and I don't want to have faster Internet access and I don't want to have soft springy hair. I just want to be me.
SS: Jim---- of course you can be you.
TR: I don't believe in personal improvement, Barb. Every improvement you make just creates new problems. That's my philosophy. Life is hard. That's just how it is. You can read all the books you want and meditate and reduce stress and lose weight but the fact is that life is rough. Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from making mistakes caused by bad judgment. So the smarter you get, the less you learn, and eventually, when you think you finally got it figured out, you realize that you don't know a thing.
SS: My, you really are from Minnesota, aren't you. Did you get any ketchup with that fried chicken?
TR: Got about twenty little packets of it.
SS: Good. Because ketchup contains natural mellowing agents that help a person get through the rough spots. I like to put a little plastic packet of ketchup in my mouth and just bite down on it (SQUIRT), and it makes me feel calmer somehow.
TR: By george, you're right. And it always tastes better than what you expect it to, don't you think?
RD:
These are the good years in the morning sun,
A new day is dawning, a new life has begun.
The river flowing, like ketchup on a bun.
GK: Ketchup. For the good times.
RD: Ketchup....ketchup....
(c) 2000 by Garrison Keillor
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