A Prairie Home Companion: January 21, 2006

Senior script
Saturday, January 21, 2006
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(THEME)

Garrison Keillor: ...and now, a message from the National Organization of Super-Seniors.

It's winter semester at the University, the semester in which graduating seniors stop thinking about the consequences of the dominant patriarchal hegemony in Jane Austen and start thinking about health insurance.

But why? Why leave school? Why not stay right where you are, and become a super-senior-and stay for a fifth year, or a sixth, or just push it is far as it'll go.

Tim Russell: Hi. I'm Mike. I've been at the University of Minnesota for 27 years, and I'm still working on my bachelor's degree. I've had eighteen different majors and fifty-two roommates and I couldn't be happier. I like futons. I'm happy with Happy Meals. All day I sit in the library and read.

GK: Life is good for a super-senior. If you've got one more class left until you graduate, why not put it off until next year? Think about a double major. Take a semester in India.

TR: At a certain point, you forget about debt. Between eighteen-thousand and a quarter-million, what's the differenced? I owe Visa twenty-grand a month, and that's just for interest. Hey—whatever— not my problem.

GK: And as you get closer to retirement age, you start to look at the dorm as a form of assisted living. Super -seniors graduate to become senior citizens. A message from the National Organization of Super Seniors.

ALL SING: If you're happy and you know it, stick around
If you're happy and you know it, stick around.
If you're happy, it's not hard to get another credit card
You're a student, so you're smart, stick around.