Rhubarb script
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Listen

Garrison Keillor: ...after a message from Bebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.

It's fall and you play the last game of tennis of the year (TENNIS VOLLEY) and you're at the top of your form (FASTER VOLLEY) and you win (Tom Keith: Yes! Yes!) and you head for the shower (SHOWER) and you slip (CRY) and throw your back out (SPINAL CRACK, GASP OF PAIN) and you go to the Emergency Room (QUIET SOBBING) and they give you a muscle relaxant (Tim Russell: This'll take care of you for awhile. POP) and it does take care of you (TK DRUG HAZE) it makes you feel so good, you remortgage the house so you can open a bookstore called Bob's Books for Men —

Sue Scott: A bookstore!!! You're insane!!! You're out of your mind. What've you been eating for breakfast? Dumb flakes?

TK (DAZED): I want to specialize in auto repair manuals, military history, handicrafts, coin collecting, and fantasy football.

GK: So you open your store and the only customers you get are people looking for stuff you don't have.

TR (DIRTY OLD MAN): You got a book with pictures of cheerleaders in little tiny skirts?

TK: I don't think so.

SS: Anything on post-feminism?

TK: Post what?

TR (HIPSTER): Hey I am like looking for the Bhagavad-Gita, man—

TK: Who's it by?

SS (OLDER): You don't have anything on scrapbooking, do you?

TK: You're right, I don't.

GK: The auto repair manuals don't sell so you replace them with books on collecting baseball cards. The bookstore languishes. And your wife lays down the law.

SS: I'm seeing a lot going out and nothing coming in.

TK: It takes time—

SS: Time's up. I am not going to subsidize your midlife crisis, pal.

TK: What does that mean?

SS: I'm out of here. Don't forget to feed the dog. Bye. (DOOR CLOSE)

GK: You sit in your bookstore (DRIPPING) listening to the overhead pipes dripping on the merchandise — answering the phone (RING) (PICK UP) TK: Bob's Books for Men— (VOICE AT OTHER END) No, we don't carry that. (VOICE AT OTHER END) No, just books for men. Sorry. (VOICE AT OTHER END) And the days lengthen and time passes — and the landlord drops in now and then (TR NAZI) and one morning you discover that (RATS) rodents have eaten their way through about half your stock and meanwhile the clientele has dwindled and dwindled, you get about one customer a day (SS OLD: Howdy, Bob) and one day that one customer trips and falls on your stairs (SS OLD LADY FALLING, CLUNK, CRACK) and the next day her lawyer calls (TR: This is Sam Harris of Harris, Batten, Batter, and Bash. It's about your stairway...) and you're just about ready to call it quits when your ex-wife publishes a book about how she rediscovered herself in middle age (TK: What a piece of crap) and you carry it in your store and suddenly (CLAMOR OF CROWD, KA-CHINGS OF CASH REGISTER) your place is jammed with customers — MY FLIGHT TO FREEDOM is No. 1 on the best-seller list (ROCKET) —it sells like hotcakes. She's on TV (TV AUDIO) and she wins a Pulitzer (CROWD CHEERS) and she buys a big house and she takes up fox-hunting (HOUNDS BAYING) and opera (TENOR) and every day she drives past the store in her Lamborghini. (CAR RACES PAST) And one day you sit down to read her book — (TK: Oh my gosh) and mostly it's about you. (TK: I was what?? Emotionally unavailable?? Me???? Unavailable???) And reading it drives you right over the edge. (TK BABBLING) So you're committed to a loony bin — (TR: This way, Mr. Pomfret) — and it's sort of like high school — the same sort of goof-offs (TR CRUEL LAUGHTER) and the staff are like your old teachers (SS TEACHER: James, I am talking to you. Sit down.) and the food is the same (SERIES OF GLOPS AND SLORPS) and then your lawyer gives you the bad news.

TR: Remember Mrs. Halvorson who slipped on the stairs?

TK: Who?

TR: We settled her lawsuit.

TK: What?

TR: We gave her the store and all your money and your car and your retirement account. Plus she wants your shoes.

TK: My shoes?

TR: Your shoes. (THEME)

GK: Yes, nothing gets the taste of shame and humiliation out of your mouth quite like Bebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.

THEME SONG