Catchup script
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Listen

Garrison Keillor: ...brought to you by the Ketchup Advisory Board.

Tim Russell: These are the good years for Barb and me. Barb read a book about a couple who sold their software company and went to live in the south of France in a 17th century chateau with a lap pool and gracious servants who brought them champagne and truffles, and of course it depressed her because they were our age. Actually a little bit younger. 10 years younger. And they had no children. So they appeared 30 years younger. So Barb went berserk doing spring cleaning with industrial chemicals and I had to leave the house on account of my allergies, and I went to a showroom and looked at this wonderful S.U.V. It was enormous and hulking, you needed a ladder to step up into the front seat. It came with a big stereo system and those xenon headlights so you can drive around at night and flick on your high beams and see other cars go in the ditch. And then I looked at the price tag and decided to get my bike tuned up instead. We should have been happy. And then one morning I came downstairs for breakfast and found Barb fretting and hovering over the telephone. Barb-what are you doing?

Sue Scott: I'm just wondering if the kids are going to call on Mother's Day. I mean, I want them to, and yet I don't want them to feel that they have to. You know? I want them to do it on a sudden happy impulse — just pick up the phone because they want to talk to Mom. You think that's possible?

TR: Barb. Our kids don't have that many sudden happy impulses. Our kids are in a federal teenage protection program. They don't talk to us anymore. We probably wouldn't even be able to identify them in a lineup.

SS: Well they're still our kids, Jim. What are you saying? That I wasn't a good mother? Is that what you think?

TR: You were fine, Barb. You just had that bad day when you told them both to leave and never come back. Other than that, you were terrific.

SS: Well, they were getting on my nerves. I just felt that they were so darned needy — they were coming between you and me — I mean, we have a right to our lives too. Don't you think?

TR: I think that when you vacuumed up Stephy's hamster, while she was in the shower---that may have turned her against us.

SS: What, that big fat thing? ---he was running on that squeaky wheel at night, Jim-remember how he kept us awake night after night?

TR: I think that's the wheel's fault, Barb. Not the hamster's. Hamsters are nocturnal.

SS: They're annoying, is what they are, Jim.

TR: I'm just saying that she loved that hamster. So you may not get a call. And that's ok.

SS: Well this is just not fair, Jim. I mean we only did the best we could, right? It's all anybody can do-the best they can---

TR: Sure, Barb. But we might have been better parents if we'd consumed more ketchup.

SS: Ketchup, Jim?

TR: That's right, Barb. Ketchup contains natural mellowing agents that promote compassion and understanding. So instead of going after small mammals with a vacuum hose, you just buy some earplugs. And everybody wins.

SS: I suppose you're right, Jim. Oh well.

Rich Dworsky (SINGS):
These are the good times
The flowers blooming slowly
Wake up with the sunrise
Feeling new and holy
Life is flowing
Like ketchup on canoli.

GK: Ketchup, for the good times

RD (SINGS):
Ketchup, ketchup.