Rose: I haven't been this scared since 1952, when St. Olaf's most active volcano threatened to erupt. Luckily, there were some Druid priests who were in town for the opening of Stonehengeland. They said they could stop it if they could sacrifice the town's dumbest virgin. I don't know why I raised my hand. It must have just been the excitement of the moment. But they said the only way to prevent the eruption was for me to crawl through their legs, up the volcano, while they gave me my birthday whacks. Well - and you're not gonna believe this - it turns out they weren't Druid priests at all. Just a bunch of Shriners looking for a good time.

Rose: Well, you were one of the lucky ones. It doesn't always work out that well. It sure didn't for Olga Fetchik.
Sophia: Just a minute, Rose. [puts on a pair of headphones and plays a tape recorder] Somebody give me a hand signal when she's finished.
Rose: Olga Fetchik was our town beautician. And one of God's most unattractive creations since the aardvark. Anyway, over the years, Olga had been secretly squirreling away money for plastic surgery. Well, one day she left without telling anyone, had the surgery and didn't return for months. Well, nobody could believe their eyes. Olga Fetchik had turned into a stunning beauty. Every man in town wanted her. She ended up marrying St. Olaf's most handsome and eligible bachelor, dance instructor Adolph Step. The two of them moved back to Norway, decided to get into show business, and they became the internationally renowned Scandinavian dance team of Step and Fetchik.
[A long period of silence follows as Dorothy and Blanche stare at Rose in disbelief]
Blanche: Rose, not that I care, but since you've already gone to so much trouble, just how did having plastic surgery ruin Olga's life?
Rose: Oh, it didn't ruin her life, it almost ruined St. Olaf. I mean, after she left, the town didn't have a professional beautician for years. Women started giving each other home perms. Pretty soon, everybody looked like Art Garfunkel. Husbands stopped sleeping with their wives, the population started to go down. Well, the town would have gone under if Oslo's most famous hairstylist, Vidal Sassbogadotter hadn't relocated his shop in St.
Olaf because of our more favorable tax laws. Now, you see why I don't like plastic surgery?
[Dorothy stands up, walks over to Sophia at the kitchen counter and turns the volume way up on her tape recorder]
Sophia: Ow! What did you do that for?
Dorothy: Why should we be the only ones in pain? You were saying, Rose?

Rose: Sophia, I can't believe you're doing this. You know, this reminds me of the story of Gunilla Ulf's daughter, St. Olaf's very own angel of death.
Dorothy: Tell it, Rose. Tell it.
Rose: Really? All the way through?
Dorothy: All the way through. But please try to make the end come as close to the beginning as possible.
Rose: Well, Gunilla Ulf's daughter was a nurse at Cedars of St. Olaf Hospital. One night she was taking care of Sven Bjornsson, and he asked her if she would get him some more mouth moisteners and then kill him. Gunilla brought the mouth moisteners right away, but the killing thing seemed to go against everything she'd been taught.
Dorothy: You're doing beautifully, Rose.
Rose: He begged and he begged, and by her coffee break, she couldn't stand it anymore, so she pulled the plug and he died. Well, she was racked with guilt that night. Not only had she parked her car in a doctor's spot, but she was never sure whether Sven's pleading was the pain talking, or the medication talking, or the guy in the next bed talking! You see, the guy in the next bed was Ingmar von Bergen, St. Olaf's meanest ventriloquist.
Dorothy: Rose, we are going somewhere with this, aren't we? I mean, if not, I'm gonna cut out your tongue.
Rose: Yes! Sven came back to haunt Gunilla. Since then, every Tuesday night at ten. Nine, Central time. She hears noises. Some say it's the wind, but some say it's Sven's voice whispering back from the other side, saying, "Turn around quick. His lips are moving."

Sophia: It's not that easy to make new friends.
Rose: It sure wasn't for the first Eskimo family that moved to St. Olaf. Especially after they sawed a hole and went salmon fishing in the middle of the local ice skating rink. And then there was the Halloween they gave all the kids whale blubber. And then there was the time they borrowed every ice tray in town to build an addition over their garage.
Dorothy: What was the point, Rose?
Rose: I guess after the baby came, they needed more room. The point of the story... Well, gradually they were able to make friends, and they ended up the most popular family in town.
Blanche: But only because they went out and met people. Isn't that right, Rose?
Rose: No. It was because in the drought of '49, their house melted and kept the town from dehydrating.

Rose: I know what it's like to trust somebody who's betrayed you. You're not gonna believe this, but I have a St.
Olaf story about this.
Dorothy: I believe you. I just hate you.
Rose: Well, Gunilla Bjorndunker, St. Olaf's tallest woman - of course, nobody ever made fun of her for that. Anyway, when Old Space Needle was in high school she drank some cherry herring and made love in the backseat of a Fjord Fjairlane. Local car. And she got in trouble, if you know what I mean, Dorothy. Knukendup und schvingle.
Sophia: She knows what you mean.
Rose: Anyway, her boyfriend, Yutz Hernsberg, St. Olaf's only bald high school student, had to marry her.
Blanche: But why would she marry a guy like that?
Dorothy: Because I was young. I- I'm sorry- I'm sorry, Rose. This is your story. Go- Go on. Go on.
Rose: Well, anyway, after 38 years of marriage and a painful divorce, he finally came back, having invented Hernsberg's Press-on Warts.
Dorothy: Who bought those?
Rose: Hags, mostly. Don't you see? He was successful and he wanted Gunilla back.
Dorothy: Well, what happened to her, Rose?
Rose: Skylab fell on her.
Dorothy: What is the point of this story?!
Rose: Be thankful for your health.

Rose: Don't worry, Dorothy. Maybe Jimmy'll come around.
Dorothy: Oh, I wish I could believe you, but, Rose, I have been there. I mean, after a while you feel you're just in this gigantic black hole.
Rose: We had a gigantic black hole back in St. Olaf.
Sophia: Oh, God.
Rose: On Main Street, right in front of the courthouse where Charlie and I got our marriage license and our permit to have kids. Oh, it was a lovely hole. Everybody in town would stand around and look in it.
Dorothy: And they say Hollywood is the entertainment capital of the world.
Rose: Well, we didn't just look in it. Sometimes we'd point, too. Or spit and time it. Then there was always that wise guy who'd have a couple of drinks and unzip himself and-
Dorothy: It's official. I hate her.

Rose: You know, people in St. Olaf are lucky. We all had the same family tree. You can trace each of us back to the same brother and sister.
Dorothy: Well, I think that completes the puzzle.

Rose: You know, Blanche is right. It doesn't matter how good your product is, you have to know how to promote it. That sure was the case with Fritz Vanderhoeven, who owned the St. Olaf Motor Coach Company.
Blanche: They built a car in St. Olaf?
Rose: They sure did. The Vanderhoeven Rocket. Oh, it was a beauty. Fritz really had vision. Actually, he had double vision, which is why it had eight tires.
Dorothy: So, uh... What happened?
Rose: It never got off the ground. Bad promotion. Which was a shame, because it's the first car to this day that ran on free fuel. It was totally powered by cow manure. I think a lot of people were turned off by the ad: a cow sitting on a gas tank, reading the Farmers' Almanac.

Rose: I have to get a horse in this picture while it's still fresh in my mind. I don't know whether to paint Old Silver, the horse who brought the news to St. Olaf that the British had no intention of coming or Old Brisker, the horse who, because of a printing error on the ballot slips, was elected water commissioner for six months.

Rose: Oh, this is gonna be great. I love charities. In fact, I helped establish the Henry Fjord Foundation.
Dorothy: The Fjord Foundation?
Blanche: Yes, Dorothy. You know, that's the man who built the Fjord Fjalcon.
Rose: Henry Fjord was a saint. He dedicated his whole life to eliminating pond scum from Lake St. Olaf. His son, however, was a big disappointment. Henry Fjord Junior. He didn't want to follow in his father's footsteps. He thought scum was beneath him.
Sophia: You know, I just realized the best reason of all to join this walkathon.
Dorothy: What's that, Ma?
Sophia: I'd get away from this ditz for a whole day.