Everthang in its Place

 

Mama Ponder and Dorey are meticulous house keepers and cooks.  Trust me, ifun you ever break bread with us, you have nary fear of any form of dirt or any unknown foreign object being in your food.  Every iota is well accounted fur and clean as a whistle.  Those two are paranoid on that subject.

After about a week of livin' together, I asked Dorey one day about our 'magic trash can' in our bathroom.   She looked at me like a hog starin' at a watch...what magic trash can?  I says that one and pointed at tha empty trash can.  She said that trash can isn't magic.  I says, tha hell it ain't!  I can drop somethin' into it and a few minutes later when I walk back in here, it's gone!  She just stood there with her jaw dropt.  Well now let me tell you, that cured her and Mama Ponder of followin' me around tha house cleanin' up behind me like I was ah highfalutin' King Farruk and they were my slaves.  Livin' in a museum show room can be mighty frustratin' without havin' a couple of dadburn slaves ah fussin' ovah you.

After I vacuumed tha floor, Mama Ponder would get down on her hands and knees and crawl all over tha house combin' tha carpet so it all looked tha same.  She is even more meticulous when preparin' and cookin' a meal.  And they wonder why I refuse to cook a meal in this house.  No way.  When it comes to spoiled eaters, you ain't seen tha likes of these two women.  I wouldn't wish any food I cooked onto my worst enemy, well maybe a couple of 'em I might.  When I'm forced to prepare my own food, I figure any unlucky guest that pops in always has a choice, they can eat it or they can do without.  I don't think that would go over to well with my women folk.

Mama Ponder is tha kind of person that would make sure tha house is spotless and tha clothes washed before tha maid shows up each day, after all she wouldn't want tha maid to see her house lookin' dirty.  If we replace an appliance and haul tha old one to tha garbage collection point, she begs me to let her clean it first so no one will see how nasty it looks when I kick tha dadblame thang off tha back of tha pickup truck!  When we go on vacation, she's also tha kind of woman that has to clean tha house inside and out and manicure tha lawn before we leave home.  I tell Dorey that Mama just don't want no dadburn burglars tellin' nobody that he had found a speck of dust in her house while he stole everthang we owned that wasn't buried in concrete.

I am proud as a peacock to say that after 15 years of sharin' a house with Ol' Val, tha trash can is no longer magic and tha carpet hasn't been combed in many ah year.  I have almost got this dadburn place liveable now.  Still, everthang in this house and our yard has to look just so at all times or Mama becomes right frantic about it.

Everthang that is except tools.  For some reason this rule does not apply to tools.  In 15 years, I have yet to get it through their thick skulls that they should treat tools exactly tha way they treat everthang else around here, but most especially with tools.  I have explained time and time agin that usually when you need a tool, it is because you have an emergency of some kind.  So when you need a tool, dadburn it you need it right then.  You do not need to be ah searchin' for a damn tool for thirty minutes and then finally interrogate everybody to determine tha last person who had it and have them search for it.

For some reason, if them two women put a tool down anywhere on our four acres, they figure that should be close enough to suit me.  It suits them just fine and they still can not comprehend why it upsets me so dadburn much.  After all, they know where they put it so obviously I'm tha dumbass 'cause I don't know where it is.  They think, if I want that tool, all I gotta do is ask them.  [At times like that, I can't help, but imagine what immediate action drills must be like with a female military unit.]  Ever tha optimist, I put up peg boards on tha walls in our storage buildin' and hung all of our small yard tools on them.  Them two women admired it greatly and even oohed and awed over it and said that they just absolutely loved it because it made tha clutter in tha floor plumb disappear.  But those two sweet knuckleheads have yet to hang one dadburn tool back on one of them pegs!  Not one dadburn tool!  We accumulated more stuff so we added a separate shed.  Once again I tried tha peg deal in tha shed.

I moved all tha yard tools out there and had my wife help install each peg for tha rakes, shovels, hoes, etc.  I even asked her for suggestions.  I had an ulterior motive to do so.  I mean it weren't a dirty motive or nothin' like that, I just figured if she contributes to tha project, she would remember what each peg is designed to hold and would take pride in her accomplishment and bingo, she would just naturally hang that tool on tha correct peg when she finished with it.  Wrong!  One of tha dadblame days I will learn that psychobabble crap flat don't work around here.  Neither of them women has hung a single tool on those pegs either.  They can get 'em down, but for some reason known only to God they just can't put 'em back up there on them pegs.  I can't help but wonder if this is somethin' that is just peculiar to my two females or if this is just one of them gene thangs that just seems to afflict women.

And how about all them other feminine thangs that I have learned about over tha past 62 years, but still don't understand one little bit.  Like for example, what is so difficult about lookin' at a commode to see if tha seat is up or down?  Men do it every time we need to mount tha throne and contemplate tha world's problems.  At those times, if tha commode seat is up, I put it down and sometimes it is up and sometimes one of them women is the one that left it up.  But here's tha biggie....I have never once said a dadburn word about tha position that there toilet seat was in tha when I needed to use it.  Not so with a female.  I know it is a mental and emotional problem with them for some reason, but I just don't understand why and I gave up tryin' to understand it many many moons ago.

And while we're in tha indoor outhouse, how about tha way you hang toilet paper?  I learned about that one many moons ago also.  When Dorey and I were first married, on tha very first day, I told her, I don't care which way you like to hang your toilet paper, anyway is fine with me.  I'll be plumb happy just to have some paper within reach when I need it and I won't worry about how it looks hangin' there.  I just want to know how this family hangs it so if I have to replace a roll, I can do it properly.  She quickly explained to me right quick like that her 'family' has always hung it with tha paper comin' over tha top on tha front.  "So be it!," said I.  You gotta admit that I'm adaptable. That is also tha only way I know of you can win an argument with a female....stop it before it starts by agreein' or apologizin' for somethin' you didn't do.  That really ticks 'em off cause then they don't have anything to argue about.

Well good folks, if you ever visit us, I'm sure your wife will love tha house and yard, but don't you dare ask me where one of my damn tools is, I won't be responsible for my actions.  I might kill you and plea temporary insanity.  After I plea some of them thar mitigatin' circumcisions I done told you about, no jury in this county would ever convict me.

Don "Brer Bear" Valentine

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