Road Apples by Tim Sanders
May 13, 2013
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Blazing Manners Before we begin this week's Mannerly Man column, we (being mannerly ourselves) sincerely apologize for last month's gala Cabbage and Pinto Beanfest Alumni Dinner, which went horribly wrong and resulted in police and volunteers from three nearby fire departments, all armed with aerosol cans of room deodorizer, being called to our campus dining area. The faculty and staff here at the Gaylesville Mannerly Man Institute have all agreed that the Cabbage and Pinto Beanfest was an idea which had not been carefully thought out, and have also agreed to fuel future alumni dinners with foodstuffs less conducive to intestinal gas. Furthermore, all seven kitchen workers, also current students, who were the worst offenders, have been suspended. There were no arrests, due to the fact that, according to police Lieutenant Hoyt Nubbs, “It may be nasty, but we looked and there ain't no law against it. If there was, we'd all of been in jail at one time or another. Besides which, where you gonna put 'em if you lock 'em up? Not in our jail, you ain't!” Now we shall continue with the column, containing actual questions from concerned readers, followed by actual answers from our own concerned selves: Q: Since you brung it up, Momma has to have pinto beans at every meal except for breakfast, and she is always very windy, as they say. She can be sitting in a room full of relatives, and when she fires one off she always says, very loud, “PARDON ME!” Even when the rest of us is all in the kitchen and she's in the living room all by herself she says it. I told her she ort to not say nothing, only just leave the room, and she got her back all up and said it was her house and how about if the rest of us was to get up and leave the room instead. She said she was only being polite and wouldn't of ever thought her own son would talk to her that way. Then my sister Doreen she took Momma's side, and Kyle he did too, and pretty soon the whole family was on to me for saying anything to poor Momma, who was already an old lady pushing sixty and didn't have that many good years left anyhow. The old lady part naturally got Momma started again, and they all said that was my fault too for bringing it up in the first place. So was I wrong and was she just being polite, or should she do what I do whenever I float an air biscuit in the Piggly Wiggly, and keep my head down and sneak off very quick to the next aisle and let somebody else take the blame? A: If this is a family trait, perhaps you all might consider packing up and moving to another state. Not Rhode Island; a large state with plenty of open spaces. Like Texas. Or Outer Mongolia. Q: I been reading about the giant snail epidemic in Florida and one article says they already got about half a million of them in Dade County which is their favorite location to settle in and raise their families. It has something to do with the climate which is a lot like the climate in Africa which is where they come from. People bring them over here for pets but when they find out they can't do no tricks nor fetch a paper and even if they could it would take them all day, then they turn them loose outside. The article says they can lay 1,200 eggs a year and that is why it don't take many of them to make a mess no matter how slow they are. They said not to touch them because they sometimes eat rat poop and then catch rat lung worm which if a human gets it can infect their brain and cause them to die. They didn't say how big these snails are but I seen a picture of one next to a cow and it– A: This is very interesting, but what does it have to do with manners? Q: I was getting to that. I got a friend name of Maurice who is French on his daddy's side and so I asked him doesn't the Frenchmen all eat snails and he says not all of them and besides they call them ess cargoes over there and they fry them first to get all the germs out and they taste just like popcorn shrimp so I asked him did he ever eat one and he said of course he did and why was I asking. I told him I knowed where he could get him some supersize, whopper giant snails down in south Florida where the woods was just full of them and if he didn't mind cleaning them and getting all the rat lung worms out then he could start him a not so fast food snail restaurant and once word got around he'd be covered over with snail gobbling French people and– A: And the manners question is? Q: I was only talking about helping Florida with their giant snail problem and helping the French with their snail shortage and I never mentioned frogs or French postcards or poodles or nothing so why did Maurice get upset and drop kick my tomcat Jim off the porch? A: Did you mention French mimes, or unconditional surrender, or the boxy, 22 hp 1961 Renault 4, capable of speeds up to 50 mph, downhill? Q: No. A: Then we have no idea. Q: Who are this “we” you keep talking about? A: “We” are, of course. By which I mean “us.” Q: Since May 14 is National Dance Like a Chicken Day, should I dress up when I go to the bank, or wear what I usually wear? A: Your everyday chicken suit would be fine, as long as it hasn't started molting yet. Remember, friends, that without manners we'd all be telemarketers. And who'd want a world full of them? Send in your questions, and if we don't like them, we'll rewrite them and use them anyway. |