Road Apples by Tim Sanders
Sept. 26, 2011

Mannerly men and their explosive families

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Ah, the Fall Semester has begun here at the Gaylesville Mannerly Man Institute, and the campus is all abuzz with excitement about our intercollegiate croquet team’s new mascot, Bollie the Weevil. Unlike other team mascots, which often either bite someone, fly away, or require expensive cages, little Bollie lives in an old metal Sucrets box, and if he were to fly away, or die of some congestive weevil disorder, we could replace him in no time. There are millions of other boll weevils out there who look just like him. Except for the little sweater, of course. Last weekend, as I’m sure you’ve already heard, little Bollie cheered our plucky MMI Weevils to within a single field goal of beating the Flying Nuns from the Mobile Little Sisters of Perpetual Penance Convent. (If it hadn’t been for that controversial Roughing the Nun penalty in the fourth quarter, we’d have won that game.)

Next weekend we will have our annual clash with the Children of Job Baptist Academy’s Festering Boils from Broken Lance, Arizona. Tickets are still available for that exciting matchup. In the meantime, here are our answers to some of your etiquette questions:


Q: My neighbor and his wife has several children by previous marriages. Nine I believe but I ain’t for sure because they move around too fast to get a good head count. However many they is, him and his wife gets them every weekend and has their hands full. By which I mean they ain’t bad children, only very active. Along about a week before the last 4th of July the whole bunch of them discovered fireworks. I remember it very clear because on Friday at 8 a.m. they started in and kept it up until midnight. All day long the big ones and the little ones and even a couple in diapers was running up and down the street firing off bottle rockets at each other and setting off cherry bombs and lady fingers and Roman candles and skyrockets and snakes and black cats and so on and so forth. It was all very interesting for that first day, and it made our dog very excited and loosened his bowels some, but they was only warming up. On Saturday and Sunday they kept up their bombardment like our little subdivision was Normandy Beach, and they was providing air cover. Nathaniel he would lay in his hammock, or either him and Winnifred they would sit on their porch and watch the children making their explosions and sometimes even cheer when one of the older ones nipped another one’s ear with a bottle rocket. So we expected more the next weekend, which was the July 4th weekend, and we certainly got more. Every few seconds, for three days, it was BOOM, BANG, KER-POP, KABLOOEY. We got us some ear plugs and tried to stay away from the windows. We was sure that the next weekend, since it weren’t 4th of July no more, they’d give the children something more quiet to play with, like maybe a sackful of tomcats, but no it was fireworks all over again. And the next weekend, and the next one, too. Now that we got Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas right around the corner, not to mention New Year’s and Groundhog Day, how can I drop a very mannerly hint to Nathaniel that my dog has loose bowels and my wife Geneva has a spastic colon and we can’t stand no more explosions?

A: You should understand the reasoning behind Nathaniel’s and Winnifred’s need to supply their children with explosives. Think about your own childhood, and you will remember that all children like things that sparkle and go BANG! Nathaniel and Winnifred have a battalion of children to contend with, and they need playthings that are fun, educational, and practical: FIREWORKS! Obviously fireworks are fun, and when it comes to teaching your toddler about trajectory, wind velocity, and air speed, there’s nothing like a bottle rocket. And the practical lesson here is that fireworks allow busy parents to keep track of their children. When they hear that familiar M-80 KABOOM, for example, they know that little Lenny is halfway down the street, and perfectly all right. If a lady finger goes off closer to home, then the three-year-old is still alive and kicking. Our advice would be to leave your neighbors alone and say nothing. If you aggravate Nate and Winnie, they may just paint a large target on your house some night and aim the kids in your direction.


Q: Daddy he bought him a boat at auction and when he got it home he was afraid to take it out on the lake because it might not float so he called a friend of his name of Leon who knowed all about boats. So anyhow Leon he looked at the boat which Daddy had hid out behind the barn and then he come into the living room where Daddy was sitting there with Momma and said “Her body is sturdy enough but she needs to have her bottom scraped,” which flew all over Momma who thought he was referring to her. So one thing led to another and pretty soon all three of them was balled up on the floor, kicking and biting and hollering, which made the neighbor lady get scared and call the police who come and tasered them all until they quietened down and then one of the officers, I think it was the Blivens boy who run with them Outlanders up on the mountain until one of them stole his acoustical guitar which made him decide to go into law enforcement, he wanted to know who belonged to the boat out back without a license number and Momma she said “WHAT BOAT?” and Daddy he didn’t say nothing because he knew she had her heart set on a new black leather recliner and he probably remembered once when–

A: STOP! Stop, stop! What is your etiquette question?


Q: How do I go about changing my name?

A: Go to the County Courthouse, and they will explain it all to you.


Q: Our family always steers clear of the Courthouse.

A: We understand.

Please feel free to email those questions. Or tweet, if you prefer. We’ve never tweeted, but we can chirp and squawk, so tweeting shouldn’t be a problem.