Yes swampy, I was at the very center of the okra stampede and it is all the fault of that hussy Annie May Collinsford! Why, I had jist commenced to selectin’ my okra when that Annie May slithers up beside me and starts a grabbin’ big ol’ bunches of okra, not lookin ‘em over for spots or bugs or nuthin. I asked Annie May what was she goin’ to be cookin that required any old okra at all. Her face got all puckery and her eyes squinched all up, which I know is hard to tell, that woman wears so much mascara it looks like rat droppins been glued around her eyes. Did you know she was in Curl Up ‘n’ Dye onct and was braggin on how she had not washed the mascara off her face in over a year? She jist brushes on another coat evry mornin! This should not come as a surprise to anyone, seeins how Annie May thinks that Tammy Faye Baker looks peaked and could use a little color.
Well, Annie May said she was goin to be makin fried okra, like the good Lord intended okra to be cooked. I allowed that I always found bein careful about the size of the okra was important, and took a good hour for to choose my okra real careful like. I told her I prefferred mine to be on the smallish side and that Annie May said from what she heard tell, it was fortunate I prefferred things on the smallish side. Now I do believe she was referring to my pickled okra that I won a blue ribbon for at the county faire and monster truck rally, so I agreed with her it was fortunate indeed. I had thought she was right jealous of my blue ribbon, since I win every year and she never placed higher than honorable mention two years back, which everyone knows she got only because she wore that t-shirt with the neck cut out and the bottom all fringed and beaded with those hot pink spandex capri pants so tight you could see her tattoo read Bobby Lee Forever right through the fabric! Speakin of which, was Bobby Lee her third husband or her fifth? I know it was Jeb Carter was her fourth husband because he’s the one got caught in the machinery over at the chicken plant, bless his mangled little heart, and left her that trailer she has now. Which isn’t sayin much considerin how many tires she has slung up on the roof to keep it from blowin away. In any case, that trashy Annie May was forever bendin over in front of the judges and with all the judges being men that year, of course she was awarded that honorable mention, which just goes to show you how bad her pickled okra is that she was practically nekkid and still only got honorable mention. And I seem to recollect that Bobby Lee was her second and third husband. She divorced him the first time when he went to prison for robbin’ Beula Jean’s Bait Shop and she had her eye on Cyrus Thornton but it turned out Cyrus had his eye on Billy Joe and the two of them lit out for Canada after that unfortunate accident in Winnie’s garden which squarshed ever little baby okra plant flat as a pancake. Billy Bob is still heartbroke and Winnie is pesterin him to fix her garden back since Billy Joe ain’t around to do it and Billy Bob is half to blame anyway. Why thank yew, you are sich the sweetest thing. I do believe her bouffant came out real nice and tall, didn’t it?
Now I was pickin over the okra and allowed how smallish okra that is cut in longer pieces than most folks do is my preference and Annie May said she just chopped the okra up ever which way and then dunked it in white corn meal batter. And that’s when I had had enough! It was a disgrace that she weren’t careful about choosing the okra and I held my tongue when she claimed to chop it up all higgeldy piggeldy, but I would not stand for using white corn meal to make the batter for her fried okra. Everybody knows you must use yella corn meal! Swampy, if she uses white corn meal for her okra batter, she might as well spit on the graves of all those poor boys who got themselves killed in the War of Northern Aggression! Those poor brave soldiers did not lay down their lives so she could make her okra batter out of white corn meal.
So I lit into her right there in the produce department of the Piggly Wiggly. She stood there with her mouth hangin open like it does when she’s a thinkin and then she twisted herself up all tall and pushed her considerable bosoms out at me and then she shook a big ol’ okra in my face and said she wouldn’t use yella corn meal for batter if those okra were the last ones on earth. Now she said that last part real loud and I do believe that’s what begun the stampede. People were yellin about there was never goin to be more okra and then there was okra everwhere! It was flyin in the air, getting trampled underfoot, and Doc Higginbottom, who should know better comin from a fine upstanding family and a medical doctor to boot, why he was eatin the okra raw! Just jammin okra down his gullet as fast as he could get his hands on it. Now, it was about then that people started slippin and slidin on the okra that got squashed and so down they went. There must have been twenty people slitherin around on the floor and the more they tried to stand up, the more they slipped around. I found myself alone by the collard greens and they still looked awful, I was right to pick okra instead. Mr. and Mrs. Gonzales come in right about then, with Bubba and Jose on their heels. They took one look at all the folk wigglin about and jumped right in the middle, happy as hogs in slop, which in a way I suppose they were. Animals! Heathen animals! I covered my eyes when people started gettin nekkid, but then I felt it my civic duty to watch so’s I could be a witness if a trial came to pass.
When the police got there, Sherrif Beaufleur had to shoot his gun into the ceiling three times to get people quieted down, which was unfortunate because one of the bullets ricocheted off a beam and nicked that poor Maudie Rayleene Smithers and her out of the hospital only a week after birthin her third set of triplets. Yes, Reb named 'em Buddy Joe, Joe Buddy, and Juddy Bo, like he done the other six. Nobody noticed Maudie Rayleene had been knocked into the dairy case, right in the section holds the buttermilk. Back in the produce department everbody was yellin and carryin on at onct and the sherrif couldn’t make out what anybody was saying. So that’s why he marched us all down to the police department and locked us up! It took forever to get everything set to rights and then we was all fined for litterin and shopliftin and creating a fuss in public. The Gonzaleses were also fined for public nekkidness but I don’t think they noticed because there was an awful ruckus in that cell.
The manager of the Piggly Wiggly, that nice young Grover Clemens eventually found poor Maudie Rayleene in the buttermilk, fine and dandy but for a slight flesh wound. She allowed it was a small price to pay for the best rest she’s had in a coon’s age. Now that I am home again, praisejesus, I have done some thinkin. I don’t believe Sherrif Beaufleur was right to charge us all with shopliftin, seeins how Doc Higginbottom was the only one took any actual okra and the rest of us was only wearin it.
Merrily, I know someone who had some mock apple pie, back a few years. Swampy is correct, though the idea continues to intrigue me.
About half is actual stuff I’ve seen and heard during summers in the south-- my grandpa’s name is Hollis, but I really do have an Aunt Thedadelle and my grandma served at least three kinds of potatoes for supper and dinner both. The rest is a mish mash of horrible (and horribly done) stereotypes from all over the south. Trying to recall them all has me plum tuckered out! Oh yes, I went to school with a Higginbottom and she was impressively endowed in the bosom area, Annie May was flattern’ Kansas. No comment where I learned the ‘kinky’ stuff.
I’m still a little woozy, but yesterday I was sick, fever and everything. I can’t imagine how unless I picked up more than pasta and bagels at CostCo. No plans for the fourth because it’s too blasted hot to do anything outdoors. I can’t believe we used to go to the fireworks display out at the local jc back when I was a kid. Can you imagine sitting on prickly dry grass for three hours in 90+ weather? There is not enough beer in the world to make that tolerable, I don’t know how my parents did it. I plan to stay inside and watch the one in Boston, no mosquitoes that way!
