Ladies and gentlemen, I am a newspaper columnist, Southern politician and a lawyer which means there are few people in the world better at running their mouth. I have found my talent, like Brett Farve’s text messages, can occasionally get me into trouble.
I was speaking with my dear mother last week when the conversation turned, as it does as often as I can twist it, to me.
I asked, “Dear Mother, what did you think of my column this week?”
“Oh, it was fine,” she replied. Not fishing for simple light flattery, I began reeling my hook in.
“Did you like me using the turnip greens story?”
“Oh, yes, now that was good.”
Okay, this was getting better, “Y’all passed along some great stories out at Pleasant Hill.”
I expected her to respond with something about how much I added to the story/I’m the voice of a new Southern generation/time to crown me the modern-day Lewis Grizzard, etc.
That is not what I got.
“Oh, that wasn’t one of our stories,” she said, “that was an old Jerry Clower joke.”
She obviously didn’t register the horror on my face.
“I did think it was your best column,” Mom added, hammering home that my writing is at its best when I’m just transcribing other people’s material.
Apparently, there was a cat story from my mom’s childhood, but as is often the case, this true story was way weirder and dirtier than any fiction. Please bear in mind I am typing this story 11 hours AFTER my deadline, with no time to call and check with my mother if this story was actually told at family reunions or was on an episode of Hee Haw or something.
Once upon a time in beautiful, crime-free Iuka there was an old man. This man was a fixture in town. Most folks living could not remember a time when he was not seen around town in his fedora hat like men of his generation wore. Until one day - no old man. Days, weeks, a month went past and no one saw him. Just as people really began getting concerned the gentleman might have gotten caught in some old lady’s house in a A Rose for Emily type situation, he reappeared. Gaunt and pale, he approached the other old men on the whittling bench.
“Lord, where have you been?” they said.
“Just about dead. Some days, death would have been a relief,” he replied.
The men asked, “What happened?”
The old man mustered his strength, “Every morning I got dressed, put on my hat, walked outside my door and … threw up. Every morning for a month I did the same things I’ve done for 70 years then I’d puke my guts out not 10 feet out my front door.”
The men were concerned, “What did the doctor say?”
The man shook his head, “I was too sick to get past my front yard. Finally, after 30 days, I puked again and just decided I was going to die that day. I walked back in the house, dropped my hat on the table like always and laid down on the couch instead of going to my bedroom like I’d been doing. Figured I‘d make it easier on Cutshalls. And that’s when I saw my wife’s cat she got about a month ago walk up to my hat, climb over it, and proceed to go number two all in it!”
The gathered old men roared, “You’d been wearing cat mess for a month? I’d have shot that cat!”
The old man snorted, “I shot every cat on Pleasant Hill Road.”
The moral of the story here folks: be careful what knowledge you seek. You might not like the answers you get.