I got another letter from Uncle Barlow the other day. He is stirred up about public affairs of one sort and another. Here's his view of things from way out in the countryside.
"Dear Nephew,
"We have a situation here in Barlow County. Oh, my goodness do we have a situation.
"The widow Cumbee is sweet on Floyd over at the grain elevator, hardware store and auto repair. She looks at him like that Callista Gingrich looks at her man Newt.
"Floyd encouraged her at first, but then he started wishing he hadn't.. Things came to a head when he took her to a double feature at the Starlite Drive In. She got carried away when the cuddling commenced, and Floyd came home with a cracked rib and second thoughts. He keeps trying to wiggle away from her, but she's too moonstruck to notice.
"He hasn't been in a crack like this since he told his late wife he had the green apple quickstep and skipped her family reunion to go fishing. Floyd caught a lunker that day. Biggest fish he ever landed. He wanted ever so bad to brag about it, but of course he didn't dare, because he'd lied to his wife about spending all day on the thunder mug. He finally gave the fish to Scooter over at the cafe. But he made Scooter tell people he never would have caught it if Floyd hadn't taught him how.
"Anyhow, Floyd gets in trouble when he flimflams people about his true outlook. Millie over at the library says that's what Rick Santorum is doing, by the way. He's another one of those fellows who's running for president. Nowadays he wears suits and talks about foreign policy and such. A while back, before he started getting more votes, he wore a sweater vest and talked a lot about sex. He's against birth control, to mention just one thing, and not only for himself. He's against it for everybody. He talked and talked about it. He talked so much about it that finally his own wife started saying maybe he should change the subject.
Millie says that now he's posing and pretending. She says that, back when he started out, he was trying to look like the kind of fellow who might help you jump start your car, but that now he's trying to look presidential. I said maybe his sweater vest is at the dry cleaners. Millie just snorted. She says that all the women are going to vote against him. She says he wants a 'theocracy.' And it certainly does look to me like he's apt to go beyond preaching and get to meddling.
"That fellow Mitt Romney doesn't suit Millie any better. He's been complaining about gas prices. Millie said she would, too, if her spouse drove two Cadillacs. And then there's the business about light bulbs. Romney said President Obama and his folks 'banned' the light bulbs everybody's used all these years. But the trouble is, that's just not true. Millie showed me in back issues of The Barlow Clarion how this notion of switching to more efficient light bulbs got started under the last President Bush and was passed by big votes of both parties in Congress.
"I said I hoped a presidential candidate wouldn't just flat-out lie. I said maybe Romney just got confused. Millie said who wants a president who can't keep light bulbs straight. She has a sharp tongue, sometimes.
"Anyhow, back to Floyd and the Widow Cumbee. She just won't leave him alone. Floyd has started inventing excuses for laying out of work at the elevator and store, so he won't be so easy for her to find.
"Trouble is, Floyd is the only person who knows right where everything is in the store. They're still using the inventory system old Mr. Flack set up in 1960. And since he kept the system all up in his head, and since he turned up his toes a couple of years ago, shopping for hardware or auto parts has come to be a time-consuming thing if Floyd isn't there.
"Word got around town that things weren't just right at the store, and business went soft. The business reporter and society columnist at The Clarion says this has set off 'economic ripples' in town. The story didn't come right out and say it's all because the Widow Cumbee wants Floyd to service her transmission, but everybody already knows that, so there was no need to dwell on it.
"The situation has also caused personal problems for people. Scooter's wife sent him to buy a tack hammer so he could hang some little pictures in their living room. When the folks at the store just couldn't find one, Scooter tried to use a ball peen hammer, and he made an egg-sized hole in the dry wall.
"Now, Scooter's wife is one of those people with a powerful need to be unhappy. She can find personal issues in a dinner menu. When she is presented with an opportunity as real as a hole in the dry wall, she really goes to town. She has cut off all communication inside their house, if you get my meaning.
"So, as I said, we have a situation here in Barlow County. There's talk of forming a citizens committee to press upon Floyd an obligation to step up and do right by the Widow Cumbee. We all have our civic duty, even in our sex lives.
"That's what Rick Santorum says.
"Sincerely,
"Your Uncle Barlow"
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