Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank

by Celia Rivenbark

  The professor, Erica Tobolski, says that she is teaching her students how to stop talking Southern and start using Standard American Dialect (or, appropriately, SAD for short). This way, we can all sound exactly alike. Isn’t that just gooder’n grits and finer’n frog’s hair?

  Of course it’s not. The truth is, I wouldn’t give Ms. Tobolski air if ‘n she was trapped in a jug. Which it sounds to me like she may have been. For some time. How else do you explain such oxygen-deprived plumb foolishness? I swear if that woman’s brains were dynamite, an explosion wouldn’t even ruffle her hair on a windy day.

  “Many students come to see me because they want to sound less country,” Ms. Tobolski told the Associated Press. They want to be able to turn their native Southern accent on and off so it doesn’t embarrass them when they travel or go on job interviews.

  Y’all want to know what embarrasses me? That any right-thinking daughter or son of Dixie would sign up for this insulting course. Do we really want to sound like the “You’ve got mail” guy or the android who tells us to “Press One for Customer Service”?

  Answer me. Do we?

  Oh, “hail” no.

  I have a friend who travels to the Northeast a lot on business. She’s a high-powered, successful executive, and she takes pride in her Southern accent.

  Going toe-to-toe with Boston lawyers on their turf, she refers to them as y’all, but they have learned that to question her brainpower would just prove that they’re the ones dumber’n a sack of hammers.

  What we need to do is celebrate our accent and nevah, evah try to change it. If we try to get rid of it so others will think better of us, we will have lost our Southern soul, trading the essence of ourselves for what?

  So take that course, if you must. But don’t be surprised if you end up spending your empty little life stumbling around just as lost and prone to misery as a blind horse in a punkin patch.

  Y’all know I’m right.

  26

  Flu Strikes at Christmas

  (And Nobody Had a Silent Night)

  If you’re going to go and get yourself a really noisy, nasty intestinal virus, it’s always best to do it while visiting your in-laws for the holidays. That way, the entire extended family, which is staying overnight in the small brick ranch house that your husband grew up in, can be treated to a cacophony of sounds that they will long remember.

  And that way, one by one, they can step, in their bath-robes, to the closed door of the one full bath in the house and shout, with a mixture of pity and fear, “You doing all right in there?”

  To which you scream a loving “Go away!”

  Maybe I’ll write about my Christmas night “song” one day in one of those tiny little volumes with treacly prose that sells so well during December. As I snuggled into my husband’s boyhood bed mere hours before the attack on my innards was launched, I read five of these little books, all filled with misty-eyed memories of hearth and home and angels and snowmen. None offered a memory like the one I was about to generate for all the family to snicker about for years to come.

  Hours later, my humiliation complete, I lay in bed and tried to ignore the smell of frying country ham. A brother-in-law timidly offered to bring me some breakfast, but I told him to just bypass the middleman and throw it directly into the toilet on my behalf. All morning long, I could over-hear the conversation between niece and nephew, aunt and uncle and so forth.

  “I heard her at about four thirty,” said one.

  “Naw, it was closer to two thirty. You must’ve slept through the first round.”

  Oh, sweet Jesus, make them stop.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out that this was going to permanently scar the younger members of the family who, mere hours before, had happily been playing with a whoopee cushion brought by Santa himself. Now the sound wasn’t all that funny.

  “Do you think she’s gonna die?” I heard one ask.

  “Sure sounds like it,” another said solemnly.

  A relative in Texas called with holiday greetings, and I heard my husband cheerfully announce that I couldn’t come to the phone because “She’s busy at both ends!” Great. There’s one less state I can show my face in again.

  The rest of the morning, I heard the relatives leave, cheerfully reminding my mother-in-law to “Lysol the door-knobs!” My husband’s family believes that Lysol solves everything. I was deathly afraid they might sneak in and try to spray me from top to bottom while I slept. And dreamed of writing “Upheaval at the In-Laws’: A Christmas Song.”

  Yeah, that’ll sell.

  I’m not sure a flu shot would’ve helped in my case, but I couldn’t get one anyway, because I was too young. I told everybody that and enjoyed it mightily. It’s the most fun I’ve had since I told the nurse running the church Bloodmobile that “I can’t donate on account of I don’t weigh enough.”

  Oh, settle down. I’ve signed away my organs and, frankly, the way that guy at the Optimist Club booth stared at me when I was signing away my dead corneas, I was a little scared he was going to take ‘em right then.

  But give blood? Uh, not so much. So instead of being the weenie that I am, fainting in front of an entire basement full of people, I said I didn’t weigh enough.

  Because this is the South, where people are civilized to your face, there were no follow-up questions such as, “Honey, your ass appears to need its own area code, so I’m guessing you do weigh more than ninety-five pounds.”

  She sure was thinking it, though.

  When I took my octogenerian dad to the drugstore to get his flu shot, I couldn’t believe the crowd. The line snaked through eight—count ‘em, eight—aisles. For the first hour, it barely moved. When we finally saw one man walk by, pointing to his arm and then making a Ffor victory sign, we burst into spontaneous applause.

  The funny thing about getting in line for a flu shot is that, if you are not of a certain age, you get dirty looks. I was just there for moral support, but I could see the raised eyebrows: Hmmm, she better be missing some kidneys or something.

  I recognize the look because it’s the same one I use when I see someone park in a handicapped space and then cheerily skip into the mall having figured out that sometimes it’s cool to borrow Great-gran’s Taurus.

  “It’s not for me,” I stammered. “I’m just here with my dad. I don’t want a flu shot. In fact, I wish I could give back the one I got seven years ago so that others might be helped.”

  Ahhh. Their faces relaxed, and they put down their torches. I had been afraid that I was one step away from the old “witch test,” where they would dunk me in a vat of NyQuil to see if I would sink.

  When you’re in a drugstore for that long, you gotta read something, so I selected Dr. Phil’s weight-loss cookbook. It wasn’t a great choice, because it’s so big and heavy that I had to pretty much kick it ahead on the floor with my foot like luggage while reading it. Dr. Phil’s diet consists of meals like Lunch: Grilled salmon, steamed asparagus and leeks, and sweet potato souffle.Dinner: Roasted chicken, steamed vegetable medley, and fat-free polenta cakes.

  Yeah. Let me just call my personal chef and have her whip that shit up. Is Dr. Phil on the pipe?

  Frankly, after a few hours in the flu line, I was convinced that what we’d have for supper that night would be stackable Lay’s, Altoids, and some stationery with kittens on it. Yum!

  This past winter, there was such a flu-shot frenzy that I wondered why there wasn’t a Flu Channel. (“All Flu, All the Time!”) complete with Weather Channel studs wearing yellow slickers and reporting live from the scene of Joe and Joan’s four-poster mahogany bed. I can just see ‘em clinging to the bedposts as they battle gale-force sneezes and wet hacking coughs while assuring us that “There’s . . . not . . . much . . . time!”

  It seems a cruel irony that flu season coincides with the busiest shopping season. At the mall, I desperately want to wear a surgical mask and gloves but I’m too chicken, fearful that shoppers will mistake me for M
ichael Jackson, who has been notoriously germ-phobic since he was just a small nut job growing up in Encino.

  Post-flu, there are three types of antibacterial lotions in my purse these days and, like the in-laws, I’ve taken to spraying doorknobs with Lysol, sometimes while my guests are still touching them.

  Even if I’d had a flu shot, there’s no guarantee it would have been the right one. At least that’s what everybody at the CDC (the Cootie Detection Center) down in Atlanta says. That’s because every year there is a “new strain” of flu out there, mostly representing ominous sounding parts of the world like the Haiku Province, the Kung Pow Shrimp, and the Moo Goo Gai Pain. You never know which one’s going to strike.

  So somebody at the drug company has an office pool or a lucky dartboard and finally picks one and bazillions of Moo Goo vaccines are shipped out. But just when you start to relax, you discover that, as it turns out, that guess was completely wrong. That this year’s flu strain was more of a Knockwurst—Type A, and epidemiologists around the world were left with egg foo yong on their faces.

  I’d like to talk more about this, but I have to boil my mail. You just can’t be too careful, hons.

  27

  Knitting, Boy Dinosaurs,

  and Chipotle

  What Is a Category You Will Never See on Jeopardy!

  Get this. Knitting is hip. In fact, knitting is almost as hip as chipotle these days. Women are forming “stitch ‘n’ bitch” clubs where they sit around and knit. This sounds like a giant step backwards to me. What’s next? Getting together to make our own spray starch?

  Knitting. You’ve got to be kidding. Before I hear from all the rabid pro-knitting nuts (oops, too late—more on that in a minute), let me say that I actually know a little something about knitting. I used to knit little purses for my friends in junior high, but then I got a life.

  And about chipotle. Don’t get me started. Nobody even knows how to pronounce this stuff, and now every restaurant you go to wants to put chipotle all over everything.

  It reminds me of the old Monty Python skit where the diner asks his waiter about the dessert specials, which turn out to be “rat pudding, rat pie, and strawberry tart.” The customer looks perplexed. “Strawberry tart?” “Well,” says the server, a tad apologetically, “there’s some rat in it.” Same with chipotle. I don’t even know what it is, but it’s on everything. Chipotle sauce, chipotle butter, chipotle beer. What next? “New, improved Hamburger Helper: Now with 50 percent more chipotle!”

  Anyway, I was sitting around not knitting or eating chipotle the other night when I stumbled across a fascinating article about dinosaurs. See, it turns out that the real reason dinosaurs died out sixty-five million years ago was because a series of asteroid hits caused the skies to go dark and the Earth to grow cold.

  This had a more serious effect than just making the dinosaurs hang out in the garages of their friends trying to get some cheap spray-tanning.

  No, no. The real problem was that, as it turns out, boy dinosaurs are born more often when temperatures drop. After a while, there was little suspense in the dinosaur waiting room. It was, always, a boy.

  And he was eating chipotle. No, no, just kidding.

  For a while, I imagine this was a lot of fun. Dinosaurs all over the earth got to put their hooves up on the coffee table without being yelled at and could sit around with their buddies without being nagged to mow the rocks or whatever.

  While I’m sure this was cause for great prehistoric merry-making, after a while, the old men’s club just got kind of dull. All they ever did was hang out, eat way too many leaves, and just, generally, discuss Republican politics.

  So, now you know how dinosaurs disappeared. Let’s just hope that knitting and chipotle won’t be far behind.

  Okay, maybe just chipotle.

  Knitters, I have discovered, don’t have much of a sense of humor. Every time I crack on the knitters, I get irate letters. Who knew?

  Judging from the, uh, passion, with which these people write letters, I have to say that it would not surprise me in the least to find a large hand-knit horse’s head on the foot of my bed one day. Here was a typical letter from a woman I will simply call “Purl.”

  “Who do you think you are to put down knitting? I knit all the time. You should learn to knit. I bet if you did learn to knit, your stuff would look as stupid as you do.”

  Well, all righty, then.

  And then there was the scorching mail from a nameless someone who wrote, “You should be fired for saying that knitting is for losers.” (Just for the record, I did not say that. I implied it. Now crocheting and tatting? That’s for losers. And don’t even get me started on macrame. Kidding!)

  Another writer took a more ominous approach: “You said knitters should ‘get a life.’ That wasn’t very nice. You are a very crappy person, and maybe you shouldn’t even have a life. Signed, Tony Soprano.” (Okay, maybe not, but that’s who it sounded like. Is there some kind of knitting Mafia out there? And, if so, do they stitch tiny little cozies for their Uzis? “You have spoken disrespectfully of my hobby. And now you must pay. . . . Oh, criminy! How do I get this thing off?”)

  And this from another nutty knitter: “I suppose when you want to give a sweater to someone you love, you just go to the store and buy one!”

  Well, uh, yes, Mrs.Colonial House, and your point would be?

  The whole thing makes me wonder if I’ve tapped into some kind of Angry Knitters alternate universe. (“Don’t mess with me. I knit!”) I thought that knitting was supposed to relax you, rather like how watching an aquarium can lower your blood pressure. Although I’m not sure I believe that. I watch an aquarium and just get hungry for something yummy with slaw and hushpuppies.

  Finally, I heard from a male knitter who said that he knits tiny little caps for premature babies, and he wanted to know what exactly I do for tiny little babies.

  Well, admittedly, there’s not much market for sarcasm among newborns, but, if it makes you feel better, I shall be happy to read aloud portions of my work to the unborn in wombs across America, rather like those Mozart tapes you’re supposed to play to make your kid smart.

  Just don’t blame me if he comes out a smart-ass. You so asked for it, dude.

  28

  OnStar Hotline

  Sure, They Can Help with Car Emergencies,

  but Can They Make a Decent Gravy?

  “OnStar Hotline, may I help you?”

  “Oh, thank God![panicky] I need help with my Christmas list.”

  “Okay, ma’am, please calm down. I can see from your location that you are in the mall parking lot and your blood pressure has just spiked to a rather dangerous level.”

  “Well, that’s because some doofus just took my parking space,[sobbing] You don’t know what it’s like out here, OnStar.”

  “Right, ma’am, we also see that it appears that your credit card has maxed out, so perhaps shopping isn’t a good idea today. Ma’am.”

  “OnStar, I thought you were here to help.”

  “Right, ma’am, sorry to editorialize. Have your airbags deployed?”

  “It’s not a wreck, you ninny. It’s a shopping emergency.”

  “Sorry again. Now, ma’am, it appears that, in fact, the pants you are wearing today do make your butt look too big.”

  “OnStar!”

  “Sorry again, ma’am. We’re really much better when it comes to auto emergencies, of which this doesn’t seem to be one.”

  “Oh, right. Like the commercial where the woman has locked her keys in the car and her baby’s inside and she’s crying. That one always makes me cry when y’all unlock the doors.”

  “Me, too, ma’am.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course not.”

  “OnStar, you’re so good at helping everybody. Can you or can you not help me with my Christmas list?”

  (Pause)

  “OnStar, are you there?”

  “Thinking, ma’am. Are you sure you don’t ha
ve any kind of auto emergency? We’re really quite well-trained to say things in comforting tones like, ‘Sit tight! Help is on the way.

  “And I love the commercial where you ask if the person in the wreck would like you to stay on the line until help arrives. That’s just so sweet. I mean you’re like a best friend in a box, on selected GM models, that is.”

  “Oh, now, keep going on, ma’am, and you’re gonna have me bawling!”

  “Right. What about help with my Christmas list—can you do it, OnStar?”

  “Hmm. You know, fragrance is always nice. We at On-Star are partial to anything in the pine tree line or perhaps new car scent.”

  “I dunno, OnStar. Look, let’s change subjects. Since you are so calm and comforting and knowledgeable, can you give me some advice so my turkey gravy isn’t lumpy this year?”

  “Whoa. You’re asking the impossible now, ma’am. Everyone knows you make terrible gravy.”

  “They do? Everyone? How do you know?”

  (Irritated sigh)

  “Oh, right. You know everything.”

  “Now you’re starting to get it, ma’am. Although, just between you and me, it wouldn’t kill you to use cornstarch instead of flour. Oh, and, two words, Kitchen Bouquet. That shit is awesome!”

  “OnStar! Did you just say it-shay?”

  “Forgive me, ma’am. I got caught up in the moment. It won’t happen again.”

  “Sure, fine. One more question, though. If you know so much, can you tell me why people still pay money to hear Ashlee Simpson sing when everyone knows she lip-synchs?”

  (Silence)

  “OnStar? Are you there?”

  “Thinking, ma’am. Frankly, we at OnStar are surprised at all the nepotism in the entertainment world. Another caller wanted to know why Jamie Lynn Spears has her own TV show. It’s not as if there’s a giant talent pool coming out of Bigfoot, Louisiana, or wherever.”

  “Exactly, OnStar! I’ve been thinking the same thing myself. Look, I know I’ve taken too much of your time already—”