grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Turning Gay in Dallas

By

Setting: Expensive Dallas Hair Salon – Shampoo Room
Characters: 
Myrtle – shampoo lady
Lottie – shampoo lady
Me – customer with dark roots
Ms. Bettye – customer with gray roots

gay

Myrtle:  How’re you today honey?
Me:  I’m good. How are you?
Myrtle: Thanking the good Lord to be alive.
Lottie: She’s crazy as ever.
Myrtle: Lottie you hush your mouth. Baby, you just sit right back and let Ms. Myrtle take good care of your hair.
Me: Ok.
shampoo ladies chatting during my shampoo….
Myrtle: Margarita lost that baby bless her heart.
Lottie: Oh girl no she didn’t!
Myrtle: Um-hm. Been bleedin’ all night.
Lottie: Bless her heart but she done got seven chil’ren.
Myrtle: Lord’s way of telling her.
Lottie: Poor chile.
Myrtle: Um-hm.
glancing to door…
Myrtle: You mean to tell me Joe’s done fell again?
Lottie: Oh lordy mercy I guess so.
Myrtle: That poor man.
Lottie: Um-hm.
Myrtle: Joe you done fell again?
Joe: Yup, using my old cane.
Together: Well bless your heart.
to Ms. Bettye being shampooed next to me….
Lottie: Ms. Bettye I looooove that necklace. What’s that stone?
Ms. Bettye: Oh Lottie, I don’t remember. I’ve had it for prob’ly forty years.
Lottie: Myrtle, you see this necklace?
Myrtle: (Myrtle drowning my head to look.) That is very beautiful Ms. Bettye.
Lottie: You driving again Ms. Bettye?
Ms. Bettye: Oh no, my friend drove me. We’ve been friends for forty years.
Lottie: Isn’t that nice.
Myrtle: Ms.Bettye, did you know Joe done fell again?
Ms. Bettye: Oh no. Bless his heart.
to each other during my rinse….
Lottie: You know Hector done turned gay.
Myrtle: No! How you know?
Lottie: Margarita tole me.
Myrtle: ‘fore she lost that baby?
Lottie: Yes ma’am. His wife done throw’d him out.
Myrtle: Lawsy what’s wrong with him?
Lottie: Don’t know. She said one day he was fine and the next day he turned gay right after work.
Myrtle: What’s this world comin’ to?
Lottie: Sinful.
Myrtle: Bless her heart.
Me: Coughing. Gagging.
wrapping up my wet head in a towel…
Myrtle: There you go honey. You all done now.
Me: Thank you. Myrtle, you know people don’t just turn gay. Right?
Silence. Pin dropping silence.
Me: Seriously. People don’t turn gay. It’s genetic. You either are or you aren’t.
Myrtle and Lottie exchange quick knowing looks.
Best friends and co-workers for fifty years, they share the same thoughts.
They have one mind.
Lottie: Honey chile’ I think Myrtle done got water up in your head.
Myrtle: What’s this world coming to?
Lottie: Sinful.
Myrtle: Bless your heart.

Laughing. Hysterical laughter. At me.

turning gay

Grace Grits and Gardening

Musical Pairings:
They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Napoleon XIV

Homer Simpson to Bart: He didn’t give you gay, did he? Did he?

The Calm, the Storm and the Wolverine

By

Leaving Fayetteville yesterday morning, a cloud burst over me. The rain pelted down hard enough to wash the sticky tree sap and smeared travel bugs from my windshield. At the same time, the sun flooded in from the East. A sunshower. The devil was beating his wife. Who did the devil marry? I’m not sure I ever learned this in Sunday School.

Behind me, an amazing double rainbow. Beyond the interstate, in the lowest point of the valley, the rainbow seemed to end at an old white barn, the blurry colors filtered around the roof. I always knew barns were special. I wondered if there was a pot of gold inside?

For a split second I thought about chasing the rainbow, trying to drive down the mountainside. Instead, I veered off at the next exit to snap a quick picture. This slight break in the drive was enough to upset Lucy and Annabelle. They thought we were already back in Dallas. Even so, the disruption was worth the stop.

Back on the road toward Fort Smith, Annabelle was extremely restless, whining and trembling. At this rate, a long drive home. Clearly, she wanted to see that pot of gold.
I was still thinking about that rainbow, feeling a bit sad to leave Arkansas. Was it a sign we were driving in the wrong direction? No time to wallow in this nostalgia. The moment we drove into Oklahoma, Annabelle projectile vomited from her backseat crate onto my arm, the floor board and the bottom of her crate cushion. Linda-Blair-head-spinning-chunky-dog-puke. 
Pawn Shop, Vian, Ok
Suddenly I found myself in Vian, Oklahoma, in an empty parking lot wedged between Big Pawn (We Buy Gold) and ShortStop (Home of the Bar-b–que Train). One ironic, both sketchy. Directly across the highway, the Vian High School Marching Wolverine Band held an early morning practice. With only about twenty-five band members, the music sounded surprisingly decent. I love a good marching band and easily recognized Proud Mary. Singing along I cleaned dog puke from every crease and crevice of myself and my car with a dry Wet One. Annabelle appeared tired and weak. Lucy was simply embarrassed. 
During this Oklahoma out-of-body experience, I realized…. I already have my pot of gold.

And I also thought…. I have no earthly idea what a Wolverine is. 

talya
Musical Pairings:
The wolverine, pronounced /ˈwʊlvəriːn/, Gulo gulo (Gulo is Latin for “glutton”), also referred to as glutton, carcajou, skunk bear, or quickhatch, is the largest land-dwelling species of the family Mustelidae. (Wikipedia)
clear as mud…. 

Marie Laveau

By

Last week Dallas was aerial bombed for mosquitoes. The survivors hid in the shady shrubs around Harry’s porch, waiting for late afternoon happy hour. Immediately, like a swarm of famished locusts, they ate me alive, oblivious to the fog of bug spray around me.West Nile-carrying blood suckers. 
Two days later, a bite appeared on my arm. Itchy and burning, in the shape of a half dollar. Spider bite? Poison ivy?  Mange? West Nile rash? My head pounded. I could feel the encephalitus growing in my skull, spreading down my spinal cord.

Three days later, I sought medical advice from my Facebook friends, my lifeline. Like polling the audience on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The audience is always right. One friend suggested a hot slice of onion placed on the spider bite to draw out the poison. Another accommodating friend offered to suck the poison from my body after slicing my arm with his pocket knife. 
Since I was pretty sure it wasn’t a snake bite, I opted for the onion remedy. 
Four days later, drinking wine and watching The Help with my sister-in-law, I applied a hot compress of stinky white onion to my arm, reheating slices over and over, nearly burning my arm. By the time I left her house, my arm smelled pungent, but looked much, much better. Of course maybe the perceived improvement was directly correlated to the wine consumed.
Yesterday, my spider bite had oddly spread to the back of my arm. It felt scorched and fevered. Maybe due to the broiling onion? Weak and lethargic, I opted for lunch as food makes everything better. As I ate alone feeling slightly pitiful, into Panera strolled a handsome man in scrubs. Heaven sent with a turkey panini and iced coffee, he sat right beside me, clearly drawn to me by my unspoken medical needs. 
gnarly
Me: “Excuse me, are you a doctor?”
Scrubs: “No, I work at a lab.”
Me: “Good enough. Do you think this is a spider bite?” flashing my swollen arm at him…
Scrubs: Taken aback. “Maybe. You should have that checked out.”
He gulped his food and quickly exited.
OK FINE.
I found a walk-in-doc-in-the-box near my house. Inside, a witch doctor straight from the swamps of Louisiana. Very blunt and no-nonsense, a she-devil with extra-stringy extra-long gray hair. No smiling allowed. She skipped the bedside manner class in sorceress school.  Marie Laveau.
Me: “I thought this was a spider bite but it has spread. Now I’m pretty sure I have West Nile. I’m from Dallas. It’s bad there. The West Nile, not Dallas.” I was rambling. Voodoo makes me nervous. 
Marie: “You have shingles.”
Me: “Really?”
Marie: “Yes. Now tell me what you know about shingles.” Oh great, a test.
So I rattled off what I know and made a C+. With black eyes boring into me she spoke seriously, scribbled out a prescription, I escaped, she hid back underneath her moss covered rock. I never told her about the onion. 
talya
Musical Pairing:

Marie Laveau – Bobby Bare

Time is generally the best doctor – ancient proverb

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!