Some of my customers I dearly love, some I’d dearly love to kill.
This morning, I waited on a few I love.
First thing was Hugh Manis, whom I’ve waited on for years. I attended his church (Seymour First Baptist) for awhile, & sat with him & his wife nearly every time.
When you get married, generally if it’s a Christian ceremony, the preacher will ask you to hold the couple accountable. The union of two people coming together is a Holy bond & to keep them in your prayers for a strong, healthy marriage. The people gathered include some of the ones who love you best & dearest, so it’s easy for them to make that promise. But I have found that it’s some of my older male customers that hold me accountable, that they ask how my husband’s doing, or, more commonly, “Are you still married?” When I answer to the affirmative, it’s usually followed by, “He’s a good man.”
I don’t argue with that statement.
Anyway, I’m helping Mr. Manis carry out his purchases this morning (he walks on a cane, so I help him if his son doesn’t accompany him) & he asks me, “Where are you & your husband going to church now?”
Now, Johnny & I never attended FBS together. I went alone. But he’s been on me to come back for some time.
No sense in being embarrassed. “We’re not attending anywhere. We just fell out of the habit.”
“We got plenty of room,” he tells me with a smile.
“Yes, I remember. But Johnny likes little bitty churches.” (I honestly prefer a smaller congregation, to where you don’t get lost in the scheduling, but would go anywhere I felt welcome. Honestly, we’re enjoying the lazy life.)
We stepped outside. “Well, you need to make sure you have a home church when the babies start coming,” he reminded me gently.
“Yes, sir, but there’s not gonna be any babies. We still need to go. If we ever got started back, we’d be better off.”
He started telling me about his wife being back in the hospital. We chatted for a minute by his old Ford. He is one of the ones I love, & I’m not sure how much longer I’ll get to love him.
Then I was waiting on David Sarten, aka “Nugget” for his nuggets of wisdom, when I realized my shirt was on inside out. Looks like I need someone to hold me accountable for what I put on as much as I need steered back into church.
🙂 My good friend TammyLynn (the one who almost got eaten by a bull shark at Douglas last week) brought it to me this morning.Here’s what happened, although I’m ashamed to admit it.
It all started last year, when I got it in my head to be a good wife & make my husband homemade biscuits. I’m not a fan of homemade biscuits (just hush) & every time I say that in the presence of a baker, they gasp aloud, & say, “You’ve never had mine!” all scandalized. I have determined that in most of my experience eating them, I have found them dry & hard. I much prefer the frozen type, it’s really hard to mess them up. Anyway, so I went to Pinterest, found the prettiest picture, & used the accompanying recipe. This particular endeavor involved putting the dough in the blender. Johnny chose that moment to walk in the kitchen & took in the scene, blender whirring, flour dusted on every still surface (including my hair).
“Never seen my granny use a blender to make homemade biscuits,” he commented drily.
“You might not live to see these,” I replied icily, as he beat a trail back to the living room.
Well, those biscuits came out edible, but they were neither beautiful nor mouthwatering, as I recall. And I had hung up my biscuit making hat again, until about two weeks ago.
Biscuits come up in conversation at the Co-op pretty often, as you might imagine. It was one morning, & TammyLynn was here, visiting, & Marshall Dykes got to talking about cathead biscuits. I was choosing to remain silent for once, as I knew my opinion would not be well received. But then they pressured me, “Wouldn’t you like to have some big ole homemade biscuits?” they asked. And I made my comment.
They were both aghast.
“And then everybody always says, ‘but you ain’t had mine!'”
“We-eeellll….” TammyLynn starts. “I’m just gonna go ahead & say it. You ain’t had mine!”
“Well, bring ’em on,” I challenge.
Plans were laid. We were to have homemade biscuits the next morning, with homemade strawberry freezer jam, courtesy of TammyLynn.
I was I in charge of bringing the butter.
I was all excited the next morning. They were the most beautiful golden brown, fluffy biscuits that ever existed in the history of the world.
You talk about a sticky mess. My rolling pin had some accumulated grease on it from years of disuse (let’s be honest, decades…) so it had to be washed in the middle of getting my loaf mixed, so that probably didn’t help matters. Then the recipe card lacked the temperature to bake them at, so I opted for 350. That turned out to be another mistake, in a long line of fails for the morning. I rolled them out best I could, the heavy marble pin sinking deeply into the dough, so I ended up folding the dough over itself (which I learned is how you make flaky layers). I had been warned not to work up the dough very long, keeping it to strictly less than 30 seconds I had my hands in it. So here I was worried about that, picturing the bombs from Candy Crush counting down. I was careful not to twist my cutter as I stamped them out. Now or never, I thought, sliding them into the oven. I looked at the clock. They were supposed to be done in 10-12 minutes. Twenty minutes later, I’m still waiting on them to brown.
Johnny tentatively says, “Maybe they’re done & just not turning…”
So I retrieved them, & sure enough, they were brown on the bottom. And just as thin as they’d started.
I sighed.
We ate them with sausage, or butter & plenty of jam. They were fine, other than dry & short.
I text TammyLynn, as per request, to hash it out. She basically told me to keep trying. Meanwhile, Johnny was eating them as fast as he could. “Nothin’ wrong with these biscuits,” he mumbled around a mouthful. “Just a little flat.”
The week went by & I puzzled about what I could change to make them better. I didn’t broach the subject with anyone besides TammyLynn, though. I didn’t feel like getting barraged by suggestions. Sunday, I tried again.
I was ready with a clean & dry rolling pin this time. I dusted my wax paper. I jacked the heat up on the oven to 400. Bring it on, I thought.
My biscuits did not rise.
I flew into a rage.
I flung the two pans across the kitchen, Johnny ducking. “Well, there ain’t no sense in getting mad about it,” he drawled sensibly.
“I CAN’T suck at this. I suck at sports. I don’t like working in the sun. If you are terrible at more than one or two things, you suck as a person. I refuse.” I’m slung the biscuits of one pan on top of the other, & went to digging in the freezer for the tried-and-true Pillsbury brand. In the meantime, Johnny is sampling off the “ugly” one, the pieced one. “They taste fine, babe.”
So here we went to eating flat biscuits for the second Sunday in a row. “If it was easy, everybody would do it,” he tried to console me as tears welled in my eyes.
I was sure I was still rolling them out too thin, but I couldn’t help it, due to that unwieldy rolling pin. And I was afraid to pat them out, because that would put me waaaaay over the thirty second mark & make them hard.
At this point, I was ready for suggestions from the experienced biscuit makers at work. I consulted Robin.
“Well, first of all, what kind of flour are you using?”
I was a step ahead, already checking that the morning before. It IS self rising, but it’s the unbleached kind. Because, didja know, “Enriched” means BLEACHED. Yeah, that’s right, you’re eating BLEACH.
“I don’t know. I don’t use buttermilk, & I don’t use butter, but I just sift my flour–”
“Wait. What? Sift?” My ears pricked like a hunting dog.
“Oh, you haven’t been sifting it? Always, always sift it.”
“I don’t,” Clint interjected. He starts telling me how he does it, & what a mess he makes. Robin thinks I need more milk. She also urged me to take a fork & punch holes in the top, she’s heard it works. Tuletta says I need to use buttermilk. Kay told me to put an egg in there, it adds fluffiness. Yes, that’s right, an egg. Willie (yes, tire shop Willie, even HE can bake biscuits) says to mix my flour & milk first, then add Crisco. Some lady overhearing a conversation said to use a wooden spoon.
I think I don’t have biscuits in my heart. I think I’m oozing bad juju & karma in my dough & my biscuits know I hate them. I need love for my biscuits.
I’m gonna keep after it. Oven is going to 425. I’m gonna use my new rolling pin, courtesy of my professional biscuit baking buddy, & I’m gonna add a little more milk. I’m gonna put on some Gillian Welch & sing. I’ll let y’all know Sunday how it goes.
A few days ago a friend posted about being at the vet’s office with her pet. In the waiting room, there was another lady with her pet…and three unruly children. She had shushed them several times as they made a ruckus & eventually took them out to her vehicle to watch a movie while they waited on results . Essentially, bribing them to be good for the duration of the visit, & rewarding them for their already abysmal behavior. These children were reportedly of an age to know how to act. When the vet had to go outside & summon them, the noise from inside the room where they gathered was loud, as the mother continued to shush them to no avail, while she tried to speak with the vet about their dog or whatever. The friend ended by saying she knows what would have happened to her if she’d acted this way- a busted hind end. Same here.
The comments on this post were immediate. Mothers weighed in saying they sympathized with the woman having to wrestle with three little ones & a dog in a strange environment. Another said for important chores she enlisted a baby sitter for them.
Well. Here’s my theory. And I know my opinion doesn’t matter, because I have no children. But before you get all huffy, hear me out.
Children are spoiled.
When I was little (and yes, there was only one of me), a trip out ANYWHERE was a treat. It was nice to get out of the house. I wasn’t carted here there & yonder every day of the week for enriching activities. I had to make do with keeping busy in the yard, or my room. It wasn’t my momma’s responsibility to make sure that my every want was met, just my needs. If I wanted to go to the zoo, I had to wait. Had to wait on a special occasion, like a birthday, so we would have a little extra money. The park? Did we even have parks back then? You just went outside & built a fort from sticks & an old tarp & hunkered down with Harriet the Spy. Trip out for Froyo? Good luck with that. Suck on a packaged icee stick that cut your mouth with that sharp plastic. Maybe, if I could catch someone in a generous mood, they’d put a banana in the blender with some vanilla ice cream. If we had a foray to the drugstore, grocery store, shoe store, wherever, & I acted out, punishment was swift. I was whipped right then & there, or soon after arriving home. And I didn’t get to go next time. Whatever special things we had planned were stripped until further notice.
My point is, think of the women in past generations. They had several children, and they certainly didn’t have a reward system for bad behavior. So what if your kids are in a bad mood? It’s not about them. It’s about getting groceries for the next week. It’s about getting new clothes since you’re outgrowing everything. It’s a PRIVILEGE to be out in public. Look around. You are in a different environment. Promote your children to ask questions about the strange products they see, to quit pestering their siblings.
Yes, this is easy for me to say, because I don’t have any. But I also don’t want any. Not because I’m afraid I’ll be a failure & hafta eat my words, either.
Because my kids would be judged, mocked, & ridiculed because they still get spanked, told no to nearly everything, & have to read two hours for every hour spent with an electronic device. I wouldn’t be fair. They wouldn’t be treated like kings & queens, they’d be treated like little hostages, wearing what I told them to, eating what is placed in front of them, & being quiet.
And I’d probably be locked up for it.
Also, I am aware that there are special situations. Kids don’t feel well, but for emergencies you have to take them out. I get it.
In rare instances, kids have autism. I do not recognize ADD. In horses that can’t pay attention, you lunge till they wear the edge off before climbing aboard for a six hour trail ride or hour lesson to calm them down. Maybe those type of kids need less sugar & more activities. I see this behavior in my line of work, too, & I refuse to talk over someone’s bratty kid. I will just stand there smiling politely (looking a bit strained, I’m sure) until the parent takes control & we can speak in normal tones. This has never been a problem. And no, a crying baby doesn’t count. They really can’t help it. And that’s a whole ‘nother post.
I don’t understand why parents think in order to give their kids a better life than what they had, they have to submit & cater to their child’s every whim.
And what was so bad about our childhood, really? What did it matter to not have a matching pair of shoes for every outfit? What was so bad about waiting for the latest video game to go on sale, or not getting it till Christmas or your birthday? I guess I’m just mad. Look at the world. Are parents teaching them about soldiers overseas, separated from their kids to keep the rest of us safe? Are they teaching them about the biggest sacrifice ever, Jesus Christ? Or are they just letting them believe that they will always pick up the pieces when the kid makes one bad decision after another.
Sorry, I know I’m preachin’ to the choir.
I would be less embarrased to have someone witness me giving a spanking that they dissaproved of than someone witness my kids acting like uncivilized monkeys.
“You know, you call a local store hunting a part for a lawnmower, & you expect to get a local person,” Crapbag is saying to me.
Co-op, Wayne Blalock’s, & Cash Hardware are all closed today, so I’m not sure who he’s referring to, but I play along.
“Oh yeah?”
“And guess what I get? A damn Yankee!” He spits. He then chuckles without mirth. (Mirthlessly, it turns out, is not a word.) “I’m not sure he’s ever even laid eyes on a lawnmower, let alone sold a part to one.”
The problem is, of course, he can’t wait for me to go to Coop tomorrow & pick up this wheel thingie. Must. Have. It. Now.
He goes on to describe the entire conversation. I will spare you the details. Don’t ever say I lack compassion. It involves Home Depot. “So, do they have one or do you not know any more than you did before you called?”
“I don’t know any more than I did before I called.” He’s looking online. “Yeah, here it is. And they’ve got one.”
“You wanna run by there before we go to the hospital?”
He blinks at me. “To Sevierville?”
My turn to blink. “Oh, well, check Knoxville.”
“Where’s one at in Knoxville?”
“Down here by Walmart,” I say, in the tone of ‘duh’. He’s still looking at & blinking. “On the hill???” I continue.
*Blink. Blink*
“You KNOW. They’re up there on the right!” I’m throwing my harm around to indicate. “You’ve been there. We’ve went TOGETHER. Big parking lot? You walk in & lawn & garden is on your left. Stop blinking at me!!!!”
*Blink. Blink.* “Which Walmart?”
“OUR Walmart. South Knoxville. Tan building, great big orange Home Depot letters across the front?”
His eyes clear.
“Oh yeah. Let me call them.”
“Sorry for blinking at you, Amy,” I call over my shoulder as he steps outside to read the model number off.
“Did they have it?” I asked when he came back in.
“Yeah.”
“Did you get a Southerner?”
“Yeah.”
I sigh & go back to my book.
I’m going to tell you a story.
When my friend and I went to Jonesborough a few weeks ago, we were on our way back to Sevier County but I hadn’t quite satisfied my antique foraging itch. I was keeping my eyes peeled for the places along the road I had noticed on the drive in. I finally spotted the one I wanted–a white, well kept farmhouse. Sometimes with these places you just can’t tell. They look almost abandoned, & like spiders would be crawling just beyond your hand when reaching for something that caught your eye. But not this one. This building set off the divided highway just a bit, just enough to be private, & had a red metal sign –the kind that would creak a bit when there was wind–out by the road proclaiming, simply, “Antiques”.
There was no wind that day, & the sign was silent.
We traveled up the gravel road, split by a strip of cropped green grass, until we stopped at the end near the house. There was a massive, weathered barn to our left, on a little hill. A knoll. Another “Antiques” sign stood near the gray board barn. A small “Antiques” sign, up against the house, next to an obvious addition. A concrete walkway met us in the driveway that led to the shop. We followed it. Around the door, there were several placards. “Please ring bell for entry” “Please allow me time to get to door” “smile! You’re on camera!” Posted among them were hours for the shop.
I rang the bell, thinking this is how it is for little country free-standing businesses, you can’t sit in your shop all day, hoping a stray customer will come through soon. And during the week? Probably not a lot of traffic, not a lot of people with time on their hands to dig through junk, in search of treasure.
In hardly any time at all, much quicker than I had anticipated, here came the proprietor, a rotund dark haired elderly woman. She smiled, unlocked the door, & beckoned us in with a rush of words: how what we were about to see were ALL original, authentic antiques, no reproduction pieces.
We prowled in her shop for some time, while she told us all about her life. How she & her husband had traveled to all fifty states, procuring all the antiques we saw before us, and the many more we couldn’t, housed in the barn. The barn she only opened on Saturdays; she explained it was too hard on her legs after the two or three replacement surgeries she’s had. And she found out real quick people weren’t looking for anything in particular, they just wanted to look. (“Well, yeah,” I thought. “That’s why it’s called shopping.”) She spoke of theft, too, about all the people who come in on weekends & she can’t possibly keep track of them all, & once she got took for several thousand dollars in some kind of glassware.
She followed us around, every step, as we picked up & examined her trinkets & collectables. She gave us anecdotes & stories about how she came by specific pieces.
I came across no mermaids, unfortunately, but did ask to be sure I hadn’t overlooked them. There was so many cabinets & cases–she pointed out the ones her late husband had built– and drawers full of all kinds of beautiful things. It was all precisely arranged & carefully labeled, too. She probably went back over it with a fine toothed comb after we left to make sure nothing was out of place. We heard about how her husband had built the shop where we stood, with a ramp and a bathroom, to her specifications, because she wouldn’t buy in a business where they offered no restroom. She told us about his death, & her daughter’s death, & her surviving grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She mentioned, almost as an afterthought, it seemed to me, her son, who checks on her regularly.
She was pleasant enough, but the longer she talked & the more personal she became, the more nervous I grew. Not for us, but for her. I had told her we ran away from home for the day, a short girls’ trip to see some sights, & shop, & have lunch. We left our husbands working in the hot June sun.
After I paid for my tiny giraffe with the chipped ear that came from a package of Rose Tea, that had a rough base so men could light matches from it, we made for the door, complimenting her on her dustless, organized, lovely, shop.
When we got to Patsy, I exchanged a troubled glance with Jeannie.
“She really shouldn’t tell people she’s there alone. And look, her van, she really needs to put it in a garage, out of sight so people won’t know if she’s home. This is so dangerous!”
“Yeah,” Jeannie agreed. “She’s right here on this main road, you could be on the interstate & gone in no time!”
I put my sunglasses on.
“She didn’t know who we were. We may not be nice girls! We may have been casing the joint for our wicked, felon husbands to come back & rob her blind & slit her throat & leave her lying.”
“That’s true,” she concurred.
It was about that time we noticed a line of traffic parallel to us as we crept back down the crunchy gravel drive. I checked the clock. A few minutes after two. “Must be shift change. See? Who are all these people? She will open her door to anybody…it makes me very nervous for her.”
“Me too. You don’t know people.”
So we came on back home, and that’s where our story ends, but still, this bothers me.
If I were a better storyteller, I would weave you the rest, how she met her fate at dusk one day, two men stealing up the driveway just as she was settling into her velvet Lazyboy to watch Wheel of Fortune while eating a microwave dinner. We just happened to be the last visitors caught on her ancient surveillance camera, & we were brought in for questioning. To make things tidy for local small town police, we were arrested & I was writing from my dank, dingy, darkened cell, waiting on a lawyer to get us out, to prove our innocence for a crime we didn’t commit.
But all I can do is speculate & hope she fared okay through the Fourth of July festivities & all the loud pops were just firecrackers, nothing sinister in the outskirts of Greenville.
I have been reading too much Stephen King.
I was waiting on the wife of one of my regular customers today. She’s always super sweet, & I’m invariably glad to see her.
“Yankee,” I began, “her daddy was one of my regulars when I first started working down here. I didn’t know what to think of him. He used to say, ‘who’s your momma?’ All the time & tell me when I got married I was gonna hafta wash the skidmarks out of my husband’s drawers!”
Yankee’s eyes got rounder. Clearly, she wouldn’t have known how to take him, either.
I smiled at Miss Tammy, his daughter. “But I came to love him. He was a nice man.”
She nodded. “Daddy was. I remember too, you & another girl from down here came to his funeral.”
I paused.
I had forgotten about that. “Yeah, me & Skeeter came. It was probably the first funeral I attended on my own.” (Meaning, without my family) I recall Shanea & I talking ourselves into going. We felt that we needed to. “My husband says I go to more funerals than anybody he knows,” I told Tammy. “But he understands now that my customers are like my family… They’ve seen me grow up, in a way. I don’t necessarily like to go, but I need to.”
“No, I don’t like going, either, but it’s something you’ve got to do,” she agreed.
“I’ve tried explaining it to younger people-you might not go because you loved who died…you might be going because you love who’s left,” I added.
“That’s exactly right.”
So we parted, with tears & smiles.
I know I talk about death & funerals a lot on here, but it strikes a chord within me. It’s natural, and an act I grew up getting accustomed to. It’s never occurred to me to be scared of death, or afraid of the dead. You pay your respects & move on, & hope the spirit does the same 😊
I have just come from yet another funeral. Now this one was a little different.
It was like others in the respect that the deceased was a senior citizen, and someone I knew through work, and there was no shortage of familiar faces paying respects. The difference was, I stood in line sniggering the whole time. I couldn’t help it. And yes, there’s a difference between snickering & sniggering. Snickering is when you’re laughing with somebody about something (or someone) but you’re trying not to. Sniggering is lower in the gut & deeper & knowing you shouldn’t be laughing & trying to stop. I thankfully got to Tuletta quickly & apologized, I didn’t mean any disrespect. I COULDN’T HELP IT. Tuletta’s mother was one of the biggest practical jokesters I’ve ever met & every picture they showed of her you could tell she was into some sort of trickery or meanness. Bows on her head, britchie leg yanked up, fluttering eyelashes behind Greta Garbo sunglasses. I kept getting tickled. The pictures made me think of my own memories…she was one of those ladies who carried her possessions in her bra. She’d embarrass Tuletta to death when they’d stop to get a biscuit before work & Hazel would whip out a roll of money from her cleavage. Tuletta was always afraid she’d go to diggin’ for change. And everybody knew her, she was Postmaster at the little Seymour Post Office for umpteen years. And then the infamous calls: “Get your elastic waist pants on, we’re going’ to Red Lobster!” I could just hear the woman cracking up. I had to get a grip! I was in the funeral home, less than three feet from the body! Anyway, that got Tuletta to laughing & then I felt super guilty ’cause her daughter was looking at us like we’d flew the coop. But she said she’d picked those pictures for that very reason. And we talked about what Hazel would say if she were in attendance. “I know exactly! ‘Look at those roses! They’re bee-yoooo-ti-ful! Oh, honey, I just love them. Reckon I could start some off a clipping? I don’t have anything on the side of the house facing the well…'” Tuletta agreed wholeheartedly.
Tuletta’s mother has been sick for many years & it has been quite the hardship & heartache on her. It would be difficult to watch anyone you love suffer from dementia & slip a little further away each day, but most especially your mother that you have lived just down the road from almost your entire adult life. A mother you really loved & were thick as thieves with. A mother who was truly your best friend. So. Hazel’s gone, but I tell you: she looked younger tonight than she did ten years ago. I think she was happy to be under that massive blanket of roses & even happier to be celebrating in her new heavenly home.
The best part is, as I sit here writing that comment, I’m giggling & J asks what I’m laughing about. “Hazel.” I answered simply. “I thought she was the one who just died,” he responded with a puzzled expression. “She did. That’s the best part.”
Talking with a friend today about this lady we know of who recently took her life. I asked what she did for a living because some careers have a high suicide rate. He didn’t know, but asked me if I’d looked her up on Facebook. I hadn’t.
“She looks….kinda…different. Like a writer. You know?”
I thought immediately of my hair, springing out all over my head in 16 million directions. I thought of my eyeliner, that I’ve never managed to conquer, and even if it looks decent when I leave the house manages to be smudged by the time I get to work. I thought of my glasses, that are perpetually spotted from who knows what. I thought of my clothes, how some days my pants are dragging the ground or my socks are inside out or I’ve wound up wearing two different shoes. Or earrings.
“Yes, I know,” I replied dryly, flipping my hand to indicate my current appearance. “WAS she a writer?”
“Well, no,” he backpedaled. “Well, I don’t think so. But, like, she just looked…I can’t put it in words.”
“Unkept?”
“No. Just…plain, I guess. Maybe homely.”
“Was she a poet?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Because poets are tortured, you know.”
He nods like he understands, but I can tell he doesn’t.
“I feel sorry for poets. They have these beautiful words in their minds…but they’re misunderstood. People don’t GET them,” I tried to explain. “For instance, I can write a story. People will read it & they can visualize what I’m talking about. Poems have hidden meanings. It’s not hidden to the poet, they want to tell it, but people miss the point. They want it to mean something else. It would be awful being a poet, having everything trapped inside of you. Wanting to share it, but frustrated because nobody takes the time to listen. Poets are truly tortured souls. No wonder they die young.”
You think about it. How many of you sit down & read poetry as regularly as you read literature? I know I don’t. It takes too long to read, let alone decipher, & then when I bother researching what it’s actually about, I’m wrong. Anyway. Just thought this was worth thinking about. If you know a poet, maybe take them out for coffee or tea or something. They could probably use something tangible that is vibrant & happy. Like flowers. Or a handmade mug. I don’t know. I’m just a rambling writer.
