Summer, that time of year when the bug
population is trimmed back thanks to the
personal bug catchers sported by a small segment
of our community - the bug-splattered teeth of
motorcycle riders. This reminds me of my own
days as a Two Wheeled Terror when I spent time
making my dentist rich by having him remove
particularly hard bits of beetles from my
incisors.
Yes, back in my youth, I was a Motorcycle Not
Yet Mama, as this was before I had children or
any sense of my own mortality.
I got a Zen feeling while riding and it wasn't
from sucking fumes from a bus while waiting at a
traffic light in the middle of the city. My Zen
came from riding through the countryside and
breathing the exhaust fumes of thousands of
dairy cattle mere feet from the road. I tried to
get others to ride with me, but they kept
worrying about the guys from Deliverance
stepping out from behind a tree to torment them
with Dueling Banjos. I assured them that we
would not meet any toothless, gun-toting
sodomizers.
That was my second mistake.
My first mistake was assuming my co-riders knew
which end of a mule does what and which end you
should avoid unless you need fertilizer. Almost
as soon as we were out of the city limits, these
poor souls displayed an inordinate amount of
ignorance about rural life. People think us
hillbillies are dumb, but these folks were
spooky stupid.
"Hey Marti, why are those horses so
fat?"
"Because they're cows."
"What's that smell?"
"Fresh air."
With my irritation growing to the size of a cow
pregnant with triplets, I suggested we find
someplace to buy a cold drink and take a break.
We stopped at what could loosely be termed a
convenience store, but was really more of a
fishing supply and liquor shop. The closest
thing to a Slushee was the bucket of stinkbait.
I knew right off the bat that my friends were
uneasy when they saw the mounted Jackalope by
the front door.
Things got worse when we entered the building
and were greeted by a toothless, gun-toting
sodomizer.
Just kidding. There was a shotgun propped up in
the corner behind the counter, but the
proprietor actually looked more like Riff-Raff
from Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Except wearing bib overalls. She was toothless,
though.
My friends cowered in a tight huddle, glancing
around nervously at the containers of leeches,
night crawlers and other assorted fish bait. I
was not afraid, as fish bait and bald, toothless
women were a common sight for me as a child of
the Ozarks. While my riding buds were busy being
terrorized by leeches, I looked for the drink
and frozen bait cooler. Drinks are always stored
next to the frozen bait. It's probably a
government regulation for rural bait shops.
I saw, under stacks of minnow buckets, a
chest-type cooler. The storekeeper's left eye
saw me heading that way while her right eye
watched the leeches.
She called out, "Sheen's busted. Sumpin
widda gay-ers. Iffen ya wanna sodee we's gwanna
hatta go gittum out the walkin roun' back."
I smiled brightly and said "OK,"
because I speak Hillbillyese, and fully
understood that the vending machine was broken -
some sort of mechanical failure involving the
gears, but that soft drinks were stored in a
walk-in cooler located at the rear of the shop.
The others remained where they stood, trembling
at the front of the emporium, muttering possible
translations of the conversation. I went out
back leaving my buddies packed tighter than
sardines near the front door. The leeches swam
in their tank, occasionally stopping to bare
their teeth at the leather-clad riders, who
responded with moans of terror.
I returned with an armload of soda pop and
extracted payment from everyone without having
to threaten them with a leech. They teleported
back to the motorcycles.
"Wha-what did tha-that person say?"
they all asked.
Before I could answer, one said, "It
sounded like she mentioned Martin Sheen,
Christopher Walken, and something about
gays."
Feeling a tad ornery, I leaned in and whispered,
"Yes, there are a lot of Hollywood
celebrities who come to the Ozarks to get their
freak on away from all the press and
photographers. They spend a lot of money in
these parts though, so we try to keep it kind of
hush-hush."
I had a hard time keeping a straight face, but
they all seemed in awe of my insider knowledge.
I was just about to divulge the truth when
another pointed to a cornfield and asked,
"What's that?"
I offered an explanation, and we departed. I
grinned all the way back to the city, thinking
about them telling their friends about the wild
celebrity bashes in the Ozarks and how they'd
seen real live spaghetti plants ready to harvest
- you could tell they were ripe because the
spaghetti was popping out the top of the pods
and withering into brown silky strings.
It was worth the bugs in my teeth.
Copyright Marti Lawrence
* * * * *
 Marti
Lawrence is a humor columnist, who lives in
Grain Valley, Missouri. She is a wife, mother,
friend, humor columnist, online retailer,
aspiring novelist, and pumpkin farmer...a woman
who is trying to do ten things at once, but only
succeeding at about half of them!
Marti has a book of 40 humorous essays,
entitled, Queen Klutz, The misadventures of a
very clumsy woman.
She has been published in the Examiner
Newspaper, in Independence, Missouri, and
the 2006 Writer's Blog Anthology available for
download at Lulu
publishing. She has also published a blog
since January of 2005 called Enter
the Laughter. You can contact her at martilawrence@gmail.com.
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