Living Cheap, Fat, Warm & in Jail, Etc.

This post originally appeared in the Smith Mountain Eagle on June 25, 2008.

Howdy! Ida B. Peevish coming at you from Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop in the heart of downtown Rock Bottom US of A, where we are still running our 4^th of July special. If you are feeling blue, a new henna rinse and some bright red lipstick will perk you up. And if your skin has that while pallor of somebody who can’t afford to soak up sun at some expensive resort, a few dips in our tanning tank will bronze you right up. Now lessee what we got in the mail:

Dear Ida B. I keep hearing about this global warming. What I want to know is, how do I get it to heat my doublewide? It got pretty cold in there last winter.—Frosty

Dear Frosty: Town Council is currently studying this, but they ain’t been making much progress. One of the big problems is, if they get it, how they would turn it off in summer when it’s plenty warm anyhow. As soon as they come up with a way to do it that don’t cost much, I will let you know.

Dear Ida B. I heard that the obesity epidemic has just about bottomed out, so folks ain ‘t getting much fatter than they have been. I wonder if this means that my current wife Junie Bugg will stop gaining the thirty or forty pounds she’s been packing on every year since we got married ten years ago. Also, does this mean I can drink all the beer I want and not have my beer gut increase any more. Our singlewide sags substantially in the middle. Will it spring back into place, do you reckon?—Heavyweight

Dear Heavyweight: The answer to all your questions is “probably not.”

Dear Ida B. It has got so expensive to live that I am looking for a cheap way to live. I can’t hardly afford more than one meal a day, and I can’t afford gas to move my car that I am living out of to another parking lot because Wally World is getting suspicious. Do you have any ideas?—Maxed Out

Dear Max: Several guys in Rock Bottom came up with the idea of getting arrested and sent to jail where they get what they refer to as “three hots and a cot.” Arrestees also are given an orange jumpsuit, so that pretty well covers clothing. They say that the jails in bigger cities also have TV, but the one in Rock Bottom doesn’t, except for the cell that overlooks the window of Rock Bottom Appliance Emporium. However, Rock Bottom Town Council recently voted to charge prisoners room and board while they are incarcerated, an act which has reduced the Rock Bottom crime rate substantially. Consequently, if you want to go the “three hots and a cot” route, you ought to leave town and get arrested someplace better.

Dear Ida B. I am vacationing at Slick Water Lake and want to send postcards to the folks back home. However, I am concerned that personnel at the Rock Bottom Post Office will read the messages I write. How can I prevent that?—Tourist

Dear Tourist: Put the postcards inside envelopes. Then duct tape the envelopes.

Dear Ida B. My step-mama has been real hateful to me for years. She always favors her own kids over me and makes me do all the drudgery stuff like clean out the gunk in the sink drain and de-poop the dawg pen. Daddy is pretty clueless, plus he is always off in the woods somewhere. I got me a camera and took a bunch of pictures of her doing all kinds of mean things, and I sent the film off to be developed. What now?—Cindy Rella

Dear Cindy. Someday your prints will come. Then you can contact Dr. Phil.

Dear Ida B. I have been appointed to the casserole committee at Rock Bottom Church of the Surging Inner Spirit for its after-Bingo-all-you-can eat buffet, although I had my heart set on the congealed salad committee because that is so much easier. Anyhow, do you think I should use name-brand mushroom soup as the sauce for my casseroles, or will the store brand be OK? It is so much cheaper and I plan on using Velveeta, which everyone knows is a name brand, for one of the other ingredients.—Cook N.

Dear Cookie. Go with the store brand. I have seen some of them Bingo players eat. They work up such an appetite during the game that they pretty much wolf down whatever is in front of them, without even bothering to see what it is. I would also suggest that you select soft ingredients rather than crunchy ones. A lot of Rock Bottomites sometimes forget to wear their store teeth, and they appreciate having something to eat other than congealed salad. That’s where your casseroles come in. They will bless you for using ingredients that don’t require excessive chewing, regardless of brand name or not.

Well, that’s it for this go-round. Remember, you get what you pay for, talk is cheap, and my advice is free.

~

Going Green and Bad Buildings

This column originally appeared in the June 11, 2008, issue of the Smith Mountain Eagle.

Howdy! Ida B. Peevish coming at you from Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop in the heart of downtown Rock Bottom US of A, where we are running our graduation special on a gift certificate for bait and beauty services. If you don’t know what to get that obnoxious kid that you are obligated to give a present to, you can’t go wrong with our gift certificate. Odds are good that the kid will soon be going out for job interviews and will need a haircut. Or maybe the kid will just want to go sit on the dock until he finds himself and will need bait. Now lessee what we got in the mail:

Dear Ida B. I keep hearing about “going green” being a good thing. What the heck does this mean? My yard is pretty much green—at least in the places where the dog poop has fertilized it—and my John Deere is mostly green, but my six kids keep saying we ain’t green enough. They have picked up this “going green” idea at school, which just goes to show that if you educate a kid above his ability, you got nothing but aggravation. I am also having problems with the high cost of living, especially gas and electric. What do other folks do?—Po’ Boy

Dear PB: Going green has been discussed a lot down here at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop since we haven’t had much in the way of good gossip for a long time. For a while, when women would come in and say, “I’ve decided to go green!” I thought they meant hair color, and I lost a few customers as a result of my consequent actions. It turns out that “going green” ain’t a new concept. Remember what your grandparents said about saving everything and not wasting? Well, that’s what “going green” is. It has nothing to do with hair color.

Some of my customers have been coming up with ways to do it. For instance, many have been able to save gas money by using their mules as a main source of transportation, and have found out they can get more miles per mule than they can miles per gallon. As a result, several Rock Bottom businesses have had to put in a hitching rail to accommodate shoppers. The mules have also provided organic fertilizer for the town trees and flower pots and have thus done their part to help beautify Main Street.

Some folks with large families have both saved and recycled water by washing their kids in the same water. The best way to do this is to wash the cleanest kid first and the dirtiest one last. Then throw the water on your hollyhocks or tomato plants or whatever. Also, you can save water as well as money and laundry time by not wearing underwear. It ain’t like anybody sees it on a regular basis, so why not just give it up except for special occasions?

You can also save on bedding, laundry, and bed-making by having your kids sleep in sleeping bags. Now, if your kids like to watch TV, make them furnish the electricity. With some scrap metal and a little ingenuity, you can make some kid-size hamster wheels and hook them up to a generator. The kids run in the wheels and produce electricity. Another benefit is they will be so tired that they will sleep good at night. It will also teach them valuable lessons of life, like no matter how much you try, you ain’t gonna get very far if you just run in circles. If you have a couple of big dogs, you might get them to run the wheels, too.

If y’all readers have any other good ideas, sent them in to Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop, and we will spread the word. If y’all know any good gossip, we will spread that, too.

Dear Ida B. I been hearing about some trouble a Rock Bottom business has had with its new building. Can you tell me what’s going on?—Almost on Parole

Dear Still Incarcerated: I certainly can. Recently Delbert and Mervin Pitt expanded Pitt Brothers Garage (“When it comes to car care, they’re the Pitts!”) to add a couple more grease racks. They spared no expense to build a nice brick addition, which they figured would last through tornadoes and hail and other disasters. Plus they figured it would hold up well if one of their customers backed into it, which often happens. Turned out, though, that brick structures are not allowed in Rock Bottom’s historic district! In keeping with the singlewide decor theme that predominates the Rock Bottom skyline, town council (which meets at the Rock Bottom Bar & Grill) passed a rule that only aluminum siding is allowed on buildings within the town limits. Well, it would cost the Pitts a bundle to tear down that brick addition and redo it in aluminum siding. Even nailing aluminum siding over the bricks would be expensive. Luckily, Olive Pitt (Delbert’s wife) discovered several gallons of aluminum paint in the shed. After consultation and several beers with town council, Mayor Portius Peabody proposed that the Pitts be allowed to paint the bricks to look like aluminum. “It ain’t like anybody is gonna look real close,” he explained about the time everyone finished their third pitcher. So council decided that paint would make the garage look as bad as every other building in town and the vote was unanimous in favor of the Pitts. Plus, it was getting late and American Idol was about to come on and some of the council had bets riding on it and wanted to get home in time to watch.

Well, that’s it for this go-round. Remember, you get what you pay for, talk is cheap, and my advice is free.

Bargains, Art, and Mommy Books

This column originally appeared in the May 28, 2008, edition of the Smith Mountain Eagle.

Howdy! Ida B. Peevish coming at you from Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop in the heart of downtown Rock Bottom US of A, where we are running our annual summer “Tan Your Hide” special at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop. Our tanning tank is ready and waiting for you. Most folks find that a 10-minute dip into our special tanning solution is enough, but if you want to look extra bronze, we can hold you under for a few minutes longer at no extra charge. Now lessee what we got in the mail:

Dear Ida B. Does Rock Bottom or Slick Water Lake have any good yard sales coming up? I just love to get bargains.—Big Bargain Hunter

 Dear BBH: Rock Bottom residents rarely have yard sales. They are thrifty folk who tend to use everything up or wear it out so bad that it’s unusable before they get rid of it. They never get rid of stuff that has great sentimental value—and almost everything does, which is why you see so many cars on blocks in Rock Bottom yards or appliances on stoops. However, out at Slick Water lake, folks are always getting rid of their old stuff and getting new stuff. They don’t like to have yard sales, though, on account strangers park on their grass and sometimes ask to use the facilities. Our Lady of the Rip-Rap has got around those problems with its annual church “Yard Sail,” wherein all its members pile whatever they don’t want into their boats and sail from one dock to another, either trading off their stuff or selling it to whoever might be waiting on a dock. This is pretty much a win-win situation for everybody and there are bargains to be had if you’re on the right dock at the right time. Whatever don’t sell usually gets dumped in the middle of the lake, and no one is the wiser.

Dear Ida B. I been hearing something about that new art museum in Big Mall City. Seems like they are going to have something called E-phemeral Art, wherein somebody paints on a wall while other folks sit in chairs and watch. Then before long, somebody else comes in and paints over the same thing. My first question: why would anybody sit around and watch somebody paint. My second question: is it because that E-phemeral Art is something like E-ratic Art, wherein somebody paints stuff that might not be fit for public looking-at but folks will look at it anyway so they can tell others how shocked they was to see it?—Not Artsy

Dear Not: I can tell you ain’t from around here. In Rock Bottom, watching somebody else do something is about as much exercise as some folks get. Watching paint dry is pretty exciting for the average Rock Bottomite, but not as much as watching bread rise down at Rosie Bunn’s bakery or watching somebody rebuild a transmission down at the Pitt Brothers Garage (“When it comes to car care, they’re the Pitts!”). Watching the traffic light change colors is pretty exciting, too. My manicurist, Honey Sue Sweetwater, often has a group of men come to watch her give manicures, especially on hot days when her halter-top is skimpier than usual. Folks used to try to watch me give hair-cuts until word got out about some incidents involving scissor pokes in eyes and curling iron burns on the noses. After that, hair-cut watchers moved across the street and watched through binoculars.  

Now what I can’t understand is why them art museum folks have to get somebody to come in and repaint so often. It could be that they don’t use very good paint and it peels off. Or maybe it is some of that E-ratic art and they have to cover it up fast so kids don’t see it and get ideas. Or maybe the only artists they could get ain’t very good and nobody wants to look at what they pain more than once. I asked Art D. Coe, the proprietor of the Rock Bottom Museum of Art what he thought, and he says the next time the wall in the Elvis-on-Velvet room needs repainting, he will put in some benches and charge folks to watch.

Dear Ida B. I heard there is a book about a mommy getting plastic surgery to look better. A plastic surgeon wrote it to drum up some business. Have you thought about writing a book about a mommy going to a beauty shop?—Reader

 Dear Reader: As a matter of fact, I have. Little girls are never too young to learn about looking good. I am at work right now on Mommy Gets a New Look and a Bucket of Bait, which takes place at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop. Mainly it is about no matter how good you think you look, there is always room for improvement with a sub-plot about how big hair is making a comeback and some tips on selecting the right bait for the job you expect it to do. My main message, though, is that coming down to Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop is a better alternative than surgery. It is usually less painful, doesn’t require that you hide until the scars heal, is generally reversible if you don’t like the particular look, and you get to hear the latest gossip, which is hard to do if you are anesthetized.

Well, that’s it for this go-round. Remember, you get what you pay for, talk is cheap, and my advice is free.

~

Burned Food, Mama's Day, Lazy Kids & Cheap Pets

This column appeared in the May 14, 2008, issue of the Smith Mountain Eagle.

Howdy! Ida B. Peevish coming at you from Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop in the heart of downtown Rock Bottom US of A, where we are running our May Madness sale on selected crawdads that have got too feisty to keep in the bait tank. If you want some bait that will put up a fight, then our crawdads are what you need to put some excitement into your fishing. They are also handy to throw through the window of your ex’s pickup truck if he has been a little late with the alimony checks lately. Now lessee what we got in the mail:

Dear Ida B. My current new wife keeps trying to tell me that the stuff she cooks is real trendy—blackened catfish, blackened red snapper, etc. I think it is just burned and she plain ol’ cain’t cook. Last night she fixed blackened corn bread, blackened taters, blackened cabbage, and blackened chicken-fried steak. The night before it was blackened spaghetti and meatballs. Do you think she might be trying to tell me something? —Not a Gor-may

Dear Knothead: I think she is telling you that she would like to eat out once in a while. I suggest you take her to a couple of them fancy eating places out at Slick Water Lake so she can see what trendy food is really like. I am wondering why you didn’t notice her cooking before you got hitched. Didn’t y’all indulge in any premarital home-cooking?

Dear Ida B. My sisters took Mama out for Mama’s Day, and all she can talk about is how good they were to her and how all I got her was a chintzy card. I want to make next Mama’s Day memorable for my mama while out-doing whatever my good-for-nothing sisters might do. Do you have any suggestions?—Daughter

Dear Gal: I recommend you bring your mama in down to Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop on the Saturday before Mama’s Day for our “Make Mama Special” makeover. We’ll do the best we can with what we have to work with, but we will also arrange for several strangers to compliment her throughout the next day on how good she looks, no matter if she looks good or not. You should also take her to the special “Honor Your Mama” service at Rock Bottom Church of the Surging Inner Spirit where all mamas will receive an extra glass of communion wine and a free Bingo card. After the service, there is a special luncheon buffet in the church basement where all mamas will be permitted to jump the line so they will get their food before it cools off or dries out (or both) and hasn’t been sneezed on much by all those suffering allergies. After lunch, you might take her fishing out on Slick Water Lake (Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop will have special gift bait boxes available for sale). If you contract with Captain Hook of Reel’Em In Fishing Tours, he can make sure that she catches a fish on her first try. What he does is have a diver go under the boat and attach a fish to the line that your mama casts. If she is the sort who don’t like to clean fish, for a slight extra charge Captain Hook can arrange for an already cleaned and deboned fish to be attached to her line. It might be possible to have a stretch limo to take her to and from the lake, but that depends on whether or not McCobbers Funeral Home will be using their hearse at the time. Usually they don’t get much advance notice, but if your mama doesn’t mind sharing the ride, McCobbers can still pick y’all up.

Dear Ida B. I might graduate from high school this year and I don’t have any job prospects lined up. Is there anything to do in Rock Bottom that pays good and don’t require much effort?—Takin It EZ

Dear Worthless: The answer to both your questions is no. I suggest you get on a bus and go as far as you can afford. Then get off the bus. The job situation will be better wherever it is you get off. Don’t come back. We have enough of your kind in Rock Bottom so as it is, and we’re always looking for ways to export a few.

Dear Ida B. My kid has been bugging me to get him a pet. I don’t want anything I have to feed and clean up after. I do enough of that for my husband and the kid. What do you suggest in the way of a low maintenance cheap pet?—Concerned Mom

Dear Mom: If your kid has been bugging you to get him a pet, you can’t go wrong with a crawdad. They don’t occupy much space, are cheap to feed, don’t pee all over your carpet, don’t require expensive shots or training, don’t chew up your new shoes, and don’t claw up your furniture. If your kid, gets tired of it, the crawdad becomes bait. Lucky for you, we are running a special on crawdads down here at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop. Hurry on down to get one while the supply lasts.

Well, that’s it for this go-round. Remember, you get what you pay for, talk is cheap, and my advice is free.

Cackles, Moos, Sweat, Pirates, and Nekkid Gardening

This column originally appeared in the Smith Mountain Eagle on April 30, 2008.

Howdy! Ida B. Peevish coming at you from Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop in the heart of downtown Rock Bottom US of A, where we are running our May Day Hay Day special, wherein we will give you a discount on dying your hair the same color as hay, so if you are helping bale, and you forget to wear a hat, you won’t look as if your hair is covered with hay. It’ll blend right in. Now, lessee what we got in the mail:

Dear Ida B. My wife and I went to the big city to one of them fancy grocery stores on Old Codger’s Day, wherein those of us over a certain age get a 5% discount. Now my wife is a little over the hill and a little off the scale, if you know what I mean. Anyhow, when she went to one section of the store to get some eggs, all this cackling started over the loudspeakers like the store folks was making fun that she was an old hen (which I will be the first to admit that she is). Then she went to another counter to get some milk and all this mooing come over the loudspeakers like the store folks thought she was an old cow (which I will be the first to admit that she is). What I want to know, Ida B, is how they do that. If all they got to do is press a button, how do I get a job like that? And how do I get my wife to stop being mad at me for laughing?—Mystified

Dear Mystified: Some things are best left a mystery, like why that store wants to insult porky women of a certain age and why you want a job doing that. However, to get your wife to stop being mad, I suggest you present her with a gift certificate for a complete makeover at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop. Even if she stays mad at you, at least she will look prettier.

Dear Ida B. My husband Bubba got a job mowing yards over at Slick Water Lake where folks will pay for things like that. He said that his regular job down at the factory don’t pay enough. Anyhow, he is gone two or three evenings a week, and he always comes home hot and sweaty and tired. Sometimes he goes right to bed without saying a word. The last month or two, I have noticed that he don’t have grass on his clothes, his lawn mower is as clean as when he left with it, and he don’t seem to be using any gas in it. In fact, the last two times, it has been raining real hard when he was supposed to be mowing. Last night he came home with lipstick on his collar, which does not usually happen when doing lawn-work. Ida B., do I have a right to be suspicious? If so, what ought I to do?—At Home Wife

Dear Homey: Yes, you have the right to be suspicious. All wives do. I suggest that you tell him that you’ve decided to help with his lawn work. If you do, odds are good that he’ll inform you that he just lost the job. If he doesn’t do that, he might plan to sneak off without you, so make sure you’re waiting in his truck at least an hour before his regular departure time. If he takes off before you can get in the truck, then follow him. Be sure to take a camera because odds are good you will discover some Kodak moments, the pictures of which will help you in the dee-vorce settlement.

Dear Ida B. My husband has gone middle-age crazy, except he’s too old for that. Anyhow, now that he’s retired, he has been thinking up things that he always wanted to do. Recently, he decided that he wanted to be a pirate, so he painted his bass boat black and put a skull and crossbones flag on it and convinced some of his buddies to join him. Well, they have been cruising Slick Water Lake and boarding boats that some of them rich yankees have and robbing them. He says they can afford it and if they report him, who is gonna believe their boat was attacked by pirates in the middle of Slick Water Lake. Anyhow, what should I do with the money he has been bringing home and stuffing under the mattress?—Captain Hook’s Wife

Dear Hooker: You should take the money and spend it down here at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop. If you let it accumulate, the next thing you know, he will spend it on a parrot which you will end up cleaning up after. Plus you will have to listen to the thing screech and holler if it doesn’t go on the boat with him.

Dear Ida B. I just found out that May 3 is “Garden Naked Day.” Does anybody celebrate it in Rock Bottom and if so, where? And are they good-lookin’ gals?—Ben Leerin

Dear Leery Old Coot: There are good reasons why folks don’t garden nekkid in Rock Bottom. Three of them are ticks, chiggers, and sunburn. A full-body sunburn is not fun on account there is no way to sit so you are comfortable. Add in some itchy, crawly critters and the misery increases. The good-lookin’ gals will either be out on Slick Water Lake or else they’ll be down here at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop so they’ll qualify to be called good-lookin’. They won’t be gardening.

Well, that’s it for another go-round. Remember, you get what you pay for, talk is cheap, and my advice is free.

~

Problem Toys, Saggy Parts, & Spring Festivities

This column originally appeared in the Smith Mountain Eagle on April 16. 2008.

Howdy! Ida B. Peevish coming at you from Ida’s Salon of Beauty in the heart of downtown Rock Bottom US of A, where we are running our “Bucket of Bait, Bucket of Beauty” special wherein we will give you a 10% discount on all the beauty products and bait you can stuff into a bucket. We provide the bucket; please do not bring your own. We have had problems in the past with folks bringing in their own big buckets. (Note: the scoop pan of a front-end loader is not a bucket, no matter how many folks call it one.) Now lessee what we got in the mail:

Dear Ida B. I am having trouble getting my kids to pick up their toys. I have told my kids “It makes Mommy sad when you don’t pick up their toys and I have to pick them up myself,” but the kids just say, “So?” and go on leaving their toys out. What’s a tired mother to do?—Sadder

Dear Sadder But Soon To Be Wiser: Tell them kids that you are only going to pick up the toys one more time. Then it will be their problem. When they leave the toys out, pick them up, put them in a box and tote that box to Goodwill. When the kids pitch a fit about their missing toys, you say, “So? I told you it was going to be your problem.” After you make the donation to Goodwill, stop in at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop. Ain’t nothing cures sadness like a new hair-do.

Dear Ida B. I am thinking of getting a face lift, a tummy tuck, and maybe some other cosmetic improvements to tighten up my saggy parts. What do you think?—Needs Some Uplift

Dear Needy: I think you need to visit Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop, which is a whole lot cheaper than all that surgery and usually don’t hurt near as much. Plus, if you don’t like the result, it won’t take long for your hair to grow out and you can start over. With the surgery, though, once you get yourself tightened up all over, you have to worry about sagging again, so you can’t enjoy it. And you can only get things tightened up so much until you run out of skin. What I recommend is a complete makeover at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop. What most folks notice anyhow is your hair. If you got a lot of wrinkles, we can style your bangs to cover them. If you got a saggy neck, we can style your hair around it. Up at the Rock Bottom House of Polyester and Industrial Strength Undergarments, you can get one of them “boost-ee-ays,” which pushes up all your sags and makes it look like you got cleavage you never imagined you had. Instead of waiting weeks for all the cosmetic surgery to take effect and the bruises to heal, with the right hair-do and the right foundation garment, you can be good to go in a few hours.

Dear Ida B. Now that spring is here, will there be any festivities in Rock Bottom? I just love to get involved in the culture of a region.—Tourist

Dear You-Obviously-Ain’t-From-Around-Here: The town of Rock Bottom does not have festivals. We ain’t got enough parking places for residents, much less for tourists who just want to be entertained for free and not spend money at all the business establishments. Plus everybody is too busy to put on a festival, which often requires some money up-front that nobody has much of to begin with. However, if it’s involvement you want, a couple of the local agrarian professionals are having a Spring Fling. It seems the manure spreader they share has broke down, and they need to get certain bovine organic matter onto their fields or else they will have to spend money on fertilizer. For a small admission charge, you are welcome to join fellow tourists in the manure-flinging contest. Prizes will be given for those who fling the farthest distance, those who fling the most, and those who fling with the best style. To show our support for those who participate in the Fling, we are offering a manicure special down here at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop. We guarantee to remove all traces of the manure from under your fingernails or at least disguise it with enough coats of nail polish so that nobody notices. There was some talk about voting on a “Miss Manure Fling Festival,” but for some reason, nobody entered. This is a shame, mainly because I could have made some money on pageant hair-dos.

Most of the festivals around here are at Slick Water Lake, where numerous committees have formed to think up new festivals to have. The latest one is the Lower Depths Art Festival, wherein participants are encouraged to remove the biggest piece of debris they can find from the lake, mount it on a pedestal (or frame it, if that is possible), give it some classy name, and enter it as a piece of sculpture in an art festival devoted to lake art. The sculptures will then be sold to the highest bidders, which will raise some money as well as cleaning up the lake. Plus they’ll serve lots of wine. After you have a couple of drinks, you will be able to appreciate the art better. At least that has been my experience.

Well, that’s it for this go-round. Remember, you get what you pay for, talk is cheap, and my advice is free.

Porking Down, Designer Dawgs, & Tornado Gifts

This column originally appeared in the Smith Mountain Eagle on April 2, 2008.

Howdy! Ida B. Peevish coming at you from Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop in the heart of downtown Rock Bottom, US of A, where we are running our “April Fool’s Day Special,” so if you are tired of looking foolish, come on down to Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop and get yourself fixed up to look decent. We’ll do the best we can. Now lessee what we got in the mail:

Dear Ida B. I have porked up considerable this winter, what with my desk job and all. Since I am always either behind a desk or behind a counter or else I hide my extra pounds under my winter coat, nobody has noticed except my husband who has learned to keep his mouth shut if he wants to live happily. My vacation is coming up soon, and I want to go to someplace where I can enjoy fresh air and exercise, but I can’t afford a spa and I don’t want a lot of folks to see the way I look now until I get my girlish figure back. Do you have any ideas?—ButterBall

Dear BB: You are in luck, as well as all the other gals in your same situation. In fact, you have a couple of alternatives. Haywood “Hay” Fields, one of the local agrarian professionals, is always on the outlook to make a few extra bucks, especially since he needs to replace his mule that just died. While he was in Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop the other day to get his manicure from Honey Sue Sweetwater, he happened to see a magazine open to an article about how city folks will pay big money to go on “farm vacations” and participate in all farm work just like they are members of the family, only they don’t complain near as much. Anyhow, he figured he could offer a farm vacation a lot cheaper than those professional farm places (plus no one around here would pay a lot for the experience), so he is opening his farm this spring for folks who want the ultimate farm experience. He just asks that you pay a modest fee for room, board, and any damages you might cause.
Here is part of the schedule he has worked out and printed up in his brochure:

• 5:30 AM: A Country-Style Breakfast, consisting of bacon and eggs (both fried in hog grease), biscuits, and coffee. If you don’t like that, it is too bad. No substitutions allowed.
• 6:00 AM: Country Living Seminar: A collection of tips to keep you from being kicked, bit, pecked, or trampled while you enjoy your fresh air and exercise.
• 6:15 AM: Milking the cows. Don’t worry you’ll get the hang of it. This udderly charming chore involves coordination, stretching, and flexibility. Your hands get a good workout.
• 6:45 AM: Weight lifting: You carry the cans of milk to the creamery.
• 7:00 AM: More weight lifting: You slop hogs and fork down hay from the loft.
• 7:20: Speed and agility training: You feed the chickens and keep out of reach of a particularly mean and fast rooster.
• 7:25: Coordination training: You collect eggs while chickens are eating and rooster is hopefully distracted.
• 7:40: Advanced strength and agility training: You will be hitched to a plow which you will pull until all 40 acres are done.
• Noon: Dinner (It ain’t called “lunch” in rural America)

And so on. Anyhow, you will no doubt lose plenty of weight and get toned up, and Haywood Fields will make a little money and get his farmwork done, so this is a win-win situation for all concerned. On the off chance that you don’t lose as much weight as you want, come on in to Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop for our “Big Hair” special. We have learned that under a head of big hair, your body will look smaller by comparison. Or at least folks will be looking at your hair and not your body.

Dear Ida B. I seen in the paper that mixed breed dawgs are bringing in piles of money, if you call them “designer dogs” instead of mutts. You would not believe how much folks will give for labradoodles, goldendoodles, pekeapoos, and I don’t know what all. Now I have got a dog that is half-pit bull and half spitz, so I figure she is a spitz-pits or maybe a pit-spitz and is now worth a durn sight more than the $5 I give for her. If I breed her to my neighbor’s shizu, what ought I to call the puppies and how much ought I to ask for them? Also, I have noticed the smaller the dawg, the more it costs, so if somebody don’t buy a dawg at all, how much should they pay?—Doggedly Designing

Dear DD: Some of my customers down here at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop
discussed this at length (it was a slow day for gossip) and concluded that you should call them “free” because that particular combination of breeds ain’t what everyone wants. I think that answers the second part of your question, too.

Dear Ida B. A recent tornado lifted up my singlewide and took it I don’t know where. However, the same tornado plunked down a doublewide right near where my former singlewide was. Despite the rips in the Elvis-on-Velvet paintings and the crack in the big screen TV, it’s a lot nicer than what I had. Can I keep it?—Can’t Believe My Luck

Dear Lucky: That depends on a lot of variables. Do you know who the original owner was and is he likely to come after you? If the original owner has already received a hefty settlement from his insurance company, he’d probably be glad to let you keep it. (The original owner wasn’t still in the doublewide, was he?) The trouble is, in acts of Providence like this, it’s hard to make a judgment call without knowing all the facts. Good luck.

That’s it for this go-round. Remember, you get what you pay for, talk is cheap, and my advice is free.

~

Rip-Rap Religion, Zucchini, & Elvis in Kudzu

This column originally appeared in the March 18, 2008, Smith Mountain Eagle.

Howdy! Ida B. Peevish coming at you from Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop in the heart of downtown Rock Bottom, US of A, where spring is about to happen after a couple of false starts this winter, so we are running our “Easter Chick” special. If you’re a chick who wants to look extra special for Easter, some on down and we’ll fix you up. Remember that on Easter, you will be seen at church by lots of folks who only come once or twice a year so they likely don’t see you all that often. If you don’t want them to have the wrong impression about how you generally look, you’d better take advantage of our special. Everyone else is, so you’ll look bad by comparison if you don’t. Now lessee what we got in the mail:

Dear Ida B. We are about to return from Florida to our Slick Water Lake condo in time for Easter and look forward to attending services at Our Lady of the Rip-Rap. We have heard that some changes have been made at Our Lady. Can you tell us what they are?—Wants to Know

Dear Wanting: Father Rocky Shore was just in Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop the other day to get his moustache trimmed, and he is proud to announce the upgrades that the church decor committee has made to the confessionals. It seems that some folks were worried that what they confessed might be overheard and possibly recorded by others, so Our Lady of the Rip-Rap now features state of the art touch screen confessionals with stadium seating that features cup-holders for your communion wine. All you got to do is go in, lean back and study the screen in front of you until you see some sins or transgressions you might have committed. Then just touch the screen by each sin you have committed since the last time you confessed and your confession goes straight to Father Rocky Shore’s computer. He will text message back your penance or absolution or whatever. He says he hopes that you will not be too distracted by the ads that appear at the top of the screen, but the church gets a good deal for running them. Also, it is not necessary to touch the screen more than once for each sin. Even if you have committed some several times, just touch once no matter how proud you are of them. Otherwise it jams up the machine. Before long, the committee hopes to have all the confessionals wi-fi complaint, so you can surf the net while you try to remember what sins you committed.

Father Shore also reports that communion has picked up considerably now that parishioners are offered a choice between domestic and imported communion wine.
If you have been gone awhile, you do need to know that Our Lady of the Rip-Rap now offers reserved seating, so if you go in and see a pew that has a plaque with somebody’s name on it, that means it has already been reserved for the season. I suggest you call the Rip-Rap ticket office and make your reservations now. Otherwise, the ticket scalpers in the parking lot will charge you a lot more than you probably want to pay.

Finally, the service planning committee unanimously voted that this year’s Easter sunrise service will be held at 10:00 a.m. instead of the actual sunrise because nobody wanted to get up that early.

Dear Ida B. This morning, I got a call from my wife while she was shopping at the Rock Bottom All-Mart. She said they had a sale on zucchinis and she was thinking about getting one on account she had never tried one before. She asked me what I thought. Well, naturally, I said “Do whatever you want, honey,” knowing that she’d do it anyway and there weren’t no call to give her something else to fuss about. I have seen lots of pictures of young gals in those zucchini things in the swimsuit issue of a magazine down at the barber shop, and I sure do admire how they look. But the problem is that my wife ain’t no spring chicken anymore, and come summer when she puts that zucchini on, a lot of her is gonna be falling out of it. When we go to the beach for our vacation, I’m worried that a wave might knock it off. What do I do when she puts it on to model for me? I just know she’s gonna ask me if it makes her look fat, and I can only lie so much.—Worried

Dear Worried: As soon as we got your e-mail down here at Ida’s Salon of Beauty and Live Bait Shop, we commenced to laughing. Then we discussed the problem. Then we laughed some more. All I can say is that you don’t really have a problem. Well, you do have problems—but not the one you asked about.

Dear Ida B. I live out in Kudzu Canyon so I am surrounded by the stuff. I got to studying how the kudzu sometimes looks like people and stuff. Just the other day, I swear I seen Elvis in the kudzu with his guitar and everything. Right next to him was Dolly Parton and Abraham Lincoln and a grizzly bear. I am thinking about buying up all the land around here with kudzu on it and opening the first kudzu museum. What do you think?—Andre P. Newer

Dear Stupid: I have to admit the idea kinda grows on you, but you got to consider that kudzu grows over at least half the county—and maybe more by the time you read this. Who is gonna pay for what they can see for free every time they look out their window? You might see Elvis in the kudzu now, but by tomorrow morning, he ain’t gonna look like himself. The problem with kudzu is that it don’t stay still long enough for you to admire it for what you think it looks like. If you got money to spend, come on down to Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop and invest in a bucket of bait.

That’s it for this go-round. Remember, you get what you pay for, talk is cheap, and my advice is free, except when it's in my book.

~

Family Confusion, Flying Outhouses, & Saving Time

The following column appeared in the March 4, 2008, edition of the Smith Mountain Eagle.

Howdy! Ida B. Peevish coming at you from Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop in the heart of downtown Rock Bottom, US of A, where we are running our “Madder Than a March Hair” special because high winds this month can play havoc with your hair. We have ordered an extra truckload of our heavy-duty hairspray to keep your hairdo in place no matter how high the wind. Now lessee what we got in the mail:

Dear Ida B. My husband run off with another woman and no sooner than we got dee-vorced, he married her. Before long, I noticed how good-looking her brother was, and since he was dee-vorced, one thing led to another and we got married, thus making my ex, my brother-in-law and my son, my nephew. Well, my son got interested in my current husband’s daughter, so he ended up married to his step-sister, which might make him his own brother-in-law as well as his own cousin. Then my daughter, who is now my niece by marriage, has always been attracted to older men, so she married the ex-husband of her daddy’s current wife, who happens to be my third cousin twice removed. My question is, how do we handle family reunions?—Confused

Dear Confused: You handle them very carefully.

Dear Ida B. I know that March winds can be rough on hairdos, but it don’t do some buildings no good either. What is the proper etiquette if you happen to be walking by an outhouse which the wind blows away with somebody in it? Do you pretend you didn’t see anything, or what?—More Confused

Dear MC: This is a touchy situation. Best thing is to pretend not to notice unless the occupant is hollering for help. Of course, if the outhouse is airborne, there ain’t a lot of ways you can help anyhow, except maybe dial 911 and report a UFO (Unidentified Flying Outhouse). Also, don’t stand where you think it will come down. Being pinned down by an occupied outhouse can be a sticky—as well as stinky—situation, and it won’t do your hairdo any good. Best thing if this happens to you is to come straight to Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop for repairs which the owner of the outhouse really ought to have to pay for.

Dear Ida B. I hear tell that Daylight Saving Time starts up in a week or so, and I am wondering how we are expected to save it. It ain’t like you can put time in the bank and have it draw interest. Also, what are we saving it for? It ain’t a lot you can do with it, because there are still only 24 hours in a day, whether we save any or not. Or are we saving it FROM something? Is time gonna go extinct? This whole mess confuses me, Ida B. Why can’t folks what don’t like the way daylight is distributed throughout the day just sleep later or get up earlier or something? Plus, it ain’t like you can reset a rooster. He’s gonna crow when the sun comes up regardless of what the clock says. I am also confused by this time share stuff. I bought a time share at one of them fancy Slick Water Lake condos and I no sooner moved in than some other family moved in, too. Now I didn’t mind sharing their food and beer, which they certainly brung enough of, but I hate sharing a bed with them on account they snore louder than I do. —Can’t make Heads or Tails of Nothing

Dear Nothing: You ask way too many questions and I am doing several perms today down here at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop, so I don’t have much free time to answer them all. I suggest you throw away your clocks, watches, and other time-keeping devices and rely on your rooster. That way, you won’t think about your time problem so much. If you bring the rooster into the condo, you might get rid of the other time-sharers, especially if you let him perch on the head of the bed. However, that will cut off your supply of shared food. After discussing your letter with my customers down here at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop (which was difficult with all the driers we got running today), we have decided you got too much time on your hands and you ought to spend it fishing. Lucky for you we are running our spring red worm special this week, so come on down and pick some up. Just don’t bring the rooster. I don’t need him eating up all my stock before you have paid for it.

Dear Ida B. Even though I am sorta married (Beulie Sue and me has been having problems but she ain’t dee-vorced me yet), I was at a bar the other night and met this real good looking woman. After maybe bragging to her how much I was worth and all (I only added two digits to my income), she invited me to come to her place. Well, after she cooked me a gor-may meal and we watched her big screen TV, we got to know each other better, if you get my drift. Well, to make a long story short, I fell asleep. Now Ida B., like most red-blooded American males, I sleep with my mouth open. Whilst I was doing so, her cat got my tongue. Well, the tip of it. I looked and never did find it. I have suffered a lot of anguish, especially at the bar where the guys make fun of how I talk. Should I sue this woman for my missing tongue tip and the mental suffering it has caused.—Tongue-Tied

Dear TT: If you had kept your mouth shut in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened. I’m pretty sure the answer about what to do is right on the tip of your tongue—Oh, I guess it can’t be on what ain’t there, can it?

Well, that’s it for this go-round. Remember, you get what you pay for, talk is cheap, and my advice is free (but not if you buy it in book form).

Cheap Candy, Satellite Spies, & Facebook Mama

This post originally appeared in the Smith Mountain Eagle on February 20, 2008.

Howdy! Ida B. Peevish coming at you from Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop in the heart of downtown Rock Bottom, US of A, where my manicurist, Honey Sue Sweetwater, has been swamped with potential customers wanting to partake of her wedding consultant business. She wants me to point out that her time is valuable and she can’t be giving free advice unless you are getting your nails done. When the last coat of polish dries, your consultation time is up unless you are willing to pay extra. She also finds that she is having to repeat herself a lot, so she has compiled a list of her top hints. Here are two of the most popular:

• If the wedding involves mud-wrestling, white or pastel colors ain’t a good choice for the bride’s dress (and/or coveralls) or those of her bridesmaids (unless she doesn’t like them).
• A flowing train is likely to either get tangled in the wheels or be grabbed onto by dogs chasing you if you’re riding on the back of your new hubby’s ATV or tractor when you leave the reception. Also, while it looks more elegant to ride “side-saddle,” you are more apt to slip off, so hike up your dress and ride astride. It ain’t like most of your guests ain’t seen bare legs before. When it comes down to elegance or safety, go with safety.

Now lessee what we got in the mail:

Dear Ida B. My boyfriend didn’t get me any good stuff for Valentine’s Day—just a box of candy that had been marked down (and which he ate most of), a bouquet of flowers that I know for a fact he took off a grave at Rock Bottom Cemetery, and some balloons that had “Happy Fortieth Birthday” printed on them. Do you think he is trying to tell me something?—Lovelorn

Dear Loveworn: Yes. He is trying to tell you that he is a cheapskate. If I were you, I’d believe him. I suggest you to come right down to Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop, where we will give you a classy new look guaranteed to attract a classier type of guy. Of course, any guy will be classier than the one you got now, which I suggest you dump as quickly as possible. Also, we want to hear all the details about how you dumped him. The gossip here lately is going through a dry spell and your contribution will help.

Dear Ida B. I heard there is a bunch of satty-lights circling the earth and taking pictures of I don’t know what all. They say you can get on a computer and look up particular neighborhoods and zoom right in. Now, Ida B., I don’t have one of them computers on account I don’t trust new-fangled stuff and a CB radio is all the communication device I need (especially since I don’t have to run up the light bill to use it and the antenna really spiffs up my truck), but my wife has been acting kinda odd (OK, mad as a wet hen) lately and I was wondering if she might have said something the last time she got her hair done. Do you reckon she might have got onto a computer and saw something that she thinks I might have done and it certainly might look like I done but I can explain if she says she saw it?—Rube

Dear Boob: Do you mean the computer we have down here at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop where you wife comes every Wednesday morning for her shampoo and set so she’ll look good for prayer meeting that night? If so, yes, it is possible that she might have seen something, might have remarked about what she saw, might have received sympathy and advice from those of us down here at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop, and—as soon as her hair was dry—might have high-tailed it over to the office of my dee-vorce lawyer, Maycomb Philmore Payne, to have a little discussion about your activities. Everybody down here at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop is anxious to hear what kind of a good explanation you’ll come up with, and we can’t wait for next Wednesday when she comes back in to tell us. The consensus down here is that you ain’t got a prayer.

Dear Ida B. When my youngest boy went off to college, I wanted to keep up with what he was doing, but I didn’t want him to know that I was snooping. Anyhow, I got me a Facebook page where I pretended to be a hot young thing and he “friended” me and we got to chatting on a regular basis as if I was a hot coed. That’s how come I know about how much he drinks, what parties he goes to, what classes she skips, and how he’s getting Ds instead of the As and Bs he told us he was getting, and all. The problem is that he wants to meet me and for us to start dating. What should I do?—Old enough to be his mother because I am!

Dear Oldie: Well, most of my customers have discussed this at length and say you might tell him what he doesn’t want to hear—namely that you are a 45-year-old guy. That ought to discourage him. However, my manicurist, Honey Sue Sweetwater, says if you don’t want to do that, she will be glad to take over your Facebook Page and even go out with him if he is good-looking and y’all give him a generous allowance. Honey Sue is real thoughtful that way. She is also real experienced at “friending” guys, though she prefers face to face rather than by the book.

Well, that’s it for this go-round. Remember, you get what you pay for, talk is cheap, and my advice is free. If you'd like to pay for it, however, you might buy Peevish Advice or More Peevish Advice.

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