This column was originally published in the Smith Mountain Eagle on June 13, 2007.
Howdy, Ida B. Peevish coming at you from Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop located in the heart of downtown Rock Bottom, US of A, where it has been hot and humid so lots of folks have suffered from limp hair syndrome (LHS). If you are a LHS sufferer, do not despair—Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop can help. For one thing, thanks to computer technology and the plastics industry, we can design a plastic replica of a good hair-do and attach it to your head so, at least from a distance, you project the appearance of good hair. This is expensive, so the ladies partaking of this solution mainly live at Slick Water Lake where they are pleased with the results while water-skiing and jet-skiing. Well, except for the one who the one whose head was inadvertently hooked during the last bass tournament and was reeled again against her will. Luckily, she escaped during the weigh-in and—since the hook was embedded in the plastic and not her head—suffered no actual injuries, other than being embarrassed about her weight displayed to the onlookers. Now lessee what we got in the mail:
Dear Ida B. I read on Britney Spears’ blog that she “hit Rock Bottom” which then caused her to go into rehab” When did she hit and was Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop one of the places she hit?—Britney’s Big Fan
Dear Brit’s Big Fannie: I cannot verify this, although it may have happened. With all the tanned scantily-dressed young gals with attitudes that come into Rock Bottom nowadays, it is possible that she came in and was unnoticed except by some of the old coots who hang around the bait tank and pretend to be too helpless to dip their own minnows so they often ask young gals in short skirts to lean over the tank and dip out minnows for them. She could have been the one that leaned over so far that her hair went into the tank and got full of minnows, and who then grabbed my best cutting scissors and sheared off all her hair to get the minnows out. If that was her, she owes me for the damage to my scissors when she flung them at the old coots who were making comments about her, the loss of income from the minnows that I couldn’t get back into the tank in time, and the expense of having to hire someone to sweep up her hair that she left all over the place before she ran out and jumped into her sports car and sped off. I don’t know where she went after she left, but rehab is as good a place as any after you leave Rock Bottom.
Dear Ida B. My husband, Big Earl, is getting to be a real problem—and I mean more so than most men. All he does is set in his recliner and bark out orders. I thought for sure he would get out of the house when fishing season commenced, but he says the lake is too crowded and it’s too hot. Also, he might be still be hiding out from his latest fishing incident. See, he finds it a lot more efficient to just throw a stick of dynamite into the lake and let the fish float to the top. Then he scoops up what he needs and leaves the rest for others. Well, the last time he done this, he flung the dynamite into what he thought was a quiet cove but was actually where the Kamikaze Kayakers go skinny-dipping. Well, right after the BOOM, the air was filled with curses and a couple dozen nekkid women and air-borne kayaks heading straight for him. Big Earl says he was lucky to get away alive, and he still has dreams about nekkid women with paddles.
Anyhow, I have been watching these TV shows about trading spouses and houses and such. How does that work? I would like to trade up from Big Earl, and our leaky singlewide that needs major repairs. If I could get a makeover in the bargain, that would be a plus.—Big Pearl
Dear Big Pearl: Yours is not an uncommon complaint in Rock Bottom. In fact, so many clients of Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop have complained about their husbands and expressed a desire to trade them in on another model, that we are running a “Grab Bag Hubby Swap Makeover” special. How it works is like this: in order to lure some unsuspecting husbands in to Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop, we will advertise some bait specials too good to resist at an agreed-upon time when their wives will be here getting makeovers. When I blow a whistle, the wives will leap out of their chairs, throw a sheet over their husbands, and duct-tape it firmly in place. The men will be herded to a corner of the shop where my manicurist Honey Sue Sweetwater will attach numbers to them. Then, after each wife finishes her makeover, she will draw a number and take home whoever matches that number. As soon as she gets her match home, she will start nagging him to do whatever repairs her home needs before she releases him into the wild to find his way home. We realize that this is only a temporary solution, and there is the slight possibility that you might get your own hubby back, but it is the best we could come up with.
If your hubby won’t be lured in by our bait special and flatly refuses to leave his recliner, I suggest you duct-tape him into it and haul him in an appliance dolly down to Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop. Hope this helps.
Well, that’s it for this go-round. Remember, you get what you pay for, talk is cheap, and my advice is free.
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