Friday, October 24, 2008

Limp Hair, Heavy Metal, & Costly Book Reviews

This column was originally published in the Smith Mountain Eagle on Oct 17, 2007

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 most of whatever there is to do has mostly been done, so folks have headed somewhere else to do other things. However, if you stuck in Rock Bottom and want to fix yourself up so you don’t look like a fright at Halloween, give us a call down here at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop and we’ll see what we can do. This time of the year we generally have plenty of openings. Now lessee what we got in the mail:

Dear Ida B. The other day I was en route to a business meeting when I noticed that my hair was a little limp. Knowing that I had to look my best at the presentation I was about to make, I figured I could swing by home and use my curling iron to freshen my hairdo and maybe spritz on a little more hairspray. Well, no sooner than I walked in the front door, I heard all kinds of giggling and carrying on from the upstairs bathroom. Since my husband works second shift, I figured he’d just watched a funny TV show before showering. Well, when I walked in, I not only found my husband but also my best friend Poovie Mae and they were—well, words fail me, Ida B. Anyhow, after slinging my can of hairspray at Poovie Mae and knocking out her front tooth, which caused me to get splattered with blood, I ran out of there and backed my convertible out of the driveway and right into a garbage truck, which dumped its load on top of me (I had the top down). While the cop was writing me a ticket for reckless driving, my cellphone rang and it was the school saying my son skipped class to go shop-lifting. Well, I was late to my meeting and lost my job. Ida B., what should I do?—Distraught

Dear Distraught: If I was you, I’d make make an appointment right away for a body perm here at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop. If you’d done that earlier you wouldn’t be in such a mess. Also, ain’t nothing like a new hair-do to brighten your outlook.

Dear Ida B. What do you think of heavy metal?—Luvs It Loud

Dear Loud Luver: I like heavy metal for lawn furniture. That plastic stuff just don’t hold up as good. I’ve got some heavy metal chairs I’ve owned for over three decades, and it still looks as good as new, except for a dent in one where I threw it at one of my ex-husbands. I also like heavy metal bumpers on vehicles. If you happen to collide with escaped livestock, that heavy metal bumper can be a lifesaver. Well, for you, not the livestock. I don’t care for heavy metal hair curlers, though. We tried them once down here at Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop, and they weighed down customers’ heads too much and left rust marks on their scalps. Then there was that unfortunate thunderstorm when one of our customers had a full head of heavy metal curlers when the lightning struck, but I’m not at liberty to talk about that until after the case is settled. Consequently, we sold most of our remaining heavy metal curlers to be used as fishing sinkers, and folks seem to think they worked real well.

Dear Ida B. I have wrote a book while I was doing time—uh, when I had a lot of time on my hands, and when I had access to the printing facilities at the place where I was staying for 2 to 4 (but I got time off for good behavior!), I sorta self-published, though you might say my printing costs were underwrote by the government. Anyhow, I’ve got a thousand copies under my bed, or at least what I don’t have in the back of my pick-up on any given day. It is real tiring selling books off the side of the road, especially with the cops stopping by so often. Ida B., I know you have wrote some books, so I am now wondering if you could give me some advice on how to sell my book of existential poems that will touch your heart, “Although Mama Tried, It Was Incarceration That Adjusted My Attitude, or Zen and the Art of Making License Plates.”—Time Out

Dear Doing Time: Yes, it is true that I have written some books, and I have found that folks don’t buy books they have never heard of, but of course everybody who comes into Ida’s Salon of Beauty & Live Bait Shop is given the opportunity to buy my books. Now the other day, our local poet, Anna Motter Peyah, who often conducts classes in written expression of the poetical kind at the Rock Bottom Institute of Livestock and Literary Management, has branched out. Since her classes in the “Passion of Poetry and De-Horning Cattle” hadn’t filled up the way she wanted, she had to get a part-time job as the person who writes up orders over at the Rock Bottom Automotive Repair Shop. Anyhow, she has a lot of time on her hands, since it don’t take long to write, “Fix this transmission by Tuesday,” which is what she has to write since her longer poetical attempts weren’t appreciated because no mechanic wants to read: “The Chevy is red, the tire is flat, the gas tank is leaky, can you fix that?” Anyhow, she has gone into the book review business. For $25 she will write a review and post it on bathroom walls in at least five Rock Bottom establishments. Her reviews all tend to be the same: “(Title) by (author) is a must read for anyone who wants (pick one: to have his or her heart or other major organ touched/to have a good laugh/to have a good cry/to read something that don’t have big words). If this is the sort of book you like, you will like this book.” You might want to look into her services. Then again, you might not.

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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Thursday, October 09, 2008

Rats, Education, & Gas


This column was originally published in the Smith Mountain Eagle on Oct. 3, 2007.


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 ain’t much happening this week, so lessee what we got in the mail:

Dear Ida B. I understand that over in Big Mall City they are having problems with rats in their schools. Does Rock Bottom have a rat problem?—E. Eking

Dear Eek: Well, the little rats in the Rock Bottom schools generally drop out at an early age, but some of the rats I’ve been married to have been—oh, were you maybe referring to the 4-legged kind? In that case, Rock Bottom rats ain’t a problem; they’re a solution. The Rock Bottom schools have found creative ways to deal with their rats. In the elementary schools, each classroom has its own dog, either a Jack Russell or a rat terrier, which takes care of problems that arise and provide an interesting science lesson in survival of the fittest, fastest, and bittingest. When not dealing with rats, these feisty little dogs also help with classroom discipline. It only takes a few nips to the ankles to let a rowdy kid know he’d better stay in his seat.

At Rock Bottom Middle School, each class maintains a spirit rat, which they dress in class colors and use to compete against other class rats. Teachers decided that class rats provided the perfect way to introduce students to the rat race. Consequently, rat races are especially popular, and figuring odds and handicaps is a fun way for the kids to learn advanced math skills. While a few kids on the football team had been holding rat fights out behind the bleachers, this has been stopped and the rats involved are being patched up and rehabilitated.

At the high school, rats are used in the family life skills class. Used to, every gal in the class was assigned an egg, which she had to pretend was a baby and carry it around and tend to its supposed needs. That did not work too good, because some of them egg-babies got slung at other kids and a few got scrambled for the next day’s breakfast. By the end of the first week, there wasn’t an uncracked egg-baby left. Then, the school changed to having the gals haul around 10-pound sacks of flour, but those flour-babies left a dusting wherever they was sat.

When a bunch of the gals left their flour babies setting on a cafeteria table and returned to find the cafeteria ladies had used them to bake pizza crust, the family life teachers didn’t know what to do until the cafeteria ladies complained about the rat problem. The janitor trapped a bunch of rats and—since they looked too cute to get rid of—the teachers just assigned one to each gal to be her class project in baby care.

Well, it took a while, but eventually the gals really took to them rats. They made them little rat outfits in home ec and taught them tricks in physical education. Some even put ’em in strollers and rolled ’em all over town. If you think they’re not learning proper baby-handling skills, you just try putting a Huggie on a squirming rat. Any gal who can master that skill is prepared for the worst that a toddler can throw at her. At first, parents weren’t too thrilled with having to house and support the rats, but some of the daddies decided the rats, which the girls took with them on dates, were a good idea. Any boy who let his hand wander where it ought not to be was immediately bitten, and the bite marks were proof to the gals’ daddies that the boys were up to no good.

So, while some schools consider rats a liability, in the Rock Bottom schools, rats are considered an asset.

Dear Ida B. Been reading in daily RagStar that purchasing power of our 17 cent per gallon gasoline tax is being "eroded" by inflation. We need a gas tax increase to keep up! Not sure about this erosion thing, but seems to me that if we purchase more gallons of gasoline year to year, then somebody (at the state capital?) gets more and more gasoline tax revenue year to year. More and more gas tax revenue to waste (sorry) no matter what hillside that inflation thing is eroding. —E.T. at Buck Run on Slick Water Lake

Dear ET: For some reason, I want to tell you to phone home. Could be your wife is looking for you. Anyhow, I would not worry about erosion out at Slick Water Lake. It is part of the economy. Every time erosion opens up a gully and it fills with water, a gang of real estate agents start calling it a cove, give it a fancy name, charge inflated prices for lots on either side of it, and sell those lots to yankees who think they’re getting a good deal. Then, when that gully dries up and fills with junk, those realtors will sell the yankees another lot on another gully with another fancy name at an even higher inflated price. If the gully is real big, then some out-of-state developer moves in, bulldozes everything off, builds condos, and sells those at even more inflated prices. All those realtors use a lot of gas driving around, and so do all those yankees who are looking for their retirement homes. Plus they will use more and more gas to drive their big SUVs miles to find somewhere to shop because it is hard to squeeze a shopping center in those gullies. If folks at the state capital get a cut, that is just how the wealth is spread around. Basically, this is how the economy works at Slick Water Lake. If they ever run out of yankees or eroded gullies, the whole economy will likely collapse.

Well, that’s it for this go-round. Thanks to ET for letter #2. Remember, you get what you pay for, talk is cheap, and my advice is free.
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