Serialization of the WACKY MISADVENTURES of WARBLE McGORKLE - CHAPTER 11 (of 70)
Warble Waxes Idiotic About Mason Jars and Dixie Cups
CHAPTER 11
Warble Waxes Idiotic About Mason Jars and Dixie Cups
Finally Warble shrugs and says, “I guess a gun and gun rack would look kind of out of place in this little beauty after all and anyway, Mary.”
Mary breathes a sigh of relief and says, seemingly nonchalantly, “Yes, I think you're right, dear.” Looking out the window and rolling her eyes, she adds, “You have such good intuition about these things.”
After a dead space in the conversation, followed by a lull and then a pregnant pause, Warble asks as they near Westwego, “Are you ready for your next lesson in Southern speech patterns, conundrums, and anomalies, my dear Miss Mary?”
Mary has been daydreaming about her begonias. Warble's inquiry jerks her out of her muse like Bullwinkle being yanked off stage with the shepherd staff that the seemingly kind-hearted and possibly even somewhat effeminate (based on his voice more than anything else, although that shouldn't be held against him, as it is indubitably a hereditary, and not a chosen, manner of speaking) flying squirrel 'Rocky' (imagine a creature with such a high voice being named 'Rocky' of all things) wields so expertly.
“Southern speech patterns? What on earth are you talking about, Warble?” Mary asks, a little impatiently.
“The idiosyncrasies of the vanquished hordes at the bottom half of the nation's map, Miss Mary--that is the subject of which I speak so eloquently (if I do say so myself -- since nobody else will -- credit must be given where credit is due, by hook or by Warble).”
“Go on, then, Mr. Eloquence,” Mary responds flatly.
“Remember, Miss Mary, that you need to get into the habit of calling me 'Colonel,' lest you slip whilst we're amongst our genteel 'compatriots' and call me by my given name, or 'sugar pie honey bunch,' or some other such term of endearment which you can barely suppress yourself from and which is your wont.”
Mary's jaw starts to drop, but she catches it in mid-fall, clamps her mouth shut and sighs heavily. “I want to suppress you,” she mumbles under her breath, and then turns her head toward Warble and adds, sarcastically, “Colonel.”
Warble glances over at his wife, a little startled at the vitriol in her voice. All he had heard her say was 'Colonel.' He furrows his brow, shakes his head, and proceeds with his supposedly edifying ramblings.
“Don't ever say 'press' or 'push' while we're in the South, Mary. Instead say 'mash' -- any time you would normally say the former, replace it with the latter. For example, if we're in an elevator, you might ask me, 'Colonel, will you ask that man to mash thirteen?,' to which I'll reply, 'Certainly, Miss Mary. My good old boy, will you puh-leese mash thirteen,' to which request he will indubitably wordlessly respond by pressing the corresponding button.”
“You've got to be kidding me, Warble.”
“Ah ah!” Warble scolds, waving his index finger in the air. “Remember, Miss Mary--it's Colonel.”
“Colonel Warble, then,” Mary responds, glaring.
Warble is getting exasperated. He emphasizes every other word of his response with a slap of the dashboard. “Colonel Nieto, Mary, not Colonel Warble.”
“Fine, have it your way, Colonel Nieto. At any rate, this 'mash' stuff seems kind of silly to me. If they say 'mash' for 'press' and 'push,' then instead of watching 'Mash' on TV they watched 'Push,' and instead of 'Meet the Press,' they watched 'Meet the Mash.' Do they call pushers 'mashers' and mashers 'pushers'?”
“Miss Mary, I'm shocked! Those aren't proper subjects for a Southern belle like you to be discussing. Besides, Southerners are bilingual -- they understand Yankee as well as Southern speech.
“Verily, they can watch Yankee TV shows without being in the least mentally overtaxed. They just prefer not to speak Yankee -- at least not to each other. Now, to proceed with my most marvelous explanation:
“Since the word 'mash' is used as a replacement for 'press' and 'push,' they don't call mashed potatoes mashed potatoes. On the other hand, they don't call them pushed potatoes, either, because that would make it sound as if the grocer had used hard-sell tactics on them, which would be considered uncouth in the suave, debonair, and genteel South.”
“Then what do they call them?” Mary asks, curious in spite of herself.
“Smashed potatoes.”
“Now that's silly.”
“Silly? In what way is it silly, Miss Mary? They are smashed, aren't they?”
“Who?”
“The taters; the spuds.”
“I suppose.”
“Honestly, Miss Mary, sometimes I wonder why I bother.”
“Me? So do I.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Right,” Warble responds, raising his eyebrows. He sometimes wonders if Mary is 'losing it.' “Anyway, one more thing: What do you think of when you hear the word 'palette'?”
“Palate? It depends on whether I'm hungry or not.”
“Whether you're hungry or not? Why so?”
“If I'm not hungry, the word 'palette' brings to mind a painter's palette,” Mary explains. “I picture Dali, Picasso, DaVinci, Van Gogh, Michelangelo, or Detlefsen holding the palette in their left hand, leaning back from the canvas, examining their work with a critical and quizzical, yet satisfied expression, perhaps while absent-mindedly twirling a mustache-end between thumb and forefinger.
“If I am hungry, on the other hand,” Mary concludes, “the word 'palate' brings to mind food.”
“That way of thinking, Miss Mary, has got to go now that we've crossed the Mason-Dixon Line and are firmly entrenched in Dixonia.”
“Dixonia?” Mary wonders aloud.
“Yes; It revolves around the Mason/Dixon line. People in the know call the North ‘Masonia’ and the South ‘Dixonia’ -- Dixie for short. Masonians drink from mason jars, whereas Dixonians drink from dixie cups.”
“Hmmm,” is all Mary says in reply to that.
“And in Dixie, a pallet is a jerry-rigged, slap-dashed sleeping area.”
“What is it in English?” Mary wants to know.
“Just what I said--it's an improvised conglomeration of sleeping paraphernalia. As an example, if Johnny shows up at his Uncle Remus' house, and it gets to be too late for Johnny to walk home alone, Uncle Remus may grab a sleeping bag and throw it on the sofa for Johnny to sleep on --or he might simply take an extra pair of blankets and drop them on the floor, one for Johnny to sleep on and the other one for him to sleep under, in some semi-out-of-the-way place where Johnny won't get stepped on by Uncle when Uncle inevitably gets up in the middle of the night due to being oversaturated from generous helpings of moonshine liquor with which he washed down his cornbread and grits.
“So, if the Brooks' don't happen to have a spare bedroom, and say they're going to put a pallet on the floor for us, don't get offended thinking that they are intimating that we look like a couple of lift trucks or something--it just means they're going to put some blankets down on the floor for us.”
“Why didn't you just say so?”
“I did. Weren't you listening, Miss Mary? And by the way, speaking about sleeping accoutrements, don't be surprised if they call a pillow a 'pillar'--and if they do, don't think that they're referring in any way, shape, or form to Greco-Roman architecture.”
“Why would I?”
“Why would you what?”
“Warble…I mean Colonel,” Mary begins to clarify her inquiry--but is interrupted:
“Here we are, Mary! 157 Riverside Avenue in Westwego, Looz-e-anna --the home of the first, last, only and best H.R. Brooks, my old buddy and pal.”
Warble parks the PT Cruiser behind H.R.'s brand new Mercury Mellencamp and, with an air of excitement mingled with reserved dignity, crosses to the passenger side to emancipate Miss Mary from the metallic chariot.
In his best Clark Gable imitation, Warble--all the while imagining he has a pencil-thin mustache--proffers his arm, bent at the elbow, for his wife to use as a sort of handrail. Mary plays along; after all, in this attitude, she can give his humerus a tweak if he does anything worthy thereof.
In an affected gait which somehow mixes a bit of Walter Brennan in The Real McCoys with a little of John Gielgud as Dudley Moore's butler in the movie Arthur, Warble, with Mary in tow, strides up to H.R.'s front door.
Lifting the brass doorknob (a miniature replica of a New Orleans Saints helmet) somewhat daintily between thumb and forefinger --pinky akimbo-- Warble raps out a Morse Code message to his old merchant marine shipmate H.R. Brooks.
In a few seconds, the McGorkles can see a figure approaching through the curved-glass at the sides of the door. As soon as the door opens and he sees the tall, mustachioed, curly-haired, stately figure in the Jerry Lewis-type robe, Warble grins broadly.
Before our protagonist (or antagonist, however you may view him) can get a word out, though, H.R.'s eyes light up, and he cries out “War-!,” but the object of his surfection (surprise mingled with affection) clamps his hand over his old friend's mouth.
“Shhh, H.R. Don't use that name. I'm N. Cogg Nieto. Colonel ...”
“All right, War--, I mean… what name are you going by, then? And please don't call me 'Colonel,'” H.R. whispers.
“I told you: N. Cogg Nieto. Colonel N. Cogg Nieto.”
“Oh, I get it -- you're the Colonel.”
“Precisely, old chum. And this is Miss Mary Betty Lou Thelma Liz,” he says, introducing his wife. “You can call her 'Miss Mary' for short.”
Hearing a strange rattling sound, the McGorkles turn around. H.R.'s neighbor is running across the Brooks' driveway toward them, with a saber in one hand and a musket in the other. He has only run a few yards, but is already out of breath -- and his white mustache is looking a little droopy, to boot.
“War? Did somebody say war? Is it the Yankees, returning to the scene of the crime?” the old man wheezes out wonderingly, barely able to catch his breath. “Because I'm ready for them. Bring it on! The South's gonna rise again, and remember the Alamo!”
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the Wacky Misadventures of Warble McGorkle is being serialized daily here on substack during the summer of 2021 (late June to early September).
NOTE: The second volume is the Zany Time Travels of Warble McGorkle; the third volume (currently in progress, with episodes available on Vella)
is Warble McGorkle’s Delusional Visions of Paradise.
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