Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Local Woman Buries Husband

(c) 2002 by Laurie Kay Olson


You wouldn’t believe all the people that come by.
Word spread faster ‘n’ a grease fire over to the diner
On all-you-can-eat-for-a-dollar-ninety-five burger an’ fries night.
They come from all over the county to see Earl –
Just as though he’d been someone famous, or leastwise important.
An’ he certainly was a sight to see, I can tell you.
But here I am getting’ ahead o’ myself.
Let me start from the beginnin’ – it all started when we decided
That we really needed to give the garden back o’ the hay barn an’ the lawn up front
 A good ol’ fashioned fertilizin’ but there wasn’t no money.
Our two li’l ol’ cows Bessie an’ Bertha couldn’t do it all themselves.
An’ my compost heap wasn’t producin’ half what I was expectin’
Since the raccoons keep gittin’ into it an’ stealin’ anythin’ they think might be tasty.
Dang fool creatures keep leavin’ their leftovers on the roof
Till Earl finally accused me of tryin’ to feed them like they was pets.
I pointed out to him that I had enough work tryin’ to keep him,
Two kids, two cows an’ a dozen chickens fed without startin’ in on the wildlife.
An’ if I was gonna, I probably be kinder to the critter than the put out
A leftover frozen blueberry toaster waffle that Bubba spit on to make Loretta Sue mad.
Eny-who, it was about this same time that our boy Bubba was hangin’ around
The eye-tinerant circus that was set up over to the county fairgrounds.
He got his self a part-time job helpin’ with the elephants.
Well, within a couple o’ days him an’ his daddy cooked up this plan.
So they go to the circus boss an’ offer to haul away
A big pile o’ elephant poop just for the takin’ – no charge.
That ol’ circus boss agreed quick as a lick from a hound dog.
Said he couldn’t get rid o’ the stuff fast enough,
So Earl an’ Bubba borrowed an ol’ dump truck from Ed Early down to the machine shop.
It took ‘em all mornin’ to fill up the truck, even with the help o’ some o’ the circus hands.
Apparently the elephants had gone off their diets when they ran across some kudzu
An’ the effect had been rather overwhelmin’ to say the very least most.
When they came home they smelt so dang bad I made them wash their hands
With the garden hose an’ eat their lunch sittin’ on the back stoop.
By the time they was done eatin’ an’ ready to go start spreadin’ it around
Some of Earl’s buddies from the Lodge had come by.
They wanted to see what ol’ Earl was up to with that truck o’ Ed’s/
I had got my ol’ clothes on so that I could get out an’ help with the work.
An’ I was checkin’ out what elephant stuff looked like
By climbin’ up the truck an’ lookin’ over the side.
All o’ a sudden-like my feet started to slip an’ I tried to catch myself.
One o’ my feet accidentally hit the do-hickey that dumps the truck.
I jumped off right quick so that I didn’t get dumped too.
That was when I saw Earl standin’ there in harms way.
So I started shoutin’ for him to move outta the way
All whilst I was tryin’ to move the do-hickey back the t’other way.
But naturally the dang thing was stuck harder than a butt from a billy goat.
An’ o’ course Earl wasn’t listenin’ to me, as usual.
So by the time he realized what was happenin, it was too late.
Next thing we all knowed, Earl was totally buried in crap.
We all rushed over to start diggin’ him outta there.
Word spread an’ soon there was a whole crowd helpin’ an’ watchin’
An’ some o’ the fellas were makin’ jokes about how Earl didn’t know crap
An’ a bunch o’ other jokes I know you can’t print.
Earl was madder ‘n’ a wet hen in the pourin’ rain by the time we dug him out.
He didn’t calm down until he’d had a long, hot shower, changed clothes,
An’ gargled half a bottle o’ Listerine to get the taste outta his mouth.
I’m gonna have to buy a whole case o’ Oxydol just to get our clothes clean again.
Earl still wants to get come dirty straw that Bubba saved up from the camels’ beddin’
This time Earl says he’s gonna play it safe an’ just load it up in a couple o’ Hefty bags
An’ trust that I won’t dump them over his head too.
O’ course I hadn’t even thought o’ anythin’ like that until he said it.
Lucky for him that I still love him after all these years.

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