A “life and death sitchyation”

Roscoe Sneezelweed had a pretty crappy weekend here in Stump County. Miz Roscoe was washing dishes last week and she gave her wedding ring to Roscoe and told him to put it on the mantel.

Roscoe (being a man) just put it on the coffee table on top of his In-sure-ance policy and a brand new hunnert dollar bill he got for selling a calf. When Miz Roscoe finished the dishes, her ring was gone. After she finished fussin’ at Roscoe they started looking for the ring. The best they could figure is Old Blue, Roscoe’s coon hound, or Sadie, Roscoe’s squirrel dog or Bessie, Roscoe’s turkey dog ate Roscoe’s cornbread and ate the ring and the In-sure-ance policy and the hunnert dollar bill while doing it.

Miz Roscoe’s solution involved guns, knives and some pretty unpleasant activity. And that was just on Roscoe. What she had planned for Blue was really ugly. Roscoe said he’d had old Blue longer than he’d had Miz Roscoe and he wasn’t goin’ to hurt either dog or woman.

He sent a message to Old Doc and told him he was involved in an emergency “sitchyation” that was a matter of life and death and to come right away. Old Doc showed up ridin’ bareback a drippin’ sweat and ran in the house.

When Roscoe explained the “life and death sitchyation” was his and his dog’s lives, Old Doc cussed him like a dog and cussed the dogs like they was from the Gov’mit.

Roscoe gave him a little taste from Ludd’s Local Likkers and Libations and got him calmed down.

Doc told them iffen we weren’t in Stump County and iffen we weren’t a hunnerd years behind the rest of the world he could X-ray them dogs and see iffen the ring was in there. But since X-ray isn’t here yet all Roscoe could do was watch and wait.

He said, “This is like that Yo-mamacare the rest of the country is dealin’ with. They got to “pass that crap afore before we can find out what’s in it.”

So, Roscoe locked the dogs on the porch, gave them a big dose of castor oil and sat down to wait.

Ever’ now and then one of them dogs would pass a little something and Roscoe would poke around in it lookin’ for the ring and stuff. Roscoe even told Blue, “If you like that insurance policy you can keep it but I got to get that ring and money back.”

Roscoe says he felt like he’d been elected to Congress. He said, “There was a lot of gas ‘n’ hot air ‘n’ noise and ever’ now and then they’d pass a little somethin’ just to make themselves feel better. For the better part of a day they didn’t pass anything with any substance. All they did was make themselves feel better, wasted my time and gave me something crappy to deal with.”

Then when they finally started passin’ something so Roscoe could find out what was in it, it was really ugly. There were lots of ugly smelly questionable things in that poop they passed but no gold ring.

When it was all over them dogs were as cleaned out as the American Taxpayer. They and Roscoe were tired and hungry and grouchy and didn’t have an insurance policy either.

Roscoe and Miz Roscoe made their kids clean up the mess they and the dogs made even though it wasn’t the kids’ fault and they didn’t have anything to do with it. Roscoe says it is the new American way. “They might as well get used to it. They are going to have to spend most of their lives sortin’ out and cleanin’ up a whole dadgum bunch of crap Congress is passing and they are agonna have to pay for it too.”

Doc says Old Blue is a natural politician and he wants to run him for Congress. Might as well.