Planting Aunts, My Ding-A-Ling and Lying Robins

For the past few weeks I’ve been playing around with a hangnail on my big toe. My bride Management suggested I go for a pedicure. I don’t know what that would do. I think my ped is fine. What I need is a toe-a-cure.

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

When I was at the party celebrating my aunt Catherine the Great’s demise and graduation I noticed a cooler filled with beverages and embossed with Yeti. I am still concerned that one of my relatives has a Yeti cooler. Do you use it for yeti’s or just anybody’s body? Was that one of those parties where you go to sleep and wake up missing your kidneys? Still it was a nice going away party and the aunt was properly planted the next day. I was careful not to go asleep and still have all of my body parts.

Today was minion Monday. Everyone showed up wearing yellow hoodie sweatshirts. I kind of like being a minion master. I think we’ll celebrate Messenger minion madness Monday every week.

Management has been mumbling about buying me new clothes. My official position is, “I have plenty of clothes.” Just yesterday I needed a heavier “nice” coat. I pulled a nice suede one out of the closet. It looked good and felt good. I did find five dollars, two pairs of glasses, the program for the 2006 VPA banquet and a pack of Adventure cigarettes in the pockets. Management believes it is possible that I haven’t touched the coat for eight years since Adventure went out of business about then. The cigarettes were a little stale but suede doesn’t go bad.

Then she said something about it being out of style. How can that be? Suede has been in style for a hundred years or so. She decided she is going to buy me a new coat. I put in a request for an 1850’s frock coat. It’s about time for them to come back in style again anyway.

On the other hand, I’ve never been worried about style. In fact, I don’t understand why anyone would try to dress like anyone else, especially with some of the silly things I see other folks wearing.

Way back a few thousand years ago everybody dressed the same. In fact, everybody went shopping for clothes the same way. They went out and killed something, removed the skin and called it clothes. On the other hand, if the shopping trip went badly then they were called dinner. If they were like folks today, one day somebody showed up wearing a wolf skin and then EVERYBODY wanted a wolf skin. Then…well I guess the cave ended up filled with clothes. “I just had to have a new skin. Wolf skins are just so prehistoric.” “This year deer skins are in.”

This is probably the reason most men today hate going shopping for clothes with their wives. When lion skins were popular and the wives were sending their men clothes shopping all of the men who liked shopping for their wives didn’t make it. Today’s men descended from the men who refused to follow the lion skin fad.

All I need is a pair of tennis shoes, several pairs of jeans and a few tee shirts. All of the stuff Management tries to dress me in clashes with my ding-a-ling hat. Years ago Management bought me a three-foot-long stocking hat with a tassel on the end. I tied a bell to the tassel and called it my ding-a-ling hat. I hadn’t had it a month before I slammed the ding-a-ling in the truck door. Since then my ding-a-ling hasn’t dinged or linged like it did. There is probably a lesson here somewhere.

Today the weather man is predicting a major snow storm. I always ignore him. I watch the little wild things and they are pretty good predictors of bad weather. Today there were hundreds of birds eating in the yard. This usually means a storm is coming and they are stocking up.

Then I noticed they were all robins. Whoever started that stuff about robins and spring just wasn’t reliable. On the other hand, maybe these robins have been hanging around politicians and have taken up lying. It sure doesn’t feel like spring to me.