We don’t need no Bio-lumps in Sneezeville

The traveling fair just left town and Cletus Stumpwater won the pig rasslin contest.  This is the first time Sneezeville has had a contestant.  We were all surprised that Cletus would jump in a pit full of pig manure and rassel a pig. I had a long interview with Cletus as soon as I could get up wind from him. Cletis said it only made sense.  “It’s like this,” he said.  “Me and my eight brothers all rode to the fair in the same wagon.  We all took our Saturday baths before we came.  When the man offered anyone $100 to jump in the slop, I thought ‘If I jump, then I’ll get pig mess all over me BUT I’ll get the money.  If I don’t jump then one of my brothers will and I won’t get anything but the smell.’  Don’t forget when you got nine of us in one wagon what gets on one of us gets on all of us.  Not only that–that smell is going to be around a long time what with bath day not being for another week.  If I hadn’t jumped then Festus would have and he’d have the money and I’d still have to share the smell.  I’d been a fool to let that happen.  That’s a lot of money and it sure makes the smell easier to live with.”

Lo Quashious is still sitting on the porch of the Yak n Snack store and telling everyone that will listen what we are doing wrong here in Sneezeville.  He keeps telling us because he has lived all over the state that he is smarter than the rest of us.  You have to wonder why leaving town makes him smarter.  Is it getting away from the town water?  He says it is impossible to make a good living in Sneezeville and that’s why all of the bright young people leave town.  If that’s the case how do the dummies who stay here make a living?  It seems to me that someone who can make a living where it is impossible must have something going for them.

Lo does make sense on the Bio-lumps. He says that the first thing you do is give something bad a good name.  It was first called a name I can’t use in the newspaper.  Then they started calling it Sludge.  Then it went to Sewage and tur-bits and now its bio-lumps.  Anyway you smell it, it’s still the same stuff.  Like that Shakespeare feller said, “A rose by any other name should smell so sweet.”

Lo tried to explain that the Bio-lumps might contain toxic waste. “Boy, you done forgot a lot,” said Cletis. “You don’t know toxic unless you been in a two holer with my brother Clem.  When he was a baby, they made us move out of the town because of his toxic diapers.”  Lo tried to explain that this is a different kind of toxic.  These lumps got more stuff than just people stuff.  They got chemicals and dyes and poisons and all sorts of bad stuff.

Otis Sneezleweed, grandson of the founder of Sneezeville, is having a problem with the bio-lumps.  He first said, “My Daddy didn’t use bio-lumps and my Grand-daddy didn’t use Bio-lumps and if wasn’t good enough for them then it’s not good enough for me.”  Then he found out that it is free fertilizer.  “My daddy never turned down free fertilizer. My Grand-daddy didn’t turn down free fertilizer and if it is good enough for them then it is good enough for me.”  He was sitting on the porch and he was mumbling,  “My Daddy didn’t use Bio-lumps, My Grand-daddy never turned down free fertilizer, then it’s, it’s, it’s…” He finally sorted it out to:  “My Daddy didn’t use free bio-lumps, My Grand-daddy didn’t use free Bio-lumps and If they didn’t need it then neither do I.”