The night was cool as the four of us sat on Bobby Dale’s front porch following a large Thanksgiving dinner. It was a typical fall evening in the country. The dogs were quiet and if you listened closely, ya could hear the women talking in the living room. I took a short drink of my sweet tea and looked around at the other men beside me. All of them looked very content after our large meal of succulent turkey, mashed taters with gravy, corn on the cob, cornbread, and a green salad.
The view from the porch was typical of most redneck mo’bile homes; more than just a few empty fifty-five gallon oil drums, six old junked cars (bein’saved fer parts ya know), two fishin’boats, one freezer with the door off, and about a thousand dawgs. Okay, maybe not a thousand, but there were dawgs no matter where you looked, or stepped.
Out of the blue, Bubba said, “I shore got me a good wife. She treats me like a king. Bet y’all wish ya had a wife like her, huh?”
None of the men said anything and as I looked around, I saw looks of surprise as well as a couple poorly hidden smirks.
“Naw, Bubba, I couldn’t be married to no sex symbol like Maude. It would be hard to live like that,” I replied. In my mind I could still see her extra-wide hips moving toward the door to the mo’bile home.
“Well, Gury, I’ll be honest. It ain’t easy at times. Sure she has put on a little weight, since we got married back in ‘75, but as long as she don’t smile and show her two ‘mainin’teeth, she’s a real humdinger. It’s a small price to pay to be married to such a woman I guess.”
I thought I had just heard the funniest thing in my life! Maude, while a really nice woman, was no more a sex symbol than Gomer Pyle was. Nope, she was a big woman, and I do mean big. As grandpa used to say, “Her rear-end was as high as a barn door and twice as wide. Now, don’t get me wrong, I loved Maude as one of the fambly, but she was no sex symbol. Oh, and Bubba was right about her two teeth. As sweet as she was, I suspect the only people who loved Maude was friends and family.
