A bit of back story: my friends Buddy, Andy and Jim are some of the funniest people I’ve ever known. When we were at State, you would often find them surrounded by large crowds of people who would listen intently and then fall to the floor and roll with laughter. I could devote a lengthy post – and I just may – to Buddy’s mastery of the prank phone call in pre-caller ID days, but for the time being let’s just say that dorms filled with international students were his target audience.

When it became very clear to me that I was going to have to include some of their antics in this little interweb forum, I asked them if they wanted aliases to protect their identities since they’re all high-powered businessmen who control a great deal of the world’s oil reserves as well as the legislative branch of the US government. After much discussion, I can now announce that the humorous stylings of B-Diddy, G-Master Detail and Diamonds will be making occasional guest appearances on this blog. I keep telling the three of them that they need a blog, but they don’t listen. They never did.

And since I told you their real names before I introduced the aliases, I guess the whole alias deal is sort of a moot point, but it does add a certain gangsta flava. We’re all about the gangsta flava here in the suburbs of Alabama, you know.

Anyway, they talk much good-natured trash via email (B-Diddy likes to point out that, in his spare time, G-Master likes to do “delicate charcoal drawings of Ron Polk“), and they sometimes include me in their fun because, well, they pity me.

Today I was grateful for the pity, because this little gem from G-Master made its way to my inbox. Enjoy, everyone. It’s an instant classic.

“The following has not been independently confirmed, and is solely the testimony of my sister:

Yesterday, my sister was sitting in the First Presbyterian Church in Loveland, Colorado, reading the weekly church bulletin when she was shocked to see in the announcements section that Bob Johnson of Hernando, Mississippi (our father) had passed away in his sleep on the weekend of January 22nd. She immediately phoned home, and kept calling until my mother answered at about 1:00PM CST. Upon hearing Julie’s voice, my mother’s first words were “wow, the lengths I have to go to just to get a phone call.”

You see…last week, my mother was apparently quite frustrated with my sister due to the fact that Julie had not called home to speak with my mother in about 2 weeks. Having reached a breaking point, my mother apparently contacted the main office of my sister’s church and asked that the church bulletin committee include, in this week’s announcements, the death of my father.

Note 1: My father is alive and well.
Note 2: My mother still lives with my father and is well aware of Note 1.

Again, this story has not been confirmed, but my sister says she will mail a copy of the church bulletin to me very soon.

I can’t make this up, people. Have a nice day.

‘G-Master Detail'”

Like I told Andy, that’s a story for the ages. I can just picture Andy one day, with his children surrounding him, saying, “Okay, kids, now I want to tell you about the time that Mamaw faked Papaw’s death. Oh, it is a sweet memory….”

Alex and Maggie are now Best Friends Forever after the former took it upon himself to feed the latter this morning. Everytime Maggie would finish the teaspoon’s worth of food Alex put in the bowl, A. would scream, “Hold on JUST a minute, Maggie! I’ll be right back!” And he’d go get her another teaspoon’s worth of food, and Maggie looked at Alex with such love and adoration that I thought her little doggie heart might explode.

Apparently all the “pull your tail like a leash” and “ride you like a horse” incidents have been forgiven and forgotten. They’re thick as thieves, these two. Thick as thieves.

Tonight while D. and I were reading our Sunday School lesson, and by Sunday School lesson I really mean watching the last two TiVo’d epsiodes of The Bachelor:Paris, he asked me if girls really think that desperation will land them a man, that all manner of plotting and scheming will actually attract their soulmate and enable them to live happily ever after.

To which I replied, “Ummm…yeah!”

It is obvious that my husband has never lived in a sorority house. And for that we’re actually all quite thankful. But he’s clueless – CLUELESS, I say unto you – about the level of plotting and scheming a girl will go to in order to convince a man that she is his soulmate and he cannot live without her.

Part of the fun – at least when you’re young – is the drama of it all. The chase. Once you get a few years past college, the chase isn’t as big a deal…at that point it’s sort of like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah I’m running I’m running hey you caught me YAY the end and I do.” But in college? OH, the drama was oftentimes the best part.

One of you who may or may not read this blog once went on a date that may or may not have been with someone from what may or may not have been a Large Religious Organization on campus that may or may not have been BSU.

The time leading up to the date was filled with Much Planning. What to wear, how to fix the hair, what the second date would be like for there was sure to be one, what it would be like when he went home to meet the parents – I’m telling you, the boy was on the fast track to the altar and he had no idea.

But, you see, things did not go as planned. If it had been part of The Bachelor, there would have been promos for weeks telling all of America to tune in for the most dramatic. Bachelor. moment. EVER.

Because as I’m sure my sweet, level-headed, even-keeled, Proverbs 31 friend remembers, when she found out that BSU boy was interested in someone else, she SLAMMED THE DOOR, KICKED IT, FLUNG HERSELF TO THE GROUND and started to sob. No, sob is too weak a verb. She started to WAIL.

And we were all, “What the…” and she was all, “I just thought he really liked me,” and we were all, “Ummm…missy, you’ve had ONE DATE,” and she was all, “Yes, but I thought he was God’s will for my life! I decided that he was God’s will for my life!”

Please don’t misunderstand. There were lots of guys who would have loved to be The One for my sweet friend. She’s exactly the “type,” for lack of a better stereotypical word, that many guys hope to marry. But for her, it was just the pressure of the whole thing – she was ready to meet That Guy, date That Guy, and marry That Guy. She was ready to check “Soul Mate” off of the list and get on to the next thing so that the pressure would be gone. I think a lot of girls felt that kind of pressure.

My point is this. Girls are conditioned from an early age to be on the lookout for The One. How do you know he’s The One? Is he The One? Oh, I think he’s The One. If he’s not The One, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’m just ready to find The One and settle down. And then, in the tradition of The Bachelor: Oh, BACK OFF, Sistah – he’s not The One for you, he’s The One for me. And then, the saddest: I thought he was The One, but I was wrong.

I think the root of all the drama is that so many women look to someone else to validate who they are. Guys tend to let their jobs do this…but many – not all, but many – women look to men. So I wonder if these “desperate” girls who disturbed D. so much are really wanting Cute Doctor Bachelor Guy – or if they just want someone, anyone to deem them worthy of being wanted. Does that make sense?

If we’re going to condition girls / women / whathaveyou to always be on the lookout for the handsome prince, to think that their lives won’t be complete until they find him, then people like My Husband Who Has Obviously Been In A Cave need not be surprised when girls pull out all the stops to win the prince’s heart.

And then fling themselves to the floor when he’s not so interested.

I don’t really have anything coherent to say, so indulge me as I post some recent photos of The Cute One With All The Cheeks.

I’ve just been a-copyin’ and a-pastin’:

Delicious Bloggity Goodness

I wish there were a filing method…but I don’t know how to tackle that yet.

I’ll add more in the next few days.

Brandie and Elon, I did it for you. :-)

One time, when I was in graduate school, my mama invited her extended family over to the house for dinner. I can’t remember the holiday. I do remember that after supper we all ended up in what Mama called “the blue den,” and there was much talking and laughing and carrying on.

At some point someone asked about Mrs. So-And-So. My aunt started to give the update, and she mentioned that the woman was recently widowed.

There were many “Oh, NO”s and “You don’t MEAN”s and general expressions of dismay that Mrs. So-And-So’s life had met with such misfortune. You know how we are with misfortune in the South…one part of us can’t bear to hear it, and another part of us slides just a little bit closer to the person telling the story, because we don’t want to miss a single detail.

Mama was sort of sitting to the side, smiling sweetly, sipping coffee, not saying much.

Things got very quiet, and one of Mama’s cousins said, “Oh, that is just horrible! How did Mr. So-and-So die?”

Now I think most of us took that question to mean “what specifically was the cause of death? Cancer? Heart attack? Please do tell us more about his unexpected passing.”

But Mama, unbeknownst to us, knew that the man had been in a car accident. So she took the question to a much more specific level than the rest of us expected when she answered it, because here is what she said, without missing a beat, with a smile on her face, with that pinky finger perfectly extended from her coffee cup:

“Head on.”

And y’all, there was this pause, and it felt like it lasted for a full five minutes, though I know it was probably 15 or 20 seconds, and we just sat there, not knowing what to do, because poor Mr. So-and-So, he’s dead and all, but HAVE MERCY Mama’s delivery and timing were just pitch perfect, not to mention that she took a sip of coffee immediately after she said it, like she was Carol Brady standing in the kitchen with Alice, reminding Jan not to forget her lunch. I mean, how in the world do you respond to that?

In our case, you respond with gales of laughter. GALES, I tell you. We laughed. And laughed. We hooted, in fact.

Finally, when the laughter died down, my aunt looked at my mama and said, “I can’t believe you said that!”

“Well,” Mama matter-of-factly replied, “that’s what happened. Mr. So-and-So never knew what hit him.”

Couldn’t make it up. Not even if I wanted to.