American Thighs (18 page)

It used to be entertaining to try to explain myself to them, but as I said—I'm over that. So now when they drag out the bigass crown and ask me what it's for, I just look bland and state the facts—“I'm The Sweet Potato Queen,” like THAT explains ANYTHING. I don't offer anything further—answer only the questions asked. They look expectant for a moment, but when nothing else is forthcoming, they're so surprised, they can't think of any other pertinent queries and they move on, somewhat uncomfortably, to the remaining contents of my suspicious baggage. Whereupon they discover the presence of an enormous cache of bumper stickers reading, never wear panties to a party, which, you've got to admit, WOULD beg the question, no matter who you are. I stand erect, gazing fixedly at some point on the horizon, silent but inwardly chortling, knowing as I do, what they are going to discover NEXT.

They open the long thin cardboard box and they see the contents within: five thousand hot pink business-sized cards that say, “LICK YOU ALL OVER—10 cents—Ask about our other Specialties.” And again, out of my own personal over-it-ness and, of course, in deference to all the other hapless passengers awaiting their own respective turns at the inspection
table, I offer nothing in the way of explanation. I do freely admit to a gleeful sense of satisfaction at the thought of leaving discombobulated TSA personnel in my wake across the USA.

IS Dat You?

Many long years ago, when my daddy was still alive and traveling around on bidness, he and a male business associate got stuck in a small town due to an untimely automobile malfunction. It was particularly untimely because it occurred just after quitting time at the only mechanic's garage on a rainy afternoon on the day before some big local to-do.

This meant a couple of things to our travelers—namely, that the car wasn't going anywhere until at least midafternoon the following day, assuming the lone mechanic showed up for work and was in the mood to even attempt to fix their car and was also in possession of whatever part might be needed to do so.

It also meant that the one hotel in town was filled to something very like capacity—which never happened except once a year, for the big local to-do, whatever it was, that was scheduled for the very next day—so that when Daddy and his associate finally arrived, soaking wet from walking many, many blocks in the rain from the closed mechanic's shop, Daddy was greatly disheartened to learn that there might also be a problem concerning any overnight accommodations for them.

Daddy asked the desk clerk/owner of the hotel for two rooms and was told that there was only one room left in the whole establishment but it did have two beds in it and Daddy said fine, he'd take it, and thus began the check-in process.

The first snag was Daddy wanted to write a check to pay for the room and his driver's license was in the glove box of the broken-down car, many, many rain-soaked blocks away. When the clerk asked for identification and was told that the license was in the car—many, many rain-soaked blocks away—there was reluctance on his part to accept the out-of-town check. He reiterated that he needed some proof of identity. As it happened, there was a large mirror hanging on the wall behind the desk, and Daddy leaned to one side so that he could look around the desk clerk and see his own reflection in it. He studied it for a long moment and then gestured for the desk clerk to turn around and look, and he asked the clerk, “Is that a mirror?” The clerk, of course, said yes, it IS—his tone indicating a level of irritated incredulity that there could be any question about what it was—it was OBVIOUSLY a mirror. Daddy said, “I thought so. Let me get a good look here,” and he gazed thoughtfully for another long moment, saying, “Hmmmm, well, then, YEP, that's ME, all right.”

Okay, so the ID problem was solved, but a particularly thorny issue still remained: there was only one room—and the desk clerk was just learning that there were two MEN wanting to book it. Even though there WERE admittedly two beds in
that room—the owner of this small-town establishment was not prepared, in 1962, to be renting out one of HIS rooms for two MEN to share, regardless of any broken-down-car-inthe-pouring-ass-rain-closed-mechanic's-garage-type circumstances. Looked like a Queer Deal to him and he wudd'n taken NO-O-O-O chances of any of THAT happening at HIS ho-tel, no-sirree-bobtail-cat. (Now, there's a Southernism I've never understood, although I've lived here my EN-tire life. I get the no-sirree part—but what does the bobtail cat signify? Anybody out there know? Anybody?)

Anyway, the bidness associate had been wandering around, checking out the cool old hotel lobby, and was unaware of the checking-in problems and that he might soon be relegated to sleeping in the broken-down car many, many rain-soaked blocks away. He totally missed the whole ID-by-mirror episode and was just approaching from some distance when the Homo-sexshull Problem was being hinted at.

The clerk had asked, as they used to do, who would be sharing the room, and Daddy had indicated his wandering business associate and the clerk had just begun protesting the disturbing impropriety of it all. So all the business associate heard as he walked up was Daddy inexplicably describing HIM as “Oh, no, sir, it's not what you think—that's just my idiot brother-in-law. I'm taking him back to my wife's parents, somebody has to watch him all the time or he gets nekkid and shits in the street—but I'll give him his medicine and he'll sleep all night, don't you worry.”

Luckily, the business associate had the presence of mind to infer from hearing that colorful if confusing description of his veryownself that there must be some kind of very good reason for it and so he kept his mouth shut—which did require retrieving his lower jaw from the floor, to which it had no doubt dropped as he heard himself so described. And so he was able to sleep in a semicomfy hotel bed that night, as opposed to a not-so-sumptuous car seat, and although everyone talked very slowly and with a little more than necessary volume to him—as if he were not only mentally deficient but also slightly hard of hearing—they were all pretty nice. Daddy was regarded as quite the saintly figure for the good care taken of his “handicapped brother-in-law,” so I suppose it comes under the all's-well-that-ends-well clause.

Well, today, of course, nobody cares with whom you share your room, but even an attempt at self-identification by way of a MIRROR would probably get you arrested in some areas—airports, for example. I can't believe we have to have a PASSPORT even to go to Canada and Mexico now. Bummer.

Back in our salad days—why do they call 'em that? We never ate salads then and we certainly wouldn't consider salad a positive, unless it was maybe 'tater salad made with tons of mayo and crispy bacon—that would be swell, so okay, in that context, we can accept “salad days” as a good thing—SO, back in ours—me and my sister, Judy, would run down to Cozumel at the drop of a hat or anything else—often we would go when nothing at
all had been dropped—we just looooved it there and it was so easy and cheap, we could hardly afford to stay HOME.

We had found ourselves in possession of (or is it possessed by?) one of those oft-touted wild hairs and were upping to take off and head for the island without a whole lot of advance preparation. I had thrown some stuff in a duffel bag and driven to New Orleans so that we could fly outta there early the next morning.

Somehow, in the discussion of what all we were collectively packing or leaving, it became known to us that I had run off to N.O. without bringing any form of acceptable border-crossing identification. At that time, you could use a passport, of course, or you could use your voter registration card (even though there was no such thing as voter ID then) or you could use what was called an “affidavit of citizenship,” which was a notarized piece of paper saying that you were who you were and you lived at such-and-such a place in the United States and that you were, in fact, a citizen of same. No photo, just a notary's signature. Pretty solid proof of, well, nothing.

I didn't own a passport, and since my voter's registration card was not in my wallet where I thought it was, there was no telling where it actually was, and besides, I really was NOT in the mood to drive the three hours BACK to Jackson, spend however many hours it would take to try to locate the card, and then drive the three more hours back to New Orleans in order to be at the airport for our early flight to Cozumel.

And so, at around nine pm, after a few cocktails, we settled
on crafting for me an affidavit of citizenship. It was amazingly easy. We simply went down to Judy's office and typed up the requisite wordage, found her boss's notary seal, applied it to the paper in the proper place, made sure we had the two necessary “witness signatures”—which, I'm not sure, I think we may have signed ourownselves and then, after all this chicanery, for some unknowable reason, Judy weaseled at this juncture and could not bring herself to add the actual forgery of her boss's signature on the seal to our list of crimes, and so around midnight, as I recall, we hunted him down at a bar and got him to sign it, without reading it, of course. And that piece of worthless paper was all I needed to guarantee my exit from and reentry into this country that I do so love.

I miss those days. I suppose my still-underage daughter has some degree of understanding for the pleasant thrill associated with dancing around government regulations—Lord knows how many fake IDs she's had confiscated in recent years. But, while there will always be SOME-body from whom a truly dedicated minor will be able to procure alcohol—border crossings have gotten a tad bit trickier, not to mention, like, totally vital. I mean, not for any amount of refreshing tequila-laced beverages consumed watching any number of sunsets on any pristine but foreign beaches would I want to get STUCK somewhere OUTSIDE the US of A and not be able to get back IN.

Tips for Trouble-Free Travel

No matter what your age and/or station in life, I actually have only one travel tip for you: DON'T DO IT.

This works for me. After much study of this problem of travel-related woes, I have found that as long as I am sitting on my back porch—or lolling in my tub—I spend zero dollars per gallon for gas, I am literally unaffected by commute times and/or traffic snarls, I don't worry about what to pack—too little? too much?—I am affected only by the weather if the wind is blowing rain from the south, in which case I get dampened on the porch and must take to the tub unless I am already in the tub, in which case the weather does not matter.

Airport security bothers me not at all—new and more stringent regulations do not affect my plans—I can make pipe bombs on my back porch if I decide I want to and someone shows me how—but I have only very simple plans, which are to sit and mouth-breathe while staring at water, whether in the lake or in the tub.

I don't care how small the seats have gotten or that there is sufficient leg and head room only for individuals five feet tall and under.

No one ever tries to make me eat pretzels.

My skin is not turned to thin, powdery leather by the negative humidity in a hotel room.

I am never awakened at some ridiculous hour by the bed
side alarm inconsiderately left set by the previous room's occupant, who had to get up in order to arrive at the airport the prescribed six or eight hours in advance of a (delayed or canceled) flight.

If I choose to dine on Pringles and old jelly beans, it's because I'm home alone and lazy—not because delayed flights meant that I arrived at my hotel long after room service shut down and I thought I would surely die if I didn't ingest some form—any form—of calories immediately.

My credit cards are never in any danger of being either stolen or declined.

The restrooms are as clean as I want them to be and there is no wait to use them.

I don't ever go out to sit on the porch only to be told—either by a hard-to-read blue screen or a nearly impossible-to-understand bellowing voice on the PA system—that my sitting-down place has been changed and that now I must go to the other side of the lake and that the train that would normally take me there is malfunctioning so there will be a “short” walk involved in the relocation process.

Any and all travel-related problems can be easily averted with this one simple step: stay home. It works beautifully for me and I recommend it to you most highly.

J
anuary and February of each year finds me running all over the country, hawking my latest book—a brutal task but not without its benefits, the primary one of those being the opportunity to meet and visit, up close, with all manner of Queens. This gives me the chance to hear, firsthand, your own personal tales of your own journeys into Queenliness, and it is just the most gratifying and reassuring thing in the world to me—to see the Queendom ever growing and the Queens themselves growing ever wiser.

For example, I learned that Queen Crystal is enjoying peaceful sleep, night after night, undisturbed by any free-floating fears about the away-from-home-supervision conduct of her teenage daughter Meg. Here's why: our little Meggie loves to cook and she's always in the kitchen trying new recipes, which often call for ingredients that Queen Crystal does not keep readily on hand. One creation called for Parmigiano Reg
giano, of which there was none in the house, and so off the two went to the grocery store together to secure the necessary provisions. As long as she was there and walking RIGHT BY the beer and wine section, QC thought it was as good a time as any to sample the newest flavor of wine coolers, and so she snagged a six-pack. Meg was off on the cheese hunt and did not, therefore, witness the wine cooler selection.

Okay, so they're in the checkout line and the little checker girl scans the wine coolers through the register and asks to see QC's proof of age (always thrilling to those of us of a certain age), but when she made this request, she was holding up the CHEESE. QC joked, “Wow, getting carded for CHEESE! What next?” and Meg looked astounded. “You got carded for CHEESE?” “It's imported,” QC said, without missing a beat.

As they walked to the car, Meg was clearly processing the moment, and as they got in the car, she asked her mama, “How old do I have to BE before I can buy that cheese?” Hmmm…and thus, Queen Crystal sleeps in heavenly peace.

I'm told that Queen Pat's parents slept well during her teenage years as well, although they certainly should not have. This was one of those blissful-ignorance situations and nobody would EVER have been the wiser, except, of course, for the fact that—like so many of us—Pat has herself a big-mouth buddy—by the name of Laura. (Yours may have another name, but a big mouth by any other name will naturally blab just as much.)

What Pat did and got away with that Laura is now blabbing
is this: as a teenager, Pat found herself on a pretty tight parental curfew leash, and she was instructed not only to be in at what she deemed to be a ridiculously early hour for one as trustworthy and mature as she (snort), but she was also to briefly waken her parents upon her home arrival to confirm that she was, in fact, safe in the coop by the witching hour.

While still out on the town in full carouse mode, she would note that her curfew time was fast approaching. A few minutes before she was due in, she would take herself to a quiet spot and phone home. A sleepy parent would fumble for the bedside phone and mutter a muffled hello—whereupon Pat would quickly say, “It's okay, it's for me—I just walked in the door—sorry the phone woke you”—AS IF she had just answered the phone in another part of the house—when IN FACT, she was merely pausing in her debauchery miles and miles away. Sleepy Mom and/or Dad would look at the clock and hang up the phone in annoyance at being awakened thusly, but most of all, just relieved at the knowledge that their little angel Pat was safe in the nest once more. And the little hellion would go right on partying until she and the cows decided it was time to come home, and she would slip in—undetected.

If, as you read this, you're still young enough to be living at home and adhering to a curfew—you should be aware that YOUR MOTHER CAN READ and so this tactic, if you were thinking of employing it, has just been removed from your arsenal of trickery. If you're the kid—sorry. If you're the mom—you're welcome.

I've Searched the World Over

And learned this for certain: The Secret to a Happy Marriage…remains a secret. Suffice it to say that while LOVE may, in fact, be BLIND, marriage is NOTHING if not an eye-opener. Boy-hidee—is it ever! Do y'all ever read the newspaper advice columns of Carolyn Hax? I adore her—I think she is just ate up with good ole COMMON SENSE and that, coupled with a mighty fine turn of phrase, makes her worthy of our attention and praise. Somebody wrote in once and asked her what she thought was a “good age” at which to get married. Ms. Hax responded that the “good age” would be the one at which you find somebody so good for you that spending your life with him would be a natural extension of who you are—which SEEMS like SUCH a simple answer, doesn't it?

She went on with the tricky part—that being that FIRST you have to be mature enough to KNOW who YOU ARE—which, unfortunately, is too often clear only in hindsight—or, worse, full-on delusion. Immaturity and bad choices CAN be caught early, according to Queen Carolyn—IF we are ready to see it—in arguments we have with ourselves and/or others about how mature we are or how great our potential mate really is. OOOOH, she is soooo smart.

As a semigeezer gearing up to hand over the world to the next generation, I am greatly heartened by a delightful missive I received from one of my very favorite little Larva Queens,
Alexis. First of all, Alexis considers my dear friend Marlyn Schwartz and me to be veritable fonts of wisdom—which I think indicates a pretty fair share of wisdom in her own young self—and she states that betwixt us, Marlyn and I have helped her on more than one occasion as she fumbles her way through her twenties, and we are gratified to hear it.

We are further gratified to learn that little Queen Alexis has started a rebel faction in the very midst of her local Junior League. Don't those very words give you a little thrill? A REBEL FACTION in a JUNIOR LEAGUE! It is rare that one is privileged to witness such raw courage in one so young. It seems that after some discussion with the dozen or so other Single Members in the League, Alexis determined that they had all grown just a bit tired of hearing, repeatedly, from the MARRIED membership, “You're still SINGLE? That is a SIN!” Ostensibly this is meant as a sort of compliment to the single one, indicating that she is just so obviously completely and totally FABULOUS in every way, it is just a SIN for her to be “going to waste” as an unmarried person—but it sorta stops feeling complimentary after about the 438th time one hears it about one's fabulous self.

Thus, Alexis rallied her little band of “spinsters” and dubbed them “The Upside of Sin” and declared herself Benevolent Dictator for Life—to which the other girls had no objection because Alexis is a consummate party planner and they knew they would be in very fun hands. By the end of the first meeting,
Alexis had already announced the party schedule for the upcoming year, which would include the Bridesmaid Retirement Party, the Beware the Ides of March celebration, as well as other festivities to commemorate any and all perhaps lesser-known holidays, such as September 2, which, you may be unaware, is National Beheading Day, and even though we are not sure in what COUNTRY that is a national holiday—we have our suspicions, of course—nonetheless, it clearly calls for cocktails, no?

Alexis further decided but with unanimous support that whenever one of the Upsiders did get married, the group would throw a funeral for her. They would all wear slenderizing black cocktail dresses and celebrate the end of the life of a fabulous single girl—complete with eulogies—and gorge themselves on time-honored funeral foods from the appropriate sweet, salty, fried, and au gratin food groups.

I feel a welcome sense of relief as I read any e-mails from Alexis—that we have somehow managed to impart worthy ideals to at least ONE young woman, and it makes it just a little bit easier for me to contemplate retirement—knowing that we are in at least ONE pair of capable hands.

Okay, make that TWO—because an e-mail from Queen Christen has just come to me and caused me to wonder if the Nobel committee would consider offering a prize for Most Diabolical Divorce-Related Revenge Tactics. If so, Christen is a mortal lock for this year's award.

She left the SOS (sack of shit) right after obtaining a re
straining order—which the good folks in the ER, where she'd spent the previous night, helped her get right quick-like—and when she left him, she also magnanimously left in his possession ALL the televisions in the house—without even so much as a hint of a demand from the SOS that she do so. She just did it out of the unbearable sweetness of her soul. But then, out of that OTHER part of her soul, she TOOK every single REMOTE CONTROL with her—bwahahahaha!

Furthermore, it seems that, throughout their ill-fated marriage, the SOS had clung with demonic ferocity to a pair of decades-old deerskin slippers that looked and smelled like roadkill, and whenever he would misplace them, she would be viciously accused of having some responsibility for their disappearance. She knew that if, as a parting gesture, she were to dispose of them, he would know instantly that she had done it, and she feared the consequences would too far outweigh the satisfaction, and so she just took ONE.

Whenever she felt glum for any reason over the next year or so, she had only to call up the mental picture of him tearing the house apart—over and over and over again—looking for those remotes and that one ratty-ass slipper—and presto change-o! The dark clouds rolled away and she felt all sunny inside once more. It IS, after all, the simple things in life that really count.

I am thrilled nearly but not quite beyond words to report that just a few short years later, Christen met up with a lovely
young man from Memphis who, on their first Christmas together as a couple, gave her a complete set of Sweet Potato Queen books. Of course, she married him and we are so certain they are living happily EVER after.

And THEN, I was further gratified to hear from Queen Sheryl that, after ten years of marriage, her first husband ran off with her hairdresser, and frankly, it took Sheryl quite some time to get over it. I mean, how would YOU feel? We all know how hard it is to find a good hairdresser.

After the ensuing divorce, the hairdresser-stealing ex would come pick up the kids for a visit on Sunday morning and return them on Sunday evening. Whenever he brought them back, he would actually come into the house and, in a seemingly offhanded manner, just sort of saunter to the back of the house and peek into Sheryl's bedroom. He was no longer interested in occupying it hisownself but was nonetheless way too interested in seeing if anybody else was. This was a source of irritation to Sheryl and so she Took Steps.

The next Sunday, as soon as he left with the kids, she went to work. She tangled the bedsheets and threw the throw pillows across the room. She burned incense, drew the blinds, put a pink scarf over a lamp with a low-watt bulb, put two wineglasses on the nightstand (with a few drops of Kool-Aid in the bottom of each), put soft music on the stereo, threw a pair of panties and a bra on the floor, made two distinct head prints on
one of the bed pillows, and then she went next door and BORROWED a FULL ashtray from her neighbor—which she placed on her headboard above the bed.

And then she rested, although it must be said she was too excited to nap. FINALLY, the hairdresser-stealing ex returned with the kids. She immediately engaged the children in a lively discussion in the kitchen, to give him plenty of leeway to meander down the hall for his routine observation run. She stood where she could watch him without being seen. She said he gently pushed open the bedroom door and glanced in—clearly expecting to see nothing but the normally perfectly ordered room he was accustomed to viewing and, WHOA-NELLY! He nearly tripped over his own jaw when he saw the Evidence. She was gleeful.

As he approached the kitchen, she asked the kids, in her sweetest Mommy voice, “Did you guys have a good time today?” and while they were assuring her that, yes, ma'am, they sure did—he walked in and said, “Well! Did MOMMY have a good time today?” Winking, she said, “Oh, you bet!” knowing he wouldn't be able to leave it at that—and she was right. He then said, “So, was it anybody I know?” and without so much as a pause, she said, perky as you please, “Hell, no! It wasn't even anybody I know!”

Sheryl says, to this day, it was the best orgy she never had. Sometimes, I swear, all IS right with the world, isn't it?