395. Shopping

It’s always interesting to take C.W. shopping. First of all, he picks his shape carefully. Once, he came to Walmart as a 300-pound woman in shorts that weren’t much more than red thong underwear with a tattoo on one leg that said. “God knows what,” and one on the other leg that said “you’re thinking.”

I usually make him walk ten feet behind me. Today, though, he seemed fairly normal … for Walmart. He looked as though he might have been a farmer once. He wore a “Make America Great Again” baseball hat and faded overalls. Where they had worn through, he had red patches shaped like valentines sewn over the holes. A pair of scuffed black loafers completed the ensemble.

Not bad for Walmart, as I say. We walked along together, that is until I stopped to examine a freezer of ribs. When I had decided they were too expensive, I turned and he was gone. Did I dare hope that some sort of “Alien Rapture” had occurred?

No such luck. I heard him call me. “Hey Big Dope,” he yelled from two aisles down. “Come listen to this.” When I tried to ignore him, he yelled it again. I had no choice but to ease my cart toward him.

I found him standing close to a heavy-set woman with stringy red hair talking on a cell phone. She wore shorts, the legs of which seemed to cut off any blood that might make an attempt to complete a complete circulation. A tank top allowed a large portion of her stomach to cascade over the top of her shorts.

She would have looked like a standard Arkansas bar-haunter except for a bright rose tattooed on her neck, the stem extending beneath her tank top. This made her look more like a standard Arkansas bar-haunter with an ill-conceived tattoo. Walmart stores are full of them.

Anyway, C.W. was leaning in listening to her conversation. As I approached, she yelled into it, “So I told him he could jist ferget about gettin’ any more off me until he come around and faced the music, and by god I meant it.”

C.W. pointed at her and said to me, “She’s missing something called ‘her monthly.’ Is that a check or something?”

I said nothing. The woman lowered her phone and pressed it against one meaty thigh. “Do you mind?” she said, “I’m talking here.”

“I don’t mind,” he said.

She started to say something. Then she looked at me and smiled. Two of her front teeth were missing and two were capped in gold. She looked at C.W. and nodded toward me. “He a friend of yours?” she said.

I left then, fast. C.W. followed along behind. As we walked away, I could hear the woman yelling into her phone again. “He can jist go waller around with one of them whores at ‘The Dance and Duck’ as far as I’m concerned."

We approached the baking goods section. As usual, there were a couple of elderly ladies parked there, examining the various cake mixes. As we passed them, C.W. said, “What does it mean when a woman says she missed her monthly?” Two heads snapped toward us.

I hurried on. When we reached the end of the aisle, C.W. pointed toward the personal care area and said, “I need to go over there. I’ll be right back.”

“No,” I said. “You’re not about to pull that one on me. You do remember that’s why you don’t get to come here with my wife anymore, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

 “You don’t remember yelling across the store to her that you had found the feminine products section?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Why indeed? I don’t suppose you remember stopping an assistant manager and suggesting that he display the Ramen Noodles over by the condom section either, do you? That store over in the college town? Ring a bell?”

“That couldn’t have been me.”

Big Dope is such a good husband, always
offering to go shopping for his wife. - C.W.

“Then who was it that suggested that same day that they move the Mountain Dew drinks over to the firearms section?”

“You must have me mixed up with someone else,” he said.

“Like the unknown person that slipped the ‘Day of the Week’ panties into my cart last time we came here?”

“Someone did that?”

I started answer, but he had stopped beside another woman yelling into a cell phone.

“This time,” she said to an unknown listener, “I let them keep him in there until he dried out. I told them I didn’t care if he was a deacon. If First Baptist wanted him, they could go get him.”

See also:
Delta Dreaming

All Hat No Cattle

Order Big Dope's Book at Wattensaw Press, Amazon, or other book sellers.

338. Shopping

People ask me how I manage an unearthly creature with a strange sense of humor. I tell them it isn’t easy. For example, I made the mistake of taking him to Big Mart yesterday. Never again.

He had assumed the form, usually one of his least troublesome, of Sanford the Senior Citizen. He wore shorts that stopped just above his knobby knees and a bright shirt with “Been There. Done That” printed across the top. A sporty hat of straw completed the look.

He usually converses in a plain and honest fashion when shaped up as Sanford. Honesty works at home, but not so well byond I found out to my dismay.

We did fine until we reached the vegetable section. Actually, it was the first place we reached as we began going counter-clockwise around the store. He stopped me there and demanded that we go clockwise. I patiently explained to him that one did not go clockwise through Big Mart, and he began to yell that he was much more knowledgeable about how to go through stores than I. A man behind us asked politely if we might take our argument elsewhere. We moved over and allowed him to pass. I heard C.W., Sanford, whoever, say, “Up yours sonny,” to him as he passed. I pretended to examine the cabbage.

We moved a few feet and were, ourselves, stopped by a woman talking on a cell phone. She spoke loud enough to be heard a block away, but C.W. eased up directly behind her, leaned in, and cupped a hand to his ear. I picked up a package of carrots and studied them.

The lady seemed to be talking to a friend about her husband, or boyfriend, one or the other, for she listened a moment and announced, “I told him he ain’t getting’ that stuff no more ‘til he straightens out. No sir.”

C.W. turned to me and pointed at her with a lewd grin. She listened to the phone, then spoke again. “I told him I didn’t know where that thang had been, so he could just keep it to hisself.”

At that point, C.W. took a large cucumber from a stack and offered it to her. “Tell him you done found a replacement for him anyway,” he said to her.

A large crowd and an assistant manager later, we moved over to the meat section. Another woman blocked our way, Words fail me in describing her. C.W. called her “the circle woman,” pointing out that her height and width radii were equal. She was wearing a short pullover and, evidently, nothing else. Did I mention that it was short?

A voice rang through the store. “Look at them hams,” I reversed direction and pretended I had never seen the speaker. I managed to avoid him until I turned into an aisle in the health goods section. There he was, maybe thirty feet away. He formed his hands into a megaphone and yelled at the top of his voice, “Hey, Big Dope. Here’s them Tampons you wanted.” Every head within hearing distance turned toward me.

I rushed over and pulled him aside. “This is not the place for jokes,” I said.

“That’s what Mrs. Big Dope said when I came with her,” he said. Then he grew serious, pointed toward the main aisle, and said, “If this is not the pace for jokes, explain that.”

I don't understand it. Big Dope doesn't cook, but
always heads for the cookware section. - C.W.

He pointed toward the sporting goods section at a man with a three-day growth of beard, and who had a Jim Beam hat perched back on his head. A dirty shirt with the sleeves cut out revealed half his midsection behind meaty arms. He wore cutoff jeans and high-top tennis shows that hung loose and untied. An enormous stomach protruded a good foot beyond the waistband of his jeans. The arm nearest us sported a tattoo of an unrecognizable creature of some sort with, barely readable below it, the words “Kiss me. I’m Irish.” He must have gotten the work done when he was a much thinner man.

“You’ve got a point,” I said to C.W. “Now let’s get out of here.”

“Wait one,” he said. “I’ve a marketing idea I want to pass on to this guy.” The same assistant manager we had met before walked over when C.W. beckoned.

“This is a college town, right?” C.W. asked.

“Why yes sir, it is,” the man said.

“Have you considered,” C.W. said, “the potential increase in sales if you were to stock the Raman Noodles and condoms side by side?”

Click on some ads. It costs them money and makes me some.

Also check out www.allhatnocattle.com

And buy Big Dope's book at Amazon

or  www.wattensawpress.com .

Taste

Dear Ask The Alien
My brother is a year younger than I am, but the same size and height. I have caught him several times now trying on my clothes, including my best wig. When I confront him, he makes up weird stories, the last being that he just wanted to gain access to the girl’s locker room at our local gym. He also claims that he wants to familiarize himself with the way women dress in order to perfect his skills at helping them undress—when the time comes. In addition, he steals my glamor magazines and hides them in his room. Yesterday I found him practicing walking in my best pair of heels. He claimed he was simply “developing empathy.”

My question to you is this: should I offer him tips on selecting wardrobes and makeup? He has a tendency to mix plaids and stripes, and his lipstick choices clash with his skin color. Plus, his favorite outfit makes his butt look huge. And don’t get me started on his horrible tastes in jewelry. I hate to intrude on his fantasies, but I don’t want his poor grooming choices to reflect badly on our family. Any suggestions?

Signed,
Helpful Sister

 Dear Helpful Sister:

Perhaps you could subject him to what your species calls “aversion therapy.” Tie him to a chair and make him view pictures of those women they call The Kardashians. Ask him if he wants to end up like that. Then show him photos of rich and famous women. My research shows that poor taste rises in direct proportion to wealth. That should send him to a sartorial school or back to faded jeans and sneakers in short order. Oh, and please send photos, for my, uh, files.
Yours,
The Alien C.W.

Need I say more? - C.W.

See Also: www.wattensawpress.com

183. Homes

If you remember, one of C.W.’s firm decisions to do or not to do something for the coming year (new year’s resolutions) was to have his own thick piece of soft material used to reduce friction or jarring (pad, or home). I made the mistake of not nipping this idea in the bud and …

He came walking in a couple of days later carrying this huge set of plans and proceeded to unroll it on the kitchen table.

To say they were plans for a new home would be like saying that Gone With the Wind was a story about a little southern girl.

The roll laid flat must have been an inch thick. I walked over and looked. Oh my. What lay before me were plans for a monstrous building on several acres of land. A quick review indicated a structure of maybe 15,000 square feet.

“C.W.,” I said, “what is this?”

“My new home.”

“Your new home?”

“Nice, huh?”

“Your new home?”

“I’ll be the envy of the Galaxy.”

“You’ll be institutionalized,” I said. “This is monstrous.”

“As they say, just a little place to lay my head.”

I flipped a sheet. “And who all is going to live here?”

“Just me,” he said as if I had just asked why we need air to breath.

“In this thing?”

“Let me walk you through it,” he said, beginning to point out features. “See the five-car garage?”

“But you don’t have a car.”

“Not now,” he said, then he continued. “Here is the bedroom floor. Six bedrooms, each with its own bath. Of course the master bedroom is on the ground floor. This wing here.” He pointed to a room that measured 20 feet by 30 feet on the plans. “Right next to the ‘theater room’ so,” he blushed, “the effects of a romantic movie won’t be spoiled by having to climb stairs.”

“What’s this?” I said, pointing to a large room attached to the master bathroom.

“An office.”

“In the master bathroom?”

“One never knows,” he said. “when opportunity may call.”

“This is ridiculous,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “Isn’t America a great place?”

I said, “And who would pay the utilities?”

“You would,” he said. “It’s part of the agreement.”

“And who will pay for building the thing?”

“That’s the beauty of it,” he said. “We’ll soon be able to afford this and more.”

“And how, exactly?”

He assumed a pedantic tone. “In case you haven’t noticed, it is rapidly becoming legal to grow cannabissativa in this country. We,” he stopped, “You, and Mrs. Big Dope have several hundred acres of prime farmland. Money will be no object once folks start lighting up.”

“Have you already started?”

He ignored me. “This plan can’t fail.”

“Oh yes it can.” I said.

“And just how?”

With great fortune comes great responsibility.
Success must be matched by good taste. - C.W.

I didn’t know where to start. “Well, for one thing, there are thousands of folks in our state that own more farmland than we. If only a portion of them move to pot as their main crop, oversupply will ruin the price.”

“That’s the beauty of it,” he said again.

“Over-supply?”

“Farm subsidies,” he said.

I groaned.

“Who do you want to select as our contractor?” he said.

115. Expectations

C.W. was giving me a hard time, not for anything in particular, just on general principles. It had something to do with his latest review by the Falloonian Elders. He was pedantic, which explained his professorial get-up, complete with thick horn-rimmed glasses, bow-tie, and a tweed sports coats with patches on the elbows.

 

“They aren’t satisfied with my choice of an Earthling counterpart,” he said.

“Choose another, then,” I said.

“It’s not quite that easy,” he said. “You see, a person’s path to enlightenment is formed by the realism-expectation didactic.”

“Whatever,” I said. “So what is their major complaint?”

He thought. “They feel,” he stopped. “How did they put it ...?”

“That I am too good for this world?”

“No, they seem to think that you are, as they put it, a parchestantic shy of a firnicastachian.”

That hurt, but I tried not to let it show.

“For example,” he said. “You don’t even know how to send text messages on your cell phone.”

“Somehow I survive.”

“Your picture has never been in the society section of your newspaper. I know. I have researched the matter.”

“Guilty,” I said.

“I find no evidence that you fly fish, play golf or tennis, or even make periodic pilgrimages to Savannah, Georgia.”

“So?”

“It wouldn’t hurt you to try and fit the mold.” He brandished a stack of travel brochures.

“I’m not going to Branson, Missouri.”

He quickly removed the topmost brochure. “Nobody is asking you to.”

“Where then?”

“Well,” he said, glancing down. “There is Disneyland.”

“Why don’t you take those brochures and …” I began before he interrupted me.

“Now don’t become hostile in the face of honest criticism.”

“Besides,” I said, calming a bit. “I am going to a cultural event, next week in fact, and I am taking you and the entire family.”

“Oh boy,” he said, resorting to the childlike C.W. that charms our hearts so. “Where?”

Oh boy! Nothing beats the King Biscuit Blues Festival.
Here is B.B. King from a couple of years ago.
Big Dope is so good to me. - C.W.

“The King Biscuit Blues Festival in Helena-West Helena, Arkansas.”

He brightened for a second before re-assuming his serious demeanor. “Uh,” he said. “Don’t you see?” He paused, choosing his words slowly. “Isn’t that a bit earthy? The Elders expect something more, well, socially prominent for our social forays.”

I smiled. Some mischievous cosmic force had delivered him into my hands. “Okay,” I said. “We won’t go.”

Alarm spread across his face. “Oh no,” he said. “I think we should.” He collected his thoughts and grimaced perceptibly, “We can always attend a wine-tasting when we return.”          

55. Stereotypes

August brings many things in our state, the most noticeable of these being heat. But it also produces great fruit. So it was no surprise when I saw C.W. Approaching me in the park carrying an ice chest and looking for all the world like a real country bumpkin. I’m talking overalls that stopped two inches above his ankles, a straw hat, and a dingy blue shirt topped off with a red bandana tied around his neck.


I was not surprised when, after sitting beside me, he opened his ice-chest to reveal two full crescents of watermelon, one of the treats that make Arkansas bearable in August.

“Lookee here what I brung us,” he said in his best imitation of a hick southern accent. He retrieved a slice and tried to hand it to me but I declined.

“Don’chew like watermelon?” he said.

“Not right here and right now.”

“Don’t mind if I do?”

A year or so ago I would have found it embarrassing but I have developed a tolerance for his antics. Besides, most of the visitors to the park are tourists so, who cares?

I shrugged and watched him as he took the slice in his hands and studied it. He lifted it toward his face but then stopped and lowered it, turning to me.

“How do y’all do this?”

“Do what?”

“Eat watermelon this way.”

“What way?”

“Just cramming your face down in it.”

I just looked at him.

“I mean there has to be some secret to it.” He raised the slice toward his face, but stopped short again. “Ain’t there?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“Ain’t you a country boy?”

“I was raised one.”

“Country roots?”

“As country as you can get.”

“Then what is the secret? How do people in the country do it?

“Want to know a real secret?”

“That’s the general idee,” he said trying again to sound “country.”

I have never in my life seen anyone raised in the country eat watermelon that way.”

“What?”

“Sorry, but the only people I have ever seen stick their face in a melon and cover themselves with sticky juice are city kids at parties and festivals.”

“You gotta be puttin’ me on.”

“Sorry, my mother would have worn a persimmon tree switch out on us if she had ever caught us eating a watermelon that way.”

“Then how, uh, how did you?”

Southern cats are too cool for sloppy eating habits

“With eating utensils, how do you think?”

“Well black people sure did it this way, didn’t they?”

“I’ve never seen a black person eat a watermelon, but I seriously doubt it.”

“But all them pictures…”

“Dehumanizing stereotypes are hard to amend.”

“What makes you think that some of your country cousins might not have done it this way?”

“Well there is one good reason, a real southern one.

”What’s that?”

“Flies.”

54. Privacy

It was August, when the climate doesn’t support civilized life in our part of the world. It is a good time to avoid contact with strangers and any sort of extended arguments. Walking is best done as early as possible in the morning.


So, daylight found me circling our downtown park, thinking about lost loves and missed opportunities. The park was deserted, that is until a figure emerged from a walking path and filed in a dozen or so feet behind me.

It was a well-rounded female dressed in spandex pants and a white t-shirt, both several sizes too small. I chose to ignore her and resumed my thoughts until she closed the gap and began speaking in a voice that pierced the morning peace like a flying shard of glass.

“By God you’d better not start that stuff up with me again.”

I looked and saw that she had an “ear-bud” attached and was undoubtedly carrying on a phone conversation. I continued walking.

“That’s what I told him,” she said. “He just acted like I was one of them two-bit whores he hangs out with.”

I walked faster, hoping to distance myself from the telephone talker. No luck—she sped up as well, even sounding closer that before.

“Then he come across that bed and started tryin’ to make up with me.”

She was quiet momentarily as the person on the other end said something. I took the opportunity to turn right in another attempt to escape.

“Hell, no,” she resumed as she followed me. “I told him he wadn’t gettin’ nothin’ off me as long as he kept actin’ the way he’d been doin’”

I went into a very slow jog, actually more of a waddle, hoping to gain some distance. It worked for a few minutes before I heard her gaining on me.

“Well, hell I had to go to the Doctor that morning and take a stool sample. I’m here to tell you it was stinkin’ like hell before I got there. I finally got in around ten-thirty and he put me up on that table … “

I had heard enough. Luckily, I was passing a bench and managed ease onto it so she could pass on by and take her conversation with her.

Unbelievably, she sat down beside me and started up again.

“Then I caught Betty Lou and her boyfriend in her bedroom when I got back and he had his hand just about …”

I jumped up again and started off. “Hey big dope,” she said. “Where do you think you’re going?”

I turned around and stared. “C.W. have you gone completely mad?”

“What?”

“Are you trying to be a total idiot?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean with this telephone crap?”

“Don’t you enjoy listening to it?”

“Not particularly. It’s disgusting.”

“Hell, that was tame compared to what I hear on a daily basis,” he stopped and spoke into the earpiece. “I’ll call you back later.” Then he turned to me. “Is there no conversation you people won’t share publicly?”

“Sometimes I think not.”

“Weird,” he said, as he folded the phone and stared into space.