American Thighs (20 page)

And so, after much debate about methodology, a rescue team was assembled and our little Jonah-girl was extracted from the belly of the beast. It is not known if she went thence to Ninevah or if she had to pay for the cow, but she did have a beer and decided she definitely needed some new friends.

T
hen, and only then, may you give me a “Thank you, MA'AM!” Somewhere around the time that we go from thongs and stilettos to pillowcases with leg holes and black Merrell sandals, we also go from cute girls to ma'ams. And it is most unsettling.

We really don't mind the conversion to comfy clothing, but being relegated to the Ma'am Section does not have the same soothing effect on our psyches. The first time you get called “Ma'am” by some young man you were just thinking was a cutie-pie, well, your psyche will be singularly unsoothed, I can promise you that. You will be ALL rumpled up in spirit, bordering closely on disgruntlement, I'd say.

I read a letter in an advice column from one just such rum
pled-up, disgruntled woman who had been recently christened a ma'am by a man she didn't think was sufficiently younger than herself so as to warrant such a distinction and she was horrified. I'm not certain what relief she expected to get from the columnist, but the response printed would not have been much salve for my own soul so I doubt seriously that Angelina from St. Paul was much consoled either.

Apparently, the appalling appellation had been so shocking to Angelina from St. Paul that it forced to the forefront of her consciousness that all of a sudden she was forty-five years old and trapped in a body that featured a striking re-creation of her own mother's butt. Angelina was not having a good day.

The advice giver was clearly about twelve years old and I hope she's saving all her columns so she can go back and do the written equivalent of biting her tongue when she is on the other side of fifty and looks back at some of her answers.

The little Larva columnist wrote her—and they printed it in the paper—that getting older was nothing more than a “new and more interesting phase” and that she should celebrate her new curves and also be happy that some young people in the world still have good manners.

All us old women can tell her that it is “new and interesting” in much the same vein that waking up to a sky raining frogs and discovering that you and the world at large had suddenly been hit with a plague of boils would also be “new and interesting.”

We can tell her that waking up to the discovery that you
have your mama's butt cannot, with a straight face or a glad heart, be described and dismissed as “new curves.” That would be like the Weather Channel telling the folks in the path of a Cat 5 hurricane, “Nice breeze today and surf's up!” (Which they have never done, by the way.) Everybody knows you can't improve on impending doom by saying sweet things about it—with the one notable exception of this advice columnist, obviously.

OF COURSE there are still young people in the world with good manners—they're from THE SOUTH, hel-lo? Instilling and insisting on good manners is one of the things we do best and consistently, and part of that program is calling EVERYBODY of ANY AGE “Sir” or “Ma'am,” as is deemed appropriate by the apparent gender of the person to whom we are speaking. Occasionally, we encounter a “Pat-type” person whose gender is not readily discernible from a casual distance and we are forced to make a wild guess—and in those cases, there is a fifty-fifty chance we will guess right. There is a momentary awkwardness, of course, when we guess WRONG, but we are compelled to assign every human either a “ma'am” or a “sir” in direct conversation with them, so risks must be taken and any unfortunate consequences just have to be dealt with after the fact.

What Angelina wanted and needed to hear from the columnist was, “WHAT? He called YOU ‘Ma'am'?! The very idea! Why, you don't look a day over twenty-seven! Clearly, he was just being overly polite and he prolly says that to every female in the world, just 'cause his mama told him to. And you do NOT
have your mama's butt—you have a perfect little butter bean of a butt back there—what are you talking about?”

The main problem in that situation is plain to everybody who was reared in the South—the plaintiff was from Minnesota, the guy who uttered the offensive “Ma'am” was clearly from somewhere Southern, and the adviser was from New York. So only ONE person in this trio REALLY knew what was going on.

Our good friend and fellow author Bobby Cole (
The Dummy Line,
Context Publishing Company, 2008) is admittedly a FEW years younger than I am—who isn't, besides God and Ann-Margret?—but he is not THAT much younger, you know what I mean? And yet despite all my protestations to the contrary, he INSISTS on calling me “Mizz Jill.” I do think perhaps that's worse than Ma'am. Ma'am at least can be passed off as a generic term of politeness; when they tack a “Mizz” or “Miss” on the front of your first name, it's PERSONAL. I have finally solved the problem, though—I just call HIM “MR. BOBBY.”

I recently received a query from a Queen in central Florida regarding the “Southernese” usage of a word. She freely acknowledged that while technically she had for some years made her home in a Southern location—that didn't qualify her as Southern. I applauded her for knowing the difference. It's the whole kittens-in-the-oven-ain't-exactly-biscuits mistake that many Individuals Geographically Marooned Outside the South (IGMOS) often make. This Queen had the grace to at least
know what she didn't know and so she came to the Font of All Wisdom—me, of course—for an explanation of the Southern usage of the word
ugly.

She had encountered a group of women crowded together in a small area where many were vying for space and more were expected to arrive momentarily. One particular woman in the group kept remarking on how tight the quarters were and expressing her irritation at the anticipated advent of newcomers. Her complaining grew more intense, and as it did so, she began prefacing her venomous statements with the phrase “Now, I don't want to be ugly but…” Or she closed them with “…but I don't want to be ugly.”

Queenie was nonplussed. WHO would WANT to BE UGLY? Why should it ever be necessary to state out loud for the benefit of others that one, in fact, did not harbor any secret hankerings to be deemed unattractive? Queenie was so distressed by the woman's continued disclaimer that she finally felt moved to speak up and assure the woman that she need have no fear, she was really quite fetching and in no danger whatsoever of being thought unfortunate-looking—not even plain—“You're really cute,” she said with assurance.

And so Queenie was even more confused by the look she got in response to her kind offer of affirmation. “I couldn't tell if she thought I was stupid, rude, or out of my mind, but she clearly did not appreciate my attempt to bolster her confidence in her appearance.”

“And then what happened?” I wanted to know. Queenie said she left to go to the bar after the woman blessed her heart and everybody else looked real uncomfortable.

Oh, my—poor Queenie. She had no idea what just happened to her. I explained to her that what the woman had been doing was venting her spleen about the poor planning that caused the overcrowded conditions and she was affixing the blame for her discomfort to a certain person or persons but she was not sufficiently displeased as to be willing to confront the planners face-to-face about the situation nor did she wish to be quoted on the matter, and thus, the all-purpose Southern anti-venom—“I don't want to be ugly, but…”

Ugly
in this case is not describing an unattractive physical appearance—it means being unkind or unpleasant—and if one is Southern, one can freely SAY all the unkind, unpleasant—indeed, snipey and downright snarky—things one wants to say about another and then totally defuse it by assuring one's listeners that one “doesn't want to be ugly” about it.

About the heart blessing—I asked Queenie, “Did she laugh and give you a hug when she said it?” No, Queenie said—the woman gave her a pitying look, patted her hand, and said, “Bless your heart, hunny.” “Was that bad?” she asked.

Oh, mercy—I knew instantly why the rest of the group had fallen into an uncomfortable silence. Queenie had just been dog-cussed by the quintessential Southern Woman—who still didn't want to be ugly.

This stuff cannot be taught, can it? Y'all all saw it coming from the first paragraph—and she STILL doesn't know what hit her. Bless her little heart.

Ahhh, my South—home of sweet tea, tall porches with ceiling fans, warm hospitality, and the most gracious hostility.

P.S.

While there may be the occasional misunderstanding about the use of the word
ugly
in reference to one's self and one's desire to not be so, there is, as far as I know, only ONE accepted use for
the word
pretty,
and it means just that, which is not to say that no care need be taken in the use of it.

Case in point: A bunch of us Queens, all of or above a Certain Age, encountered a woman who, although admittedly younger than US, was still not likely to be considered exactly “YOUNG” by anybody's standards, and somehow or other this only-slightly-less-old-than-us woman worked it into the conversation that the great burden of her LIFE had always been that, in whatever crowd she found herself, SHE was always…. “The Pretty One.” Oh, my, what an affliction.

Needless to say—as a group, we found this terribly off-putting, and the looks exchanged amongst us registered, wordlessly but nonetheless unanimously, the opinion that “either she must have always made sure to run with a fairly unattractive bunch of dog balls or she was perhaps giving herself unwarranted airs on account of, she was okay but we didn't think there was any overabundance of letters being written home about her great beauty.”

Word to Those Wishing for Wisdom: While it is wonderful and certainly important to have and maintain a good opinion of one's appearance, it's generally best to let others notice it for themselves and offer any verbal confirmation they choose about the subject rather than introducing the topic one's self.

T
here are times when Life Itsownself seems more difficult than it should be and we may feel the need for a bit of a leg up on a perplexing problem, and toward this end, we often seek the costly opinions of professional listeners.

I am of the opinion that—except in the case of true mental illness, which I believe is still fairly uncommon—most “therapy” amounts to expensive self-indulgence for those of us who have used up our free resources by wearing all available friends and family slap OUT with our never-ending whinings about our Situations, and now we would prefer to pay large sums of money to a stranger who is willing (for a price) to endlessly listen to our endless crap—as opposed to just, say, DOING something DIFFERENT.

What all GOOD “therapy” boils down to is this:

Now, you can pay thousands and thousands and a few more thousands of dollars over decades of your life to Talk About Your Problems—and that is certainly your prerogative—but sooner or later, if you want things to actually GET BETTER, there will come a Time when you identify what it is you're doing that's making you miserable and then, hopefully, shortly after that, there will come a time when you STOP doing whatever it is that's making you miserable and START doing something else instead. All I'm saying is—you could do that SOONER rather than LATER, if you was of a mind to, and that a therapist who is willing to “take you to raise” (for a fee) by endlessly indulging your fascination with yourself is not doing you any favors.

A GOOD therapist will help you identify your problem and your options for resolution—perhaps encourage you to choose one and act on it—and then send you on your way with some new tools for living your own life. You can pop back in the next time you need such help—it shouldn't be like a standing NAIL appointment, for crying out loud—which, now that you mention it, is kinda what it amounts to: crying out loud.

Endless Therapy—just like Worry—is not a substitute for taking action—it's something we do when we don't WANT to
take action. And that's fine—as long as we know what we're doing—and not doing, as it were. But once more, let me say, I'm not talking about mental illness here—that requires an actual physician-type person and it is not within the personal power of the patient to control. Choosing to NOT use our personal power is infinitely different than not having any.

Okay, for all of us who just basically want to be rescued from whatever life situation we've gotten ourselves into—and who doesn't?—that would be SOOOO great if some mama or daddy figure could just pick us up and tell us don't worry about this for one second and then go fix it for us. Whooo-man—sign me up for THAT! However, that is NOT available, and even if it was, the line would be way too long—we'd prolly die before it was our turn. But, in lieu of actual rescue, perhaps some diversion would lighten your load.

Toward that end, let me suggest that you visit the Web site of Alexyss K. Tylor. She and her mama have a teevee show that airs on public access in the Atlanta area and they have got, as the evangelists love to say, a WORD for YOU today, my sistah! Ms. Tylor and her mama want us to know that we are GODDESSES and that we have, right there betwixt our very own legs, THE POWER—as in THE power—the MOST POWERFUL power on THIS planet—that's right, VAGINA POWER trumps ALL.

And Ms. Tylor and her mama are here to tell us all how to put our very own Vagina Power to work not only for ourselves
but for the whole world—especially for ourselves, though. My very favorite episode, so far, is where Ms. Tylor explains to her mama how it is that, on occasion, “DICK will make you SLAP SOMEBODY—inna FACE!”

I know I have found that to be true in my own life experience so many, many times—I just never fully understood WHY it happened—and now I do. You can have this understanding, too, and learn all the many ways that you have been underutilizing your Vagina Power, and, even better, the many more ways you can improve your interpersonal relationships, particularly with men, so that you need never again find yourself involved with a man to whom you have personally given Everything and from whom you have not even received so much as a shrimp dinner from Long John Silver's, which only costs, what? $2.49?

I'm telling you—Alexyss K. Tylor has some Answers for some of you this very day. The information is free—as is your choice to make good use of it. If you are consuming liquids when you access the show, make sure that you turn your head AWAY from your monitor and keyboard—the eruption from your nasal passages will destroy them.

I recently saw an ad in a small-town Southern newspaper for a man representing himself as a marriage counselor. It features a photo of him wearing a big smile and a rakish fedora hat, which inspired my confidence in him from the get-go. His lead-in was quite catchy, although somewhat cryptic, in my opinion:
“IT is what IT is,” with the two
it
s in all caps for emphasis. He claims the title of “Dr.” and has the initials “B.Y.U.” after his name, in parentheses. W.T.F.? Okay, and he's not JUST a doctor and a B.Y.U.—he's also a Prophet, excuse me, The Prophet AND The King of Wisdom.

Perhaps this is what has led to my rather less-than-high opinion of so many so-called therapists—none of the individuals from whom I personally ever sought help had the “B.Y.U.” distinction and certainly none of them claimed overtly to be The Prophet and/or The King of Wisdom. Not a ONE of them EVER told me, “IT is what IT is.” This explains a lot about me, in my opinion, and now that I KNOW that IT is what IT is, I expect things will be a lot different around here. And I got that for FREE, from his ad—I can only imagine how much more my life can be improved if I avail myself of his actual services for dollars.

In addition to marriage consulting—that's the next word he used in conjunction with marriage—is the consulting different from the counseling? I'll ask him and let you know—no charge. You can also get him to help you with Mental Dynamics—not sure what that is but it's bound to be good, don't you think? In addition, he can help you out with Spiritual Awareness—also sounds helpful—and then you can get some Brain Building.

My sister, Judy, wants to get some Brain Building assistance but I told her I thought it was a bad idea because unless she gets all her friends (and me) to sign up for it as well, she will not
have anybody to talk to. She saw the wisdom of this theory right off.

The Good Doctor further states in his ad a description of What a Woman Needs—I read this part closely—being a woman and often in need, it was of particular interest to me. According to him, our needs are as follows:

• From ages 0 to 18 we need “Good Parents!” He uses an exclamation point so I will, too!
  
• From ages 18 to 35 we need “Good Looks!” That's all we need, or at least that's all he listed, but he also ended with an exclamation point so here you go!
  
• From ages 35 to 50 we need “Good Personality!”
  
• From ages 50 to 65 we need “CASH!”
  

There is no mention of any womanly needs that might arise from age 65 and older.

Well, he certainly has got it all figured out so I guess I'll be calling him, and I feel confident it will be the best money I ever spent—I can't wait for the New Me. I am happy that I am past the point of needing both good looks and good personality—whew, that's lucky!—and now am in the “cash only” phase of life. I am only hoping that he has some fund-raising ideas for ME that are as good as the one he's found for HIMSELF.

With any luck, I might even be able to open a branch office for him in Jackson. Need to know what the “B.Y.U.” is—perhaps
it's something I can already do—Blow You Up or Bring Your Underwear? Upon further inquiry, I learned that he offers counseling only on specific days—I would like that, setting my own hours and allowing for a lot of downtime—but he also offers a hand car-wash service, which I am under NO circumstances willing to do for anybody anytime. I won't even drive THROUGH a car wash. I'll be willing to work for less money and focus my energies solely on the counseling aspects with no bonus car washes thrown in. If you want the full-service deal, you'll just have to see him hisownself.

He closes his ad with yet another snappy but obscure motto: “REMEMBER, LET IT DO WHAT IT DO!” Uh-huh.

Now, SEE? And you thought life was so hard. If you're reading this as a youngster, great, I just saved you several decades of chasing your tail. If you're old, like me, well, it's better tardy than not at all, isn't it? Let's go lie down and ponder this great wisdom. I am SO READY to just let it do what it do.

Not sure what that means, though. Am I doing it now? Does this look right?