God Save the Sweet Potato Queens by Jill Conner Browne
Authors: Jill Conner Browne
Tags: Fiction
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hurt if she didn’t get around to their house in a timely fashion. I don’t know, but I think this kind of thing may not happen anywhere but small Southern towns in the homes of those “prissy” Southern women I am so proud to know.
Prissy Is as Prissy Does
Tammy is good friends with this tiny, soft-spoken, very Belle-like woman named Rosalie, and as it happens, their respective daughters also share a friendship. Tammy tells of dropping her own daughter off for a visit late one afternoon and taking time for a little visit of her own with Rosalie. They sat for a while in the sunroom, catching up on gossip and sipping iced tea. Just outside the sunroom window, living up to his familial calling, was Rosalie’s yap dog, Mr. Bob. Tammy was hearing only every third word out of Rosalie’s mouth and could scarcely hear herself think. All in all, it was making for a most unsatisfactory gossip session—excellent if you were behind in dog-yapping, but not much for human conversation. Every now and again, Rosalie would interrupt herself midsentence to admonish Mr. Bob to kindly shut the fuck up and go away—all in the daintiest, most ladylike terms and tone, of course, but to no avail. Mr. Bob just kept right on yipping and yapping and slobbering on the windows.
Finally, Tammy had gotten all the good there was out of the situation and started making her escape. As they were leaving, Rosalie opened the door and let the vociferous Mr. Bob into the room with them, an act that nearly rendered Tammy both deaf and insane. She bounded to her car, only to be followed by Rosalie and the still-yapping Mr. Bob, with Rosalie still sweetly asking him to please hush, which seemed only to increase his fervor and volume. Tammy leapt into her car, but Rosalie continued to talk. At least she assumed Rosalie was talking—her lips were moving—but the only sound penetrating the glass was, of course, that of the garrulous Mr. Bob. Tammy pondered for a moment the possibility that Rosalie herself had taken up the yap in concert with Mr. Bob. She rolled down her window to find out. Rosalie was uttering words, after all, but Tammy could hear only snatches of them at the odd intervals. Mr. Bob apparently had no need for oxygen, so ceaseless and seamless was the yapping. Finally, even Rosalie reached a limit for the vociferous Mr. Bob. Without so much as a warning frown or grimace—indeed her eyes never left Tammy’s face—she leaned down, snatched up the hideous hair ball, and with the ever-sweet admonition to “Hush now,” she hurled Mr. Bob right over the fence into the backyard, where he landed with a soft
whoosh
in a fortuitously located pile of pine straw. If he had been of slightly different shape, he would have traveled in a perfect spiral reminiscent of those expertly launched missiles of Mississippi’s own Brett Favre or even our sacred Archie Manning.
The suddenness of the act seemed to shock Mr. Bob into momentary silence, during which Rosalie calmly finished her sentence with nary a trace in her demeanor to indicate that she had just fired the family dog over the fence like a rocket. We hold this up for you as a prime example of our fine upbringing in the South. Indeed, it illustrates many facets of our training and abilities that we feel necessary to the smooth running of life. Tolerance for lesser beings—she never raised her voice. Self-control—she never lost her temper, didn’t even appear to own a temper. Ability to handle crises without undue fuss or muss—she did not so much as move a hair. Calm assessment of situations, quick identification of options, selection of best course of action, and speedy implementation, all accomplished in less time than it took to finish a normal-sized sentence and without a single drop of sweat. Independence and self-reliance—did she need or try to procure a man to handle this problem for her? She did not. It also clearly demonstrates that although we may appear to be deaf, dumb, and
Prissy Is as Prissy Does
Tammy is good friends with this tiny, soft-spoken, very Belle-like woman named Rosalie, and as it happens, their respective daughters also share a friendship. Tammy tells of dropping her own daughter off for a visit late one afternoon and taking time for a little visit of her own with Rosalie. They sat for a while in the sunroom, catching up on gossip and sipping iced tea. Just outside the sunroom window, living up to his familial calling, was Rosalie’s yap dog, Mr. Bob. Tammy was hearing only every third word out of Rosalie’s mouth and could scarcely hear herself think. All in all, it was making for a most unsatisfactory gossip session—excellent if you were behind in dog-yapping, but not much for human conversation. Every now and again, Rosalie would interrupt herself midsentence to admonish Mr. Bob to kindly shut the fuck up and go away—all in the daintiest, most ladylike terms and tone, of course, but to no avail. Mr. Bob just kept right on yipping and yapping and slobbering on the windows.
Finally, Tammy had gotten all the good there was out of the situation and started making her escape. As they were leaving, Rosalie opened the door and let the vociferous Mr. Bob into the room with them, an act that nearly rendered Tammy both deaf and insane. She bounded to her car, only to be followed by Rosalie and the still-yapping Mr. Bob, with Rosalie still sweetly asking him to please hush, which seemed only to increase his fervor and volume. Tammy leapt into her car, but Rosalie continued to talk. At least she assumed Rosalie was talking—her lips were moving—but the only sound penetrating the glass was, of course, that of the garrulous Mr. Bob. Tammy pondered for a moment the possibility that Rosalie herself had taken up the yap in concert with Mr. Bob. She rolled down her window to find out. Rosalie was uttering words, after all, but Tammy could hear only snatches of them at the odd intervals. Mr. Bob apparently had no need for oxygen, so ceaseless and seamless was the yapping. Finally, even Rosalie reached a limit for the vociferous Mr. Bob. Without so much as a warning frown or grimace—indeed her eyes never left Tammy’s face—she leaned down, snatched up the hideous hair ball, and with the ever-sweet admonition to “Hush now,” she hurled Mr. Bob right over the fence into the backyard, where he landed with a soft
whoosh
in a fortuitously located pile of pine straw. If he had been of slightly different shape, he would have traveled in a perfect spiral reminiscent of those expertly launched missiles of Mississippi’s own Brett Favre or even our sacred Archie Manning.
The suddenness of the act seemed to shock Mr. Bob into momentary silence, during which Rosalie calmly finished her sentence with nary a trace in her demeanor to indicate that she had just fired the family dog over the fence like a rocket. We hold this up for you as a prime example of our fine upbringing in the South. Indeed, it illustrates many facets of our training and abilities that we feel necessary to the smooth running of life. Tolerance for lesser beings—she never raised her voice. Self-control—she never lost her temper, didn’t even appear to own a temper. Ability to handle crises without undue fuss or muss—she did not so much as move a hair. Calm assessment of situations, quick identification of options, selection of best course of action, and speedy implementation, all accomplished in less time than it took to finish a normal-sized sentence and without a single drop of sweat. Independence and self-reliance—did she need or try to procure a man to handle this problem for her? She did not. It also clearly demonstrates that although we may appear to be deaf, dumb, and
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