Jewel stayed the night over with Double Mamaw, and she apparently slept well from all the work we did that day, because I sure did. I got up a little earlier and made us fresh eggs, toast and added some cheese. Mamaw had left us cooked sausage, so I heated that up, and I made a pot of coffee because I really like it.

I set two places at the table, and set Double Mamaw’s tea up, ready for her when she woke up so we could bring her some, and I sat at the table and waited. Jewel must’ve smelled the food across the way, because in ten minutes she was over, hugging my neck and eating breakfast with me.

“Oh Peter, that looks so so good. Smelled so good I could almost taste it over there. I dreamed I was eating breakfast with you and your grandma on a train, and we were going to the mountains out west. You pointed out a tall monument of something or other, then the train man said, “Everybody off.”

“We stopped right there in the middle of nowhere, and just as I was about to complain about being stranded in the middle of nowhere, we walked past a bunch of food on the table in the dining car. Then I woke up, and realized I could smell coffee and wonderful sausage. I remembered where I was, and got up and came over here.”

Jewel finished with a wide eyed expression of surprise, mixed with mock alarm, then sipped her hot coffee. “Mmm, this is good. Black, just like I always drink at home in the morning. Thank you for a wonderful breakfast, Peter. You can cook! You cook really well.”

We both laughed at her dream at the same time, because it was just so silly. I told her, “We need to tell Mamaw we tried to watch church, so I need to find it on the TV and we kind of need to watch it with Double Mamaw when she gets awake.” Jewel agreed, and I went on, “Double Mamaw gets riled up sometimes if its a preacher we don’t know. She starts yelling at the TV, on second thought, never mind – you will see for yourself.” Jewel giggled at my statement, and we cleaned up the breakfast table, and sat there sipping coffee.

Double Mamaw came in about thirty minutes later, while we were still sipping our now cooled off coffee. She announced, “Hey you two young’uns. Here is your favorite old lady, back from the sleep realm. Hope y’all slept good; you probably did with all that barn work y’all did. Hope my snoring didn’t scare you, little miss Jewel.” Jewel assured her it did not.

“I bet Hiram Eustace will gripe for a month because he can’t find nothing out in that raggedy old barn, because it’s not messy anymore.” Double Mamaw laughed at the thought of that, and we told her how we organized it on hooks, so he could find everything, he just had to look UP now.

Double Mamaw sat down in her chair, and we brought her cheese grits, and a cup of tea. “That’s very sweet you two. Thanks for the breakfast service, just like an ol’ drive through. Y’all making me feel like one of them rich old ladies with a maid, yeah I could get some kind of used to this, haha!”

Double Mamaw continued, “If’n you two would, we need to get me on the couch propped up though, and you kids can sit on it with me, so we can all watch that preacher Charlene likes. She made me promise that I would watch church with you two, so I guess we can watch it. I don’t much like that preacher though, he is bad to spout heresies and I don’t think he has right Bible leanings. Charlene loves him so though, so I reckon I can force myself to sit through it for her sake, and for your’n.”

We helped Double Mamaw to the couch, and we propped her up on one side with her pillows she likes, and I got the remote and turned on the TV, and the service was started. We sat down on the other side of her, me on the end and Jewel in the middle, and I laughed, knowing it was about to get real funny watching Double Mamaw yell at that preacher.

He got up to the pulpit to preach, and Double Mamaw right off the bat said, “He looks like he has been shoveling down pork chops! Don’t that man know its a sin to overeat? How can you take the man serious, when he acts like Brother Fatbody Better than You? Nobody wants french fry grease on their Bible neither. And trying to comb that piece of hair over his bald head! It looks just like a busted fender on my old Plymouth!”

We nodded and started listening to the message, trying not to laugh. The message was on “Brotherly Love.” I was already struggling not to howl while giggling at her ‘Fatbody’ comment, and she remarked, “Look at that big head lady sitting just behind the preacher. Her head is pointy too. Brotherly love indeed, more like ‘loving everybody’s brother. Bet she is wearing a wig, and brother so-and-so put her up as his mistress, and plum bought it for her!”

Jewel and I laughed hard as Double Mamaw roasted almost everybody in the choir, and kept criticizing the preacher, for not saying what is right. She kept on and when the preacher started talking about ‘do unto others, as you would have them do unto you’ she almost yelled at the screen, “Do unto others, you’d better start doing unto yourself and push that plate away, preacher pork chop! Don’t even reach in that offering plate, and act like you trying to pray.”

She went on, out of the blue saying things like, “Don’t you touch that offering plate neither, sister Wig Head, the love of money is the root of all evil, and you dress like a harlot!” Other stuff she said, “That old song you are singing “Just As I Am” reminds me of the time I was broke, poor, hungry and Big Daddy was gone off to the railroad. I came to that church in our town “Just As I Am” and they sent me away “Just As I Was,” still broke, still poor, still hungry with sore feet!”

Me and Jewel were flat cracking up, losing it and not even trying to hide it. I am pretty sure Double Mamaw was just showing off for company a little, but this is exactly why we only carry her to church every once in awhile. She is ALWAYS like this, and I guess this is where Uncle Muddy gets his sarcasm from, because she could do a stand up comedy show. She is some kind of fun to watch church with.

When the sermon finished, Double Mamaw exclaimed, “That man is slimy Pete, so slimy! I feel like I need a shower he was so slick with it. He was so greasy, you could push him down on the ground, and he would slide for a mile!” Jewel and I lost it, and laughed so hard I dropped the remote, and the batteries went everywhere.

“Double Mamaw, it is over with, so we don’t have to listen anymore.” I told her that and she replied, “Good! I have had enough heresy for one day, rottening my feeble old mind, and it will take me a month to purge it out, with the real Word of God. Not that I read it much these days, now I need me some tobacco. Pete, fetch your old grandma some of that Prince Albert I got hid out in that flap of my chair. I gotta have me some chaw to blow all that mess out of my mind!”

I got her the special tin of tobacco, and a cup to spit in with a towel and gave it to her, after putting her back in the knitting chair. I put the pillows away from the couch, and fixed the remote and turned off the TV. She shooed me and Jewel off, “You two kids go play and let this ol’ lady stew in her misery, and chew my cud. I know you two are itching to go do stuff outside. I was a young lady once myself, but y’all play pretty and be sweet. I will be fine in here, that preacher ain’t flapping his gums no more, and I am settlin’ in for the day.”

We both gave her a hug, and told her we were just going to sit on the porch, and talk. She waved us off, but I saw a twinkle in her eye, and I knew she was showing out for Jewel, and Jewel loved every minute of it! I did too.

Jewel and me made it to the back porch, and she started laughing so hard, tears were in her eyes! I laughed with her and said, “I told you Double Mamaw gets riled up at that TV preacher! She has actually done this in church a few times, and that is why we never take her. And she does not care! If it enters that mind, she just blaps it right out!”

“Oh Pete, I never dreamed I would ever see anybody do that to a preacher, and she is so FUNNY! You could sit her in front of the grocery store and sell tickets! She is amazing, I just love her so. I wish my granny was like this, but she just grunts at everybody and says nothing. I think she is mad at the world. But your Double Mamaw? I want to take her home with me she is so much fun!” I agreed and we sat on the back porch and talked for a few hours, then decided to go back in for a lunch.

We went in and had beef tips and rice; Mamaw had left it so I could just put it in the crock pot, and I did that after breakfast, so it was smelling good. I heated up the rice in a pan, and Jewel and I had a simple, perfect lunch. All the while we stared, laughed, held hands across the table, and just looked at one another like idiots. I think this is the funnest weekend, funnest Sunday I have had in a long time. I never wanted it to end.

I wonder though, does Double Mamaw really believe all that mess she screams at the TV?