My Uncle Muddy can be a card sometimes, and Mamaw and even Double Mamaw like to say “He is a hard pill to swallow too; so you best have you some aspirins and castor oil around when dealing with the likes of your miscreant uncle!” Uncle Muddy just groans and sometimes laughs. Anyway he told us a funny one the other night after supper:

“Now, y’all think you got this world by the tail once you cross into your senior years,” Uncle Mudwink said, leaning back in his easy chair and gesturing with a half-empty can of warm beer. “But the world has a way of testing a man’s sanctification. Take last Tuesday. I was sitting right there in my pickup in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot, minding my own business, when the dangest thing happened. This old car, I think it was a Plymouth drove up with two clowns that looked just like the circus came to town but forgot its idiots.”

Me and Shady didn’t even look up from our Uno game we was playing. We pretty much have heard all of Uncle Muddy’s stories before. Mamaw just sighed from her couch, but Double Mamaw leaned forward, adjusting her good ear toward the racket. “What you done now Hiram Eustace a-talking silly about being sanctified at the circus, hanging around with idiots?”

“Hold on Mother, I am getting to all that, hursh and let me speak please ma’am?”

Double Mamaw told him, “Well quit rambling and get to the point. You ramblin’ on with them stories would make a dead man get deader. And my arthritis is kind of acting up and I ain’t a-cottoning to none of your ignorance today. I been dealing with the likes of you nigh on 91 years, so get to the point.”

Double Mamaw seemed a little more irritable tonight, but the Dr had just changed her medicine again; she gets like that when Dr Smith does that sometimes. Uncle Muddy went on with his story.

“Anyhow, I was sitting in the parking lot of the Pig, that’s the Piggly Wiggly smoking me a good cigar, when out of that old rusted-out Plymouth that sounded like a washing machine full of gravel steps this enormous girl with bright blue hair,” Muddy continued. “And her boyfriend—boy looked like a raggedy, rail-thin extra from a prison documentary. That girl was fogging up the entire county line because she had two of them electric vapes going at the exact same time. Double-fisting strawberry smoke like a steam locomotive.

Well, she grabs a grocery cart, yanks it out of the thing, and realizes it’s got a locked-up front wheel. So what does she do? She doesn’t take it back, no sir. She just shoves it with all her might. It rolls across the asphalt and smacks right into the side of my pickup truck. While I am sitting in it. I mean, it don’t really matter cause it has so many dents another one won’t hurt it any, but it is MY property and that idiot just added a fresh scratch.

I pop my door open, madder than a wet hen. Before I can even get a single word out, Blue Hair looks at me with a scowl that would sour milk and yells, ‘Why did you even park there? You’re in the way of my cart! Get back in your car, old man, before I call the law!’

Old man! I didn’t even get a dang word out, and I’ve already been psychologically manhandled by a vaping Smurf. A fat one too with an attitude. I think she needed a shower now that I recollect. Both of them could have used a hose bath outside for sure.

Now, Pete, you boys know me. I could have hollered back. But at my age, anger takes too much cardio. I decided to use the ultimate superpower of the elderly: complete and total psychological warfare.

I put on my best, sweet-innocent-grandpa face. I looked at the raggedy-looking crackhead boyfriend and said, ‘Oh, no, ma’am, I ain’t worried about the cart. I’m just worried about your vehicle. I smell a blown regulator, son. And I know that smell.’

That boy instantly panicked. ‘What?! I just had a new engine put in this thing!’

Hook, line, and sinker, that idiot young’un bought it. Ya’ll know I know cars. And y’all all know that my daddy, Big Daddy was a pro diesel man for forty years, among other things like railroad hand, welder plumber you name it. More importantly, I knew this boy didn’t know a spark plug from a dang radiator cap!

We walk to the front of that car. He pops the hood all serious and I know I kept that grave look on my face, just egging him on. I keep my hands behind my back—no fingerprints, no crime. I point a finger and say, ‘Ah, see that wire? It’s in the wrong place. Take that ignition coil wire and swap it with that spark plug wire right there.’

He does it. He just completely disabled his own engine, looking at me like I was Moses parting the Red Sea. The girl looked at me like I had just gave her the keys to the smoke shop, and I suspect I saw a grateful tear in that eye, since that blue hair caused the sunlight to show all that sweat on her face, like when them TV ladies get in the light too much. I think the sun glinted just a hint off her nose ring too.

Anyway I looked this raggly kid dead in the eye, and dropped some total, absolute garbage science on him. I said, ‘Now you go on and close that hood. Let her cool down, because you just boiled all the water right out of your battery with a bad voltage regulator. Let it sit an hour or so, crank her up, and you’ll be fine.’

Y’all, that boy thanked me fifty times. He tried to hand me a crumpled five-dollar bill. And Blue Hair—the girl who just threatened to call the law on me—actually blew me a kiss and waved happily as they strolled into the Piggly Wiggly, new cart and all. To my own credit I actually looked in the backseat to make sure they didn’t have a little greasy baby or bunch of kids, but saw nothing back there so no baby young’uns would suffer in the heat.

I got back in the pickup, gave ’em a nice friendly wave, and hauled my skinny butt out of that parking lot, laughing like an idiot the whole time. They’re probably still up there right now trying to jump-start that piece of junk.” Muddy chuckled, taking a sip of his beer. “Nefarious adulting, boys. It keeps the heart young. Oh and don’t forget, old and treacherous beats youthful exuberance every single time. Uncle Muddy laughed and finished off his beer, while me and Shady put the Uno cards away. We all had a good laugh, although Mamaw looked worried until Uncle Muddy mentioned they didn’t have kids in the car.

Man my uncle sure can be a stinker when he wants to be. Me? I would have probably acted like nothing happened and went on. Mamaw would have probably saw an opportunity to get somebody saved, and Shady would have just kept asking Mamaw or Uncle Muddy questions, “why does she have blue hair?” “Why is smoke coming out of her mouth? Do y’all think she is a dragon?”

Yep, like I always say, I do love my crazy wild family even if we ain’t all blood kin.

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