Remember how I told y’all how Mamaw talks like its always the Bible days? Well she does this about everything, including the Bible itself. If you have something go wrong, or even right with you, she always makes it about the Bible somehow. Like when Shady plays in a mudhole, she always says something like “Look at that young’un out there parting the waters like its the Red Sea.”

She is also fond of saying, “You boys ought to build up heavenly treasures, because the Good Lord says when you get to heaven and don’t do the good works you ought to, you liable to get a mop and a bucket, and slam be nothing but a servant in heaven.” Now how did Mamaw come up with that nonsense? So sometimes I grab Shady and hand him a mop and say, “I guess you just get to be a heavenly servant.” It used to make him cry a little, because he believes EVERYTHING I tell him, but now he just threatens to tell God on me, since he got into all that trouble being a tattletale and a liar that time.

Or like when you make a funny face and she says it will stick like that, well she adds a little Bible theme to boot. Stuff like, “When your face sticks like that, you might have to get surgery so the Lord will recognize you on the Second Coming,” and that just makes zero sense to me. Since the Lord made me and MY face ever gets stuck making a face, I would think the Lord is smart enough being God Almighty that he wouldn’t need a picture to recognize me or Shady, stuck face and all.

Anyhow I told y’all that to tell you this; Mamaw is real big on storing up heavenly treasures. Her (and Double Mamaw too) both say stuff like “Hush child, don’t talk about that precious soul, the Lord can hear you and you will give account of them idle talk words.” Then ten minutes later I hear Double Mamaw gossiping and complaining about this one or that one, and sometimes it gets wild.

Like yesterday, Uncle Muddy asked if Double Mamaw wanted him to pick her up some chicken from the Big C, and immediately she made a face and went to complaining; “Well the last time I got chicken from there they had that Margaret woman down there cooking, and you know I do not like her. She has that big ole head you know? She dresses fake with them giant eyelashes, looking like a spider trap, and them long ugly green nails. And she thinks she looks pretty, but she looks like a circus clown with all that makeup. And her husband left her for a floozy. No I don’t want her anywhere around my fried chicken.”

Wow! Just wow. How is the lady’s clothes and makeup and relationship status gonna somehow taint Double Mamaw’s chicken? I really would love to know that, but I dang sure ain’t gonna ask her. When she gets on a tirade she is like an old timey steamroller. Uncle Muddy says the only way to shut her up when she is like this, is just to roll her back to her little hootch (that’s her little house out back, the maw in law hootch we call it), and put a picture album in her hands. Or give her one of the dogs she can pet on her lap. Otherwise she will just sit there and yammer all day.

It is funny to watch my grandmother, just sitting and watching her watching the preachers on TV, now that we have a TV. She used to scream at the preachers on her AM radio, which was made in the late 40’s, (Uncle Muddy fixed it again for her so it works). He even added Bluetooth to it. But now she screams at the TV preachers. Sometimes even I wish Uncle Muddy hadn’t convinced Mamaw that TV wasn’t the devil, but Mamaw said God told her we needed one. So TV it is. We even have satellite TV, cause of Uncle Muddy. Mamaw says she trusts me with the remote control when she is gone, because she knows I have a heart after God not to watch filth on the TV.

She thought she caught Shady watching a love story one time, y’all know them weird stories or movies where everybody kisses and gets all mushy? Well she said to Shady, “I can’t wash your eyes out with soap, so you get to go repent for watching garbage on TV.” What was odd is that it was really a children’s show, and the mama and daddy were holding hands on the couch, talking sweet to each other. And Mamaw just kind of don’t get it. Uncle Muddy shut her down on that one, and made her flat out apologize to little Shady in front of everybody. Uncle Muddy MADE her sit in the corner in a chair facing the wall, for her to repent. He was laughing like a hyena all the time.

She did NOT like that one bit, but she always says, “Own it if you did it. Do the crime do the time, including EVERYBODY in this whole house. God ain’t no respector of persons and we ain’t neither in this house.” Double Mamaw did threaten Mamaw and Uncle Muddy though, “I am gonna say what I am gonna say because I am the oldest, and them kids is gonna hear such as I am saying out there in that mean, cruel world. And if either one of you EVER, and I mean EVER try to wash out my mouth with soap, I am gonna stick that soap where the sun don’t shine.”

So they don’t mess with Double Mamaw too much. She is old, and we think she is getting a little loopy in the head, to quote Uncle Muddy. But that is me rambling all over the place again. Jewel had her mama bring her for Sunday dinner, and when I told her about getting to heaven and getting a mop, she laughed hard at that one. Shady being his little showout ham self, ran around with a mop riding it like a horse saying “Mop and glow, Jewel and Pete, mop and glow.” What made it funnier is he had on his toy military helmet, and kept calling it “The Helmet of Salvation.” Mamaw loved that of course.

Mop and glow indeed. Looks like we all gonna get a mop and a bucket at this rate.