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Friday, September 9, 2011

Balls



Hubert, your mother tells me some of the boys were picking on you after school today, is that true? Let me give you a little advice, son. Fight back. Scare the living bejeesus out of them so it doesn’t happen again. This sort of thing happens to me at work all the time — guys who think they can poach my sales and get my promotion. This is what I do to them: I rip off their balls. Yes, I reach in and just yank them right out of their sacks and line ‘em all up on a skewer like this and I eat them for dinner. That’s the only way to handle these low-lifes. And once I’ve got ‘em all on there I swing this thing like a golf club and usually there’s blood everywhere and people are screaming, but I don’t care, I’m THE MAN and you can bet your sweet bippy none of them messes with me again.

Just don’t tell your mother. She thinks they’re onions.

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Hello there, son! What’s up? Mom sent you out here to learn how to barbecue? Well, come a little closer and let me show you. See this? It’s a giant skewer. You use it to cook whole onions — you just push them on. It takes a good while, and you have to stand here basting them with juice from this red pot for hours and hours. But the most important thing about barbecuing is being properly attired. These, for instance, are my special barbecue slacks. I wear them with a matching brown short and this handsome yellow V-neck. Never wear black shoes with brown pants — that’s a fashion faux-pas — so team them with brown loafers. These match my belt. Whatever you do, don’t be a pussy and wear an apron. No self-respecting man should be seen in a pinafore. I think that about covers it.

 *  *  *  *  

Boy! Come here. I need you to hold this a minute while I go fetch me a drink. Between you and me, this whole outdoor oven thing we paid top dollar for isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. For one thing, there’s nowhere to sit. And this time of day, there’s no shade either. What I’d like to be doing is watching the game with an ice-cold beer. You’re too young to appreciate that. Look! It’s like I’ve got five baseballs on my bat at the same time! Here comes the pitch . . . good. Now just hold that over the coals. I’ll be back out in a couple hours.

Barbecue Book, Better Homes and Gardens, 1956

Also from this book: For Whom The Corndog Rises
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