American Thighs

by Jill Conner Browne

  When I found myself the sole possessor of what had been my first marital home, I decided it needed more improvements than just the reduction of inhabitants to make it livable, and painting was on the list of requirements. I have no recollection of how I came to make the acquaintance of the two individuals I was to hire for this task but I’ll certainly never forget THEM. Tom and Ed. Ed was burly and brash—also big. Tom was slight, shy, and sweet—imagine Barney Fife was drinking himself to death and right before he succeeded in that, you hired him to paint your living room—that was Tom.

  I came home one day and they had taken my front door off to paint it—red, as it happens—so I was able to just walk right in, with no worries of possibly knocking one of them off a ladder as I opened the door. As it turned out, there was no need to worry about the possibility of knocking either of them off a ladder because they were both sprawled out on my living room floor, dead-ass drunk and sleeping like big ole nasty babies.

  Stepping over the beer cans, the bodies, and the abandoned, stiffening paint brushes, I made my way to the solitary sanctuary of my bedroom to place a call for consult and commiseration to my sole steadfast source for these and all things—my sister, Judy. While we were lamenting the sorriness of this state of affairs, it managed to move itself from the bad category over to the upper quadrant of worse when I peeked out of my room to check on the situation and saw that the dead had apparently risen and departed the premises—leaving my living room not only drunk-free, which was a definite improvement, but also DOOR-free, which was maybe not so great. It was to remain in both states for two solid weeks until they finally returned. The only reason I am still alive to relate this story is that it occurred in 1983, probably the last year it was safe enough in that neighborhood to do something as stupid as leave the front door off a house for two minutes, let alone two weeks.

  Anyway, all that is to say that my own personal experience with Things Being Painted Red was not sufficiently fun so as to inspire repetition and certainly not enough to broaden the scope to include a whole town, cute shoes notwithstanding.

  You will, one day, find that the memory of the days of your shoeful indiscretions will kindle not so much nostalgia as incredulity that you ever sought out, spent good money on, and then actually spent TIME in shoes that today you would think snacking on after they’d stepped in dog-doo would be preferable to having to wear them.

  No, when you see some darlin’ young thing prance by precariously perched on top of a pair of four-inch Jimmy Choos, you will NOT be envious in the slightest. You will, rather, wince inside on behalf of her poor feet that are, at that very moment, storing up piles of painful memories in their soles with which to torture her just a few years hence.

  Often the Big Panty Conversion and the Comfy Shoe Switch coincide but it’s not carved in stone. Big Panties are generally discovered during pregnancy and we never willingly give them up for long after that. Usually, the only way we ever give them up is in the case of Divorce and/or Death, which results in a repeat plunge into the dating pool, thereby unfortunately necessitating a resumption of Pretty Underwear for a time, but once we either settle in with a new man or get reeeeeally happy without one, it’s amazing how fast we find that “the dryer ate my thongs” and Queen Comfort reigns supreme once more.

  Even though the appeal of mile-high strappy sandals mercifully diminishes for us, the lure of a pair of really cool boots seems to be more enduring. First of all, it’s possible to find fabulous boots that do not also have ridiculously high heels, and they keep our feet warm in the winter—the importance of which increases for us with time. But equally important, I think, is the fully empowered mind-set that comes with the donning of really cool boots—we’re comfy, we’re warm—we can handle ANYTHING—and if not, then we can at least kick the crap out of it.

  Geezer Power Point

  Bwahahahaha! I just saw a mention on the Internet that “Patio Dresses Are ALL the RAGE!” And I was thinking to myself that I couldn’t believe that in 2008, any copywriter anywhere is still declaring that something is “all the rage.” It just sounds so hokey, doesn’t it? HOWEVER, I must admit—I did click on the link provided by those words and guess what popped up on my screen? A MUUMUU! And then, of course, I KNEW what was going on. The designer, the manufacturer, and the copywriter are all really clever OLD PEOPLE—and they have resurrected the MUUMUU, only the best, most comfy garment ever devised—renamed it the “patio dress,” and declared it to be ALL the RAGE. Once again, old age and treachery triumph over youth and beauty. Here’s TO the Patio Dress—and pass the Chocolate Stuff!

  Asset-Preserving Tip

  If you ever find yourself mentally mired in what seems to be a non-navigable mess—what you need to do is just take a break from thinking about it all for a while—let your mind focus on something else, something totally unrelated, for a bit—and come back to address the problem later. There are two options here: one is to declare yourself Queen of Whatever, decide that, no matter what, you are COMING to Jackson, Mississippi, the third weekend in March to BE IN the Sweet Potato Queens® Million Queen March with your fellow Queens from around the world—and that being said, it is time to PLAN YOUR OUTFIT! There is NOTHING ON EARTH quite so pleasantly distracting as this planning process—probably only the Parade Itself will surpass.

  Your SECOND option would be to put on a pair of tight shoes and walk around in ’em for a couple of hours. You will absolutely forget ALL OTHER problems, I guarantee it.

  Both of these will totally work—but, now, reckon which option I’d pick for you, darlin’?

  BULLETIN

  Just in from U.K.—Big Panties Save House!

  Kentucky Queen Cheryl alerted me to this amazing story from northern England, where it seems a woman’s home was saved from what could have been a horrific fire—by the timely and fortuitous application to the blaze of a big giant pair of panties. The woman was away from home at the time and her teenage son John and her nephew Darren were frying bread—which is apparently a normal thing to do with bread in England—perhaps they were making French toast? Who knows—deciphering British English can be so tricky at times—anyway, the “extractor fan”—which I took to be the Vent-A-Hood—suddenly fell out and landed on top of the stove and the whole thing burst into flames.

  The lights went out and the room quickly filled with smoke. John initially made matters worse by dumping water on the flames. Clearly, John never took seventh-grade home economics with Mrs. Boone at Peeples Junior High School in Jackson, Mississippi, or he would have known better than to do such a bonehead thing. Luckily for John and the house itself, Darren had apparently received proper kitchen-fire procedural instructions from Mrs. Boone’s British counterpart because he knew that what was needed was a large something or other with which to SMOTHER the flames. In the dim smokiness, he couldn’t really see well enough to locate a lid for the pan and he didn’t recall there being any fire blankets lying about; however, he did remember that there was a pile of laundry in the room nearby.

  Quickly locating the clothes heap, he blindly snatched what felt to be a sufficiently largish item off the top and, after dousing it with water under the tap, he utilized the wet garment to handily extinguish the inferno. The house/day–saving item was later determined to be an enormous pair of panties—they call them knickers over yonder—belonging to the lady of the saved house.

  She arrived home shortly after the crisis had been averted and happily posed for a news photo—holding up her own charred size 20s, grinning from ear to ear. (Personally, I do believe I would rather be burned up in the house fire myownself than have to pose for a picture for the NEWSPAPER holding up my big giant underwear that they PUT OUT THE FIRE WITH for all the world to witness. But I’m sure that’s just me—I’m sensitive like that. I don’t mind WEARING them—prefer them, actually, as we’ve already established—but I don’t want to SHOW them to anybody.)

  But this is just one more prime example of the Benefits of Big Giant Panties.
If Darren had blindly snatched and grabbed up a little teeny-tiny thong—the story would have been a tragic one indeed. As it was, the headline read: FIRE FIRE, PUT PANTS ON FRYER!

  More Important Panty News

  Just this very day, there is an article in the paper about a woman suing the world’s foremost perpetrator of pretty but painful panties for something approaching the gross national product, plus 10 percent for mental suffering, because she suffered PERMANENT CORNEAL DAMAGE when a metallic decorative something or other on a THONG flew off and hit her with excessive force smack in the eyeball.

  Horrifying story—and made all the more so by the very fact of its total avoidability. Those of us clad in big, giant, soft Russian immigrant underwear breathe a sigh of relief that OUR eyeballs are safe from random attack by crazed, embellished, minuscule panties and we are smug in our comfort and safety. OTHER PEOPLE’S eyeballs could be in danger, should they happen to SEE us, accidentally or on purpose, in our big’uns—but clearly, that is THEIR problem and none of our own.

  8

  Who Exactly Calls the Wind “Mariah”?

  I grew up listening to the Kingston Trio sing a song that has baffled me from the first time I heard it. It’s says “away out here”—without ever making clear just where that might be—“they”—without ever a hint as to who “they” ARE—have a name for rain and for fire and for the wind. It seems that, according to the trio, “they” call the rain “Tess,” “they” call fire “Joe,” and “they” refer to the wind as “Mariah.” Never in the song does it tell who these people are nor does it even try to explain WHY they have assigned human-type names to these elements of nature or how they came to choose those particular names. I’ve always found this to be a very odd song.

  I’ve never come across anything in American literature to support this musical claim—that there are people out there somewhere on a first-name basis with wind, rain, and fire. If you know of any reference source that might be helpful to my understanding of this—please e-mail me posthaste at hrhjill@ sweetpotatoqueens.com. I cannot wait to hear from you.

  It rains here all the time—nobody has ever called it Tess. I know people whose actual houses have burned completely up—there was no talk of Joe. I checked and this is not a Yankee deal—my mama is a Yankee and she doesn’t know any Tess, Joe, or Mariah—we can’t blame it on them.

  Well, anyway, “Mariah” blows through down here quite often at certain times of the year. Once in a while, we will get the afterblow of a pretty big wind—we generally call ’em hurricanes and I can’t recall one ever being named Mariah, but we also get our very own smaller but nonetheless powerful versions of these storms and nobody calls THEM anything but “tornado.”

  And that’s what I had in mind to talk about when I started this rant—tornadoes and how they can sometimes reveal some real innerestin’ stuff about folks when they least expect it. You can live with or around ’em your whole life and think you know pretty much all there is to know about ’em and then whoosh!—let a tornado rip through the area and you might just be surprised what’s under their personal rocks.

  First of all, just because somebody’s past a “certain age,” don’t be thinking they’re grown UP in any way that might be indicative of anything you could have come to think of as wise, reasonable, and/or mature. You have only to observe their reactions to stressful, fight-or-flight-type situations to get a picture of what I’m talking about.

  I know two women—we can call them Tammy 1 and Tammy 2—who, on a good day—one that would include fair weather—both of them are just as rational and smart—they’re not brain surgeons but they coulda been if they’d been so inclined—but let a tornado siren go off and all that good sense just blows right out the window on the first stiff breeze.

  Tammy 1’s severe weather response is to immediately locate and pick up her purse. If she’s got her purse strap on her shoulder, she’s good to go—or blow away, as the case may be. Now, one qualification on this—if it should happen to be the middle of the night, she will first put on a housecoat and THEN put her purse on her shoulder and consider herself well prepared for any outcome. I guess she imagines that if she is blown into the next county, she will be soooo glad she’s not stranded over there naked and without her handbag.

  Tammy 2 is not as fearless as Tammy 1—purse or no purse, Tammy 2 is terrified of tornadoes. Well, actually, she’s not so much afraid of the tornadoes as she is of the possible result of a tornado hitting on top of wherever she’s hiding. She is deathly afraid that one day a tornado will swoop down out of the sky when she least expects it and leave her to be interviewed as a survivor on national TV—with unsupported bosoms. Yes, Tammy 2 has a phobia for which I have been unable to find a medical name: she fears that she will be struck by and survive a tornado—at such a time when she is not wearing a bra and all her lingerie will have been blown to the next county—and that she will then be interviewed on national television with saggy tits. Let’s be clear about this now—she does not fear being discovered and displayed while naked and/or dead—just that she will somehow end up on national news—with no bra under her T-shirt.

  She seriously worries about this every time there is a storm warning. I think her insurance company should pay for her to have a breast lift just so the poor thing can sleep braless at night without worrying about ending up looking like she belongs in a National Geographic special.

  And just when you think you reeeeally have got somebody pegged—along comes ole Mariah blowing their little secrets out in the yard for the whole world to view. Picture it: storm passes and neighbors venture outside to see that only one house has been damaged—the one belonging to the stodgy old couple down the block who happened to be out of town when Mariah came calling. The neighborhood guys took it upon themselves to do what neighbors do in these situations—help out. So they were going all around, retrieving the household goods of Mr. and Mrs. Oldfolks. There was no problem with determining ownership since only the one house was damaged.

  Imagine their surprise when after picking up about a hundred pairs of Mrs. Oldfolks’s undies, they came to the shocking realization that there was not a single CROTCH in a single pair of any of those panties. The guys were so mortified at discovering Mrs. Oldfolks’s spicy little secret that they threw all her underwear away and pretended like they never saw it. They were also pret-ty surprised to discover that Mr. and Mrs. Oldfolks were not wheezer-geezers after all—to the contrary, they apparently had A Lot Going On. Suffice it to say, Mr. Oldfolks was accorded a whole new respect from the guys at neighborhood gatherings from then on.

  9

  Ja-Ja Ga-Boa

  Isn’t that just a fabulous Queen name? I do believe that sometimes we need a different name to call the Selves that surface, often unbidden, from within our very own personages, don’t we? I’m told that in some cultures, parents name children at birth for qualities they hope they will come to embody, and then at some point in adulthood, the children choose other names for themselves—again, to represent qualities that they themselves hope to grow to embody.

  That’s a good plan for us all as we consider names for our alter egos, I think. I’ll tell you, when I ordered my first treasured pair of genuine Dr. Bukk’s Teef (www.drbukk.com), I went right on and joined the Bukk Fambly, choosing for myself a new name by which I could be identified in the Bukk Fambly Tree. It is believed, by the Bukks and by anybody who ever owned a pair of these most fine Teef, that one is so completely transformed by the donning of the Teef, a whole new person is born and thus a new name is required. My Bukk Fambly name is GEMI MOORE. I do try to live up to it every day.

  I wrote about Dr. Bukk in my very first book, The Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love, but it’s been a long time since I mentioned them to y’all and so if you don’t already own a pair of GENUINE Dr. Bukk’s—you need to go right this second to www.drbukk.com and git you some, darlin’, and by all MEANS, tell ’em I sent you!

  There are crummy knockoffs but nothin
g compares in quality. First of all, Dr. Bukk’s are made right over yonder in Georgia and there is NO LEAD in them—which is SUCH a plus. I mean, I love my Teef, but even I am not willing to DIE for them. Second—and just as important, I believe—they fit so well, you can even DRINK while wearing them. Undreamed-of bonus, right there. I love the “Cowcatcher” model—my seester, Judy, has those and I’m wantin’ ’em bad for myownself. I have “Summer Teef” (some are here, some are not) and also “Sole Survivor.” They have a number of new models that I am coveting as well. Please, when you get yours—send me a photo of yourself! Send ’em to me at hrhjill@sweetpotatoqueens.com. REALLY, I wanna see you in your Teef, so be sure and bring ’em with you when you come to the PARADE in Jackson—we can have a group photo made.

  I’m thinking of getting my still underage daughter to get me a few fake IDs for Gemi Moore and some of my Other Personas that pop out from time to time.

  And while I’m on the subject—just how is it that there are all these totally believable fake IDs available today? I swear, there is a kid around here putting himself through college selling fake IDs—I think he’s got, like, a real official driver’s-license-maker thing from Arkansas or somewhere—got it off the Internet. Now, THERE’S something. How is it that you can buy—no, not you, YOUR KID—can buy, right off the Net—no doubt using YOUR credit card, though—something like that that surely is illegal? I mean, don’t you figger it’s illegal? Otherwise, why do I bother fooling with the Department of Transportation every few years, getting an updated driver’s license? Of course, from THEM, I can still have the same weight that I had on there from when I was, like, twenty-two or something. If I tried to do that with this KID, he’d prolly take one look at me and say, yeah, RIGHT, lady. Little asshole. He charges a hundred bucks for ’em, too.