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“Anyone who says
winning doesn’t matter is either an idiot or a liar, or both,”
seethed Aunt Pinky, throwing her spatula across her spotless
kitchen with such force that it would surely have shattered her
window if it hadn’t hit Hooter first.
“Hey!”
“Delmar Jacobs of
all people,” continued Hooter’s Aunt, apparently unaware that he
was standing there, now wearing some sort of batter on his
shirt. “What he knows about baking wouldn’t weigh enough to make
a flea flinch. Mocha-carrot cupcakes; whoever heard of such a
thing?”
Hooter reached
into the cupboard for a glass. “Look, I just came in for some
water. I take it the judging didn’t go to your liking?”
“Judging? I don’t
know what you call it when neither Nelda, nor I win for the
first time in so many years that no one can remember. But when
neither one of us even takes second—no, that’s not a judging,
that’s a mockery is what it is. Now, where is that spatula, I
swear.”
“Not even second, huh?” tried Hooter. He’d already heard the
news. The only reason he stopped in for a drink was to make sure
she was OK. According to various reports, upon hearing the news,
Aunt Pinky set her jaw, quietly upended the table of baked goods
where the judges sat, stalked to her car and left a fair amount
of rubber in the parking lot. As for her lifelong, nemesis and
fellow victim, Nelda Isselfrick, she fainted.
“First those folks
in Colorado, now this. What’s a good fair coming to,” growled
Pinky, chucking a salt shaker, which Hooter also stopped.
The Rules that
Bind and Blind
As for the reference to Colorado, Hooter understood. The story
was a popular topic in the barns at this year’s Apache County
Fair, Show and Rodeo.
In basic terms,
the state fair there had imposed a new rule requiring all
exhibitors to have their premises registered with the National
Identification System. When a few entries were disqualified for
not following the rule, parents of some of the disqualified
raised a stink of national proportions. According to various
news articles, some claimed they didn’t know about the rule;
others claimed it was illegal for a state fair to impose the
standards of a national voluntary program.
“Lord, Lonnie,
what would your daddy have said if someone told him the
committee couldn’t impose whatever rules they voted on?”
wondered Peetie Womack. His dad had been the president of the
fair board and superintendent here for almost four decades.
Lonnie spat at a
surprised fly. “I suspect he would have strongly encouraged them
to let their child compete, with the understanding that the
child would receive a competitor’s ribbon but couldn’t vie for
the prize. I also suspect that he would have told them if they
ever showed up again without reading the rule book, or anything
else that would put their kids in an awkward position, that he’d
part their hair with a tire iron.”
“And he would
have,” said Lonnie with respect.
“That’s why I
still say there ought to be two divisions, one with all the
rules and one with no rules,” said Izzie. “Let everybody play
how they’re most comfortable.”
“You’ve got to
have standards, but you’ve got to have common sense, too,”
countered Peetie Womack, who was hauling water to one of his
grandkids’ steers.
“If you don’t like
the rules, either get them changed or don’t enter,” said Cousin
Charlie. “But don’t wait until after getting disqualified to
claim you didn’t know about it or that you that you don’t agree
with it. That ain’t fair to your kids.”
“Amen,” agreed
Lonnie.
How the World
Ends
Now, as for both Pinky and Nelda getting aced out of what had
become a legendary annual struggle between the two, Hooter was
as surprised as anyone else. Past the point of using livestock,
men or rodeo prowess to try to best the other one, the two
stalwarts had settled on a variety of domestic competitions to
wreak vengeance. The baking contest was the granddaddy, though.
The power of their
rivalry had yielded some extraordinary recipes that received
attention and accolades from as far away as the state fair in
Dallas. With each congratulations or invitation to compete
somewhere else, both Pinky and Nelda were known to explain, “Oh
that, that’s just something I did at the last minute. I’m not
really into the competition part of it; I just like to support
the fair.”
Sure, just like
Bobby Knight is indifferent to sloppy play and a losing streak.
Hooter knew that Aunt Pinky’s attempt at baking domination began
late every winter. She’d sift through recipes, new and old, cull
them down to only a ream or so, then start experimenting every
night, leading up to the fair. Qualified sources said it was
much the same for Nelda.
To think that
anyone could or would beat either one of them, let alone both,
was akin to suggesting the sun might take tomorrow off. To think
that someone would be Delmar Jacobs, well, Funk and Wagnall’s
never came up with the words to describe that.
Sure, he’d been a
perennial thorn in the sides of the two warriors with the
concoctions he entered each year in his quest to further his
distilling horizons. But, who could take him seriously: rum
balls that would take the creosote off a post, the whiskey
squash cake last year that literally combusted on its own from
the late-summer heat before the judging began.
Now this.
“Let’s not forget
it was a couple of hooligan friends of yours on that committee,
too, young man. You have some of the blame, too.”
“What in the world
did I have to do with it?” squeaked Hooter.
“I’d have thought
you might have mentioned to them that your Aunt—who likely
doesn’t have that much time left on this earth—was entering
something that had never been attempted before, let alone
accomplished…”
“But…”
“I would have
thought that at the very least you might have had the common
decency to be in attendance for the judging.”
“But you know I
had to help Bugsy wash her pigs.”
Fire’s Fodder
Truth be told, Hooter had avoided his aunts contests for almost
a decade now. The last time he attended one, he had to break up
a fight between her and Nelda concerning the pumpkin-growing
contest.
He could still see
it like yesterday.
“Your aunt has
accused Mrs. Isselfrick of doctoring her champion pumpkin,”
explained Denny Bratton to Hooter. Denny was the new
superintendent.
“Hooter, I swear
to you if you stick your ear up against this counterfeit you can
hear the ocean. It’s smaller around than my pumpkin but weighs
almost twice as much. How do you explain that?” demanded Aunt
Pinky.
“Brains and hard
work,” said Nelda. “Neither of which you’d know anything about.
This is ridiculous, just another one of your trumped up pieces
of fiction because you know you can’t beat me fair and square.”
Before Hooter or
Denny could stop her, Pinky was on her feet, leaning over the
top of the goliath gourd and using a sorting stick to pin Nelda
to the chair. “Sister, I’ve beat you like a cheap drum my whole
life and I’m going to keep on beating you!”
Hooter had come up
behind Pinky and put his arms around her in more of a
full-Nelson than a hug. “Now, Aunt Pinky, there is no reason
getting all wound up, especially when you don’t know about that
pumpkin one way or another.”
“Thump it, boy,
just thump it,” said Pinky with stern consternation. “You ain’t
never heard a real pumpkin sound like that and you never will. I
say she pumped it. Stick a knife into it and see what runs out.
You remember that steer her niece had back in ’75? It’s a wonder
he hadn’t grown webbed feet by the time they were done with
him.”
Nelda creaked from
her chair and peered over the great orb. “Before you start
talking about steers, let’s not forget that Angus steer you died
black.”
“I never did any
such thing and you know it,” said Pinky, struggling to free her
arms. “I would’ve beat you by a mile even if he was bright
purple. I know it was you and your henchmen that did it to me. I
wouldn’t know how to dye one if I wanted to.”
Nelda assumed the
humble glow of a saint. “Now, now, just what is your true color,
dear? I don’t think I even know.”
And on it went…
Birthing New
Rivals
Aunt Pinky banged pots and pans, and then chucked a salt shaker
across the kitchen, which Hooter also stopped.
“Well, who came in
second then?” he asked in self defense.
“As if you didn’t
know.”
There are times in
a man’s life when silence is the only appropriate response.
“That woman of
yours,” glared Aunt Pinky, poking Hooter in the chest. “And,
with one of my own inventions.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you play
dumb with me, though you’ve had plenty of practice. She walked
in there pretty as you please, for the first time ever, and took
second with jellybean donuts.”
It was like trying to bottle air.
“First off, I
didn’t even know she was going to enter. Second off, I’ve never
heard of jellybean donuts in my life, and I’ve never heard tell
of you making them.”
Pinky had found
another spatula and was stirring her pot like a windmill in a
hurricane. “Not in so many words. But, my entry back in 1963 was
donuts. They took the purple ribbon, I might add. Then, along
about 1981, remember that clown cake I beat Nelda with? It had
jellybeans for buttons. I think even you can connect the dots.”
“Ummm…”
“It doesn’t
matter, either way,” said Aunt Pinky, stirring more calmly now.
“But tell that woman of yours I’ll have my eye on her come next
year.” |
