Guns and Grandmas

When Southerners make the news it's never the "Mild-mannered College Professor Cures Cancer" type of story. It's not even the "Socialite Bequeaths Diamonds to Charity" type story. Oh no. When we make the news it's more of a "please don't put that on the front page and for goodness sake don't put a picture or say they're related to me" type of story. In which case I point out the happenings for the whole word to enjoy.

But in the sense of fairness, because this could have happened to anybody, I've left out Bubba and Junior's real names and supplied fitting character-generated epithets.

Here in the Redneck Capital of the World, a story made the newspaper that involved all the necessary ingredients of a made-for-TV movie—or a family reunion, depending on whether potato salad was served.

Seems Granny was unable to sleep what with pondering the whereabouts of her debit card, and woke up Nephew Number One to ask for his input on the matter. Meanwhile, Nephew Number Two, The Bad ’Un, wandered away from his plant-cultivating hobby, leaving his pipe on the kitchen table long enough to grab up Grandma in a choke hold, and poke the business end of a rifle into the throat of our boy, Rip Van Winkle. He takes a shot at the family Bible and sends Rip in to sit on the couch wearing nothing but his underpants and a plastic bag on his head.

But suddenly the plot twist kicks in. When Bad Boy turns to look out the door, Captain Underpants overpowers him, grabs the rifle, and hotfoots it down the street, where, despite his lack of fashion sense, he convinces a neighbor to call Emergency Services. (I have no proof, but I’m assuming he dislodged the fancy bag hat before the action sequence.)

If it weren’t for the Bible incident, I’d be leaning toward the Family Reunion story. But no Southern boy is going to take a pot shot that separates Matthew from Mark, Luke, and John in front of his grandmother and live to tell about it. Which leads us to the question: Where was Granny during the excitement? Any Southern Grandma worth her weight in blackstrap molasses would have pulled out a shotgun of her own and blasted the pants off Mr.Yuk. The whole tale smacks of “If you believe that one, then listen to this.”

As it was, reports state that Mr. Meanie was caught after a brief pursuit. From the descriptions, it sounds like they got their nephews mixed up because the briefs were last seen high-tailing it over the river and through the woods away from Grandma’s House.