Do You Know the Onion Man

Do you know the onion man,
The onion man, the onion man,
Do you know the onion man,
Who lives with Backroads Val?

Yes, you know the onion man,
The onion man, the onion man,
Yes, you know the onion man,
Who lives with Backroads Val.

As you might have deduced by now, Hick's new nickname is The Onion Man. It's a hickname!

I had to give The Onion Man his second warning this evening. Last night he was working on his BARn, so I left him a splendid repast of fish, garlic bread, slaw, and a baked potato. Of course there was sliced onion on the side. The Onion Man is fond of onions. He's the first to fork them if we go to the all-you-can-eat catfish house. It's worse than competing with a teenage male for undesignated meat on a platter. Better strap on a pair of those stainless-steel-mesh gloves that butchers and oyster-shuckers wear, lest you receive a gaping flesh wound by fork-stabbing.

When I ascended from my dark basement lair to the main floor last night in the early morning hours, the odor of onion permeated every molecule of inhaled household atmosphere. I smelled a rat. Something rotten in Backroads. Got wind of a fishy situation. I followed those noxious fumes like Pepe LePew following a vapor trail to his hoped-for paramour.

Two onion slices remained on a paper plate on the kitchen counter. WHO DOES THAT? Eat them. Bag them. Or throw them off the back porch. Nobody wants two slices of onion that have cooled their rings on the counter for seven hours. Nobody.

The Onion Man pretended to be progressing. "Oh. The onions. I meant to throw them away. But I forgot about it."

"Could you not smell them with every fiber of your being? Like a butterfly with its antennae and feet? Like a pit-viper with its tongue?"

"It wasn't a matter of not smelling it, Val. I meant to throw them out. But I forgot."

"Well, I had to throw them out at 1:00 a.m. There I was on the back porch, everybody asleep. What if my leg went through that rotten board I've been nagging telling asking you to replace for four years? On the back porch with my leg sunken to the hip at 1:00 a.m., nobody can hear me scream."

The Pony wandered in. His room is on the other side of the kitchen stove wall, and windows onto the back porch. "If you had pounded loud enough on the doghouse under my window, I would have heard you. The screams? Probably not."

"Well, I couldn't have reached the doghouse with my leg trapped in the porch, now could I?"

"She's right, Dad."

"Alls I can say is, I meant to do it but I forgot."


I hope I don't forget to slice an onion next time.