Hick: An Inconvenient Couth

It may come as no surprise to you that Hick has always been a little uncouth.

He may choose to wear a wildly patterned shirt that is 20 years out of date for pictures at his son's college graduation. Along with a sweatshirt advertising a different college.

He may assume certain groups of people are interchangeable. As when he pontificated on his belief that people can simply go to work, do their job, and leave their personal life out of it. It's not that belief that was uncouth. But his insertion of "the gays" in place of "people," and when called on it, his replacement with "The nudists. I meant to say nudists. Same thing."

He may assert that all prostitutes have dark hair, parted in the middle, since he watched a crime show about a serial killer in Arizona whose victims all looked amazingly similar in their photos.

Like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates, you can never be sure what you're going to get when you have dealings with Hick. But just like all chocolates involve chocolate... dealing with Hick usually involves something a little uncouth. When it doesn't, the world wobbles a bit on its axis.

Last week, I made a supper of peppered bacon draped over potatoes, carrots, and onions. All baked in a roasting pan, with a little Hidden Valley Ranch powder sprinkled in. The bacon was gone before the vegetables, so we had them another night with lemon-pepper chicken. And Hick stretched them to a third night with leftover chicken.

Normally, Hick would put the couple of carrots left over back in the bottom of FRIG II, in the giant roasting pan. I'm used to that. The dogs will eat them, because of the bacon flavor. There was quite a bit of "juice" left in the bottom of the pan. I had a loaf of stale bread on the kitchen counter, by the back door, waiting to soak in the juice, as a treat for the dogs. I'd even told The Pony (AND THE DOGS), "There's a good treat coming up tomorrow!"

Imagine my shock when I came upstairs in the wee hours of "tomorrow" morning, and saw the roaster pan sitting on the back of the stove. The lid was off, and inside was NOTHING! No carrots, no onions, no juice! In fact, that pan looked like it had been rinsed with HOT water! No greasy film clinging to the sides. Nothing to sop up with bread!

Upon interrogation later in the day, Hick revealed that he'd had a sudden attack of couth.

"What happened to that juice I was going to soak the dog bread in?"

"Oh. I poured it out and rinsed the pan."

"WHY? I was saving it for the dogs! I even told them! WHERE did you pour it? Hopefully not down the sink! The grease and the onions will clog the drain."

"I just poured it off the back porch."

"Of all the times to do that! You've never done it before. Didn't you see that bread I had set out for the dogs?"

"I figured I'd be in trouble if I left a messy pan on the stove. So I poured it out."

AS IF being in trouble for doing such a thing, for over 30 years, had finally shamed him into cleaning up a pan that he used last! Such an inconvenient time for Hick to acquire some manners.