My husband, Doc, the Romanian Bredneck (“well-bred Redneck”) surgeon turned great white hunter, is on the phone. He is calling from a bonding weekend with best buddy, “Cabin Glen,” whose cabin is nestled on a sprawling, testosterone paradise of farm land that Cabin Glen owns in East Dublin, GA. Doc and Glen are stellar Southern citizens: They work hard and play hard, during which time, like all best buddies, they shoot the breeze. They also shoot the “seasonal d’jour wild-life” (ex. Turkeys roaming the property have sovereign immunity during deer whacking months) destined for rotisserie heaven. The only hunting season I care about is the greatest one of all; the semi-annual Blow-out Sale at Nordstrom’s Department Store. Well, like the adage says, “One man’s dumb, antler trophy, is another woman’s brilliant, haute couture dress at 50% off.”

Doc’s voice on the phone, as he begins to tell me about “Mission Accomplished – The Davy Crocket Sequel,” is exuberant. The way I spell the word “exuberant,” when Doc is calling from Cabin Glen’s, is T-R-O-U-B-L-E. “Honey,’ I ask him, ‘would you please hold on for a moment?” “Sure,’ he says, ‘but hurry-up. I can’t wait to tell you what I am bringing home.” Ten minutes later, an impatient Doc is still on hold because I have not finished packing for the mad dash I will be making out of the country before Doc arrives home with what I fear will still have hooves attached to it. “Hooonneey,’ he is shouting in a Romanian Crocket accent, ‘are you still there?! Wait until you hear about the surprises!” I am trapped like a dirty dog because I forgot that I loaned my car to our daughter, Alexandra. She and her friends are at the sale at Nordstrom’s, the lucky stiffs.

“Are you ready?” Doc gleefully asks. “No, I’ll never be ready, so why don’t you leave the surprise at Cabin Glen’s, where you whacked it in the first place?” “Sweetheart, I didn’t whack the alligator! You know it’s illegal in Georgia to shoot alligators. The poor Lil’ gator was too small to survive in the swamp. He only weighs two and a half pounds. His mama must have swatted him out – permanently out for the count – with her tail.” “Alligators!!! Doc, there is only one way you are going to march into this house with an alligator, and that is if it has Ralph Lauren’s initials on it in the form of a purse, shoes or matching belt and wallet. And that’s final!”

In our kitchen 4 hours later, something, and they aren’t chicken nuggets, are sizzling in the deep fryer that Jarrett, our son the Rock’n Roll chef, received from his girlfriend Stephanie’s parents for Christmas last year. I am hiding upstairs in the laundry room where my head is buried in a king-sized box of Bounce “Fresh Linen” scented fabric softeners. Doc and Rock, the father/son sizzlin’ duo, are calling to me in a last ditch effort to broaden my culinary horizons. “Aw, mom, you gotta come here and try some. They’re delicious!” “Yeah, sweetness,’ the Romanian Crocodile Dundee chimes in, ‘you’re missing some great grub!” Under my fresh linen scented breath, I mutter, “What are you guys going to drink with those yummy McGator nuggets? Gatorade?”

Heading for the bedroom, I am crawling on my belly to safety (unlike the poor, deep-fried runt of the litter who got tail-gated by his abusive mama,) when suddenly, I hear ice cubes jingling from a Styrofoam cooler. So, the sizzlin’ gourmets have opted for beer over Gatorade. But beer bottles being lifted from a cooler don’t sound like hooves, do they? Could it possibly be because I am hearing hooves? Uh, oh … the word “surprises” is plural, isn’t it? What else could Davy Crockett possibly have dragged back from Cabin Glen’s that would one-upmanship an alligator?

Doc popped two out of the three little piggies of nursery rhyme fame! Now what I am supposed to recite to our future grandchildren?

*THE LITTLE PIGS AND THE BIG BAD WOLF
“Little pig, little pig, let me come in!”
“Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin!”
“Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in!”
“Fortunately, grandchildren, the smart little piggy built his house of bricks, so the wolf could not blow it in and he had to be satisfied eating McGator nuggets. The end.”

“But grandma,’ my future grandchildren will ask, ‘what about the two little pigs that built their houses with straw and sticks?”

“Well, you see, my darlings, Grandpa Doc popped those two during a testosterone bonding trip with Cabin Glen. The piggies didn’t know what hit ‘em and that’s a whole lot better than being gobbled up by a big bad wolf.”

“Yeah!!! Grandpa Doc is a hero!”

“He sure is. Now go to sleep, my angels.”

“Goodnight, grandma.”

Shalom, y’all!

*FACT: In 1890, Joseph Jacob’s version of Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf was published in English Fairy Tales. In March 2007, the famous tale was modified in some British schools to “three little puppies” to avoid offending Muslim families. The name has since then been changed back to the Three Little Pigs.