To The Gifter Go The Spoiled Giftee's Trash

I'm sure it will come as no surprise to you that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom sometimes picks up trinkets and gewgaws and taste treats for her sweet baboo. She's a giver, you know. She's a giver, she's a gifter, she's an ex-mayor's wife's sister. She buys her presents on the run.

In my many travels, I frequent a certain gas station chicken store. I never buy gas there. That might be too convenient. I mainly buy 44 oz Diet Coke, scratch-off lottery tickets, occasional fried chicken, and a corn dog once a blue moon when they have one in the chicken case. The Pony is partial to corn dogs. Farmer H is partial to collectibles.

While standing in line waiting to pay for my vices last weekend, I spied a curious addition to the liquor shelf that faces the chicken counter. In a box was a bottle of Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey, and beside it, in the same box, a promotion of sorts, was a metal flask with Jack Daniel's and a bee engraved in the stainless steel. I guess bees like their product to be marketed with a flask.

Let the record show that Farmer H loves him some alcohol memorabilia. I mentioned this set to him on Friday night, and he said that would be something nice to have. So I picked one up on Saturday. Oh, he will eventually get around to drinking that Jack, but it may take him past Christmas. It's like buying cereal for the toy, and Cracker Jack for the prize. Back when they were both a regular plaything that kids coveted, and not a crappy paper pseudo-toy.

The clerk stashed that present in a paper sack. Hillbilly wrappin' paper! I told The Pony to put it in the living room where Farmer H would find it, so he could add it to his collection. That was last Saturday. Eight days ago. The paper sack is still laying on the short couch.

I asked The Pony if he took the box out of the sack. He said he did. Because otherwise, his dad would not have found it. True. But he left the paper sack on the short couch. Where Farmer H has sat at least three times in my presence, picking up that empty paper sack and laying it on top of the pillows, then putting it back on the cushions when he got up.

Because, you see, that must be Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's paper sack. No male in this Mansion is ever going to throw it away. I'm toying with the idea of leaving it until the #1 son makes a visit home. So he can pick it up, ask what it's for, and put it back down.

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has a passive-aggressive streak in her half a mile wide.