Grapefruit, Cockroaches, Shotgun Houses and "Crackers"

Michael...I had this really vivid dream last night. I was a stand up comic on one of those late night talk shows and I was doing a routine about, of all things, grapefruit and cockroaches.

The first thing that happens to us when we get to Florida is someone from down the street shows up at our door with several paper sacks full of grapefruit.

Now, this is not an act of friendship and they are not happy to see you, they just want to get rid of the grapefruit. The word is already out on the street that there is a new place to dump the grapefruit.

Grapefruit grow everywhere in Florida. You can’t get rid of the stuff. Whatever you do, do not try to bury the grapefruit in the back yard or put them in the garbage. You must consume every bit of it. You are being watched and the penalties for burying or dumping grapefruit are very severe.

I have seen homeless guys carrying around paper sacks full of grapefruit. You just know that the poor homeless guy got too close to a house with a grapefruit tree in the yard and the owner ran out of the house and gave him a paper sack full of grapefruit.

Now that Aunt Bessie from Fargo is up on the table screaming at the top of her lungs, you suddenly realize that a cockroach has crawled out of that paper sack full of grapefruit that you placed in the corner.

Mr. or Mrs. cockroach is now atop the bag of grapefruit and is a little woozy from the grapefruit vapors and very quickly he or she gets some much needed fresh air and regains equilibrium.

Now if this cockroach decides to fly that is a very bad thing. It is like having a miniature B-29 cruising around the inside of your home.

The grown men present fling themselves to the floor and Aunt Bessie realizes that getting up on top of the table is not going to save her from being rammed by this miniature B-29 and retreats to the safety of the underside of the table.

Generally these flights tend to be of short duration and end with muted inquires of where did the damm thing land. There is no more shouting or screaming because you certainly don’t want to attract attention to yourself.

The problem is once this cockroach gets the feel of flying he or she may feel the need for further flight. Flying sure beats being stomped on and the terror and mayhem he or she can create makes the flight worth the while.

There is some discussion about arming ourselves with the grapefruit, but cooler heads prevail. It is very difficult to peg a grapefruit at the miniature B-29 as it cruises by and there are windows and wall hangings to replace.

One suggestion made is that once the thing comes in for a landing the grapefruit might be useful to smash it while the thing spreads its wings for another takeoff. This plan falls through because there is not one soul brave enough to reach in the bag and pull out a grapefruit for fear there is another cockroach lurking there.

There is nothing else to do except turn out all the lights, head for bed, pull the covers tightly over our heads and wait for daylight.

Wow, that was a dream and a half. Can you imagine your Dad as stand up comic?

Michael...By now you have probably figured out that my dreams always have two parts. The next night I found myself standing up on stage talking about “shotgun houses” and “Crackers”

The first house we moved into when my family and I moved to Florida was a “shotgun house.” My Uncle said it was a shotgun house because it was so full of holes you could fire a shotgun directly at it and miss it completely.

That wasn’t exactly the right definition, but it was true about the house we moved into.

A true “shotgun house” is a house with a long hallway on one side of the house that stretches from front to back. That means that you can stand at the front door of the house and fire a shotgun through to the back door and not hit a single thing in between.

“Crackers” sometimes live in shotgun houses. Now what is a “cracker?” A “cracker” used to be a person who drove cattle with a whip and that whip made a loud cracking sound when used properly.

Now it has just come to describe a low-down mean “redneck.” I once made the mistake of using the word “cracker” to my future father-in-law while speaking to him. The wedding almost did not happen because the intended groom was almost lying out in the street dead.

It is not a good thing to dally with the wife or girlfriend of a “cracker” that resides in a “shotgun house” because if the “cracker” comes home unexpectedly while you and his significant other are in the bedroom playing footsy-wootsy you are trapped like a rat.

The minute you come tiptoeing out the bedroom door, shoes and shirt in hand you now become the one item that will stop the buckshot from going out through the back door.

Your only hope is to dive out the back window, dodge the rusty car parts scattered about the back yard and run like hell.