Brain Wreck

There is no sin except stupidity.
-Oscar Wilde

I won’t say that he was dumber than an ox, but he wasn’t any smarter than one.
-James Thurber writing about a classmate at OSU.

It is a good thing that he speaks so slowly. It gives his brain a chance to catch up.
-Winston Churchill speaking of John Foster Dulles.

This is a story about my cousin Stanley. For those of you who know me, I swear it’s about Stanley and NOT about me. That’s why I have included all the above quotes. They all could be a perfect description of Stanley. Those of you who know Stanley are now nodding your heads in agreement, I’m sure. Anyway, here’s the story exactly as my cousin Stanley told it to me. It will probably take you about a minute to read it. It took Stanley about an hour to tell it to me. This is almost verbatim.

Well, okay see, so I’m standing in the aisle at Wal-Mart, and I’m staring up at a shelf and trying to remember what the hell I came in here for, and I’m scratching my head and trying to remember my shopping list, when out of the corner of my eye I spot a guy coming down the aisle right towards me. He was a pretty good size fellow, and he looked pretty serious, and he was coming at me in a hurry. When he got a little closer, I could see that he was wearing a Wal-Mart shirt that said Manager on the pocket, and his name was right under it. I remember it pretty good because of what happened afterwards. His name was Eddie Joe Pinckley. Well, I was thinking that this is some pretty darn good customer service when the store manager, Mr. Eddie Joe Pinckley, comes out of his office to help a customer like me. I guess I must have looked a little more pathetic than I thought. So anyway, I was getting ready to have a nice conversation with Eddie Joe when I turned all the way around and I saw two big old burly cops right behind him and following pretty close. I was a little bit puzzled at that moment, because I began to get a kind of strange, uneasy feeling. Then I looked behind me to see if they were headed toward somebody else, because they all had a pretty determined look on their faces. Well, Old Eddie Joe comes right at me, and then he stops about six inches from my face, and he says in a pretty loud voice, “Sir, you cannot come into this store dressed like that.” Then I said, “dressed like what?” I said that because I was wearing my favorite Hawaiian shirt, you know that one that’s kind of medium blue with the little white palm trees all over it. I really like that shirt. I wore that shirt when I married Zelda. Did you know that? That marriage lasted longer than my other three all combined. Best two years I ever had. I’m sorry she ran into that slick-talking Yugo salesman. We probably would have had eight or ten kids by now. Ha. Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, Wal-Mart. Anyway, so old Eddie Joe Store Manager gets a little huffy with me then, and he says, “Sir, you’re naked from the waist down.” That’s when I looked down at my sweat socks and my flip flops that matched my shirt, and I said, “I most certainly am not!” So then one of those big old cops says, “Sir, you’re gonna’ have to come with us.” Then they turned me around and handcuffed my hands behind my back and led me out of Wal-Mart. Strangely enough, and I’m pretty sure in violation of police protocol, they didn’t frisk me at all. I did notice that a lot of folks were staring at us when they made me do the perp walk through the store, but I had also noticed that a lot of folks were staring at me when I came into the store. I thought they were probably just checking out my matching shirt and flip flops. I thought I was looking pretty good that day. So anyway, they sat me down in the back of the police cruiser, and I looked down and I noticed something was really, really wrong, so I said, “Hey! What the hell have you done with my pants?” At that point, oh man, I was thinking big time lawsuit. It didn’t pan out.

I pled not guilty to charges of indecent exposure and public lewdness based on the progression of my age-related dementia. The judge pointed out to me that I was twenty-nine years old at the time of my offense.
Moral of the Story: You kids stay in school and don’t do drugs!

I haven’t seen or heard from my cousin Stanley since the last family reunion about six years ago. Another cousin told me that he’s doing pretty well for himself these days. He’s running an import-export business somewhere in Arkansas. He has, by the way, been banned from Wal-Mart for life. I don’t know if that is just American Wal-Marts or if it is a world-wide ban. I’m sure there are lots of former Wal-Mart customers who have met the same fate. If this has happened to you or somebody you know, please leave a note below. Thank you.

I just got an email from my Aunt Fernie, Stanley’s mother, and she included this photo of Stanley’s criminal past with an update on his present status. Apparently, the ban has been lifted. This might have something to do with My Uncle Enzio the Strangler Vine’s Mob connections. I will not testify to this. Yea Wal-Mart!

Oh, and my Aunt Fernie also included a note with this picture which said, “See, I tolled you Stanley wudn’t stoopid!”