Huckleberry J. Mudflaps vs. The Native New Yorker

As I've previously mentioned, I just came back from another trip to New York and this time I was accompanied by some friends -- one of whom had never in his life been to The Big Apple.

Now, I don't think it's out of line to call this friend of mine a hayseed, seeing as he hails from Pigknuckle, Iowa (or Dirtburp, Nebraska or some other such pastoral region of these United States) and is known far and wide as Corncakes Hawkins, the best durned hog-slopper west of the Missisip. So I guess I should've seen trouble coming when ol' Corncakes ran afoul of a local woman who had much better things to do than play musical chairs with some yahoo in overalls.

You see, as the temperatures reached into the high two-hundreds that day, we decided to stop into a Barnes & Noble to escape the heat of the afternoon. "Lookit all these books," said my friend, "why, I'll bet you could stack 'em as high as the moon!" After convincing him to stop stacking books, we found a small table in the cafe where we could rest our weary bones. We were, however, one chair short.

Seeing a lovely lady of advancing years reading at the next table, my friend barreled over to her and bellowed, if I recall correctly, "Ding dangit, lady, I needs me this here chair!" The woman was justifiably taken aback and, in an elegant, New York accent, informed my friend that if he absolutely needed the chair he could take it. However, she added, she was suffering from a back injury and would very much appreciate it if she could keep the chair so as to rest her feet and relax her lumbar region. Sciatica, you see. A perfectly understandable response.

Well -- and I guess you saw this coming -- my friend stomped around red-faced in the cafe, flapping his arms in outrage (causing chicken feathers to fly mysteriously about his person) and shouted profanity-lace epithets best left to the imagination. "Dadburned guernsey-smoocher" is the only one I'm willing to repeat. In the end, we found another chair and Corncakes was able to sit and read the latest edition of Poor Richard's Almanac until he calmed down. I shudder to think what that innocent, genteel woman from New York now thinks about us coarse, uncultured boobs from the west, but that's what sometimes happens when cultures clash.

At least, that's how I remember the story. My friend might have a different take. -v