Foot in Mouth Disease

I get this one genetically, my father suffered from it too. I was too young to remember of my own; however, the story has been told enough times over the years that I have no doubt to its accuracy.

My folks were out shopping for Christmas cards and had found one they both liked. Upon asking the price, the young black lady behind the counter checked and reported the information back. Without thinking, dad reacted to the exorbitant price, “Holy Makel Der Andy!”, the old Amos and Andy radio show line. I’m sure he meant nothing by it, other than that the price was way too much; all the same my mother kicked him in the leg and ushered him out of the store.

Did I mention this is a three part story? Jump ahead to the near present. My wife and I were at the local Sonic drive in for burgers. We weren’t all that hungry and decided to skip the fries. The young lady on the PA system asked a second time, “Are you sure you don’t want fries with your burgers?” The line from the Bogart movie, Treasure of the Sierra Madres, came to me. “We don’t need no stinking fries!”, spoken with a guttural Tex-mex accent.

I was at my chiropractor for an adjustment; having nothing to do with the bruise on my leg, and telling what I thought was a funny story, “We don’t need no stinking fries!”. My chiropractor was in stitches and had to regain her composer. I thought it was funny, but not all that funny. It turns out that when she had announced to her young daughter that she was pregnant with a little baby brother, her daughter shot back, “We don’t need no stinking boys!” What would we do without great lines to get us into trouble.