The Colonel's vast holdings here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere lie a few miles north of the center of the southern cultural universe: Oxford, Mississippi. Oxford would be just another unremarkable southern town, were it not for the presence of its raison d'etre -- a rather remarkable university whose nickname is tattooed on the hearts of its alumni...
Ole Miss
Home of the Rebels...
Former home of Colonel Rebel...
Former home of Rebel Black Bear...
Current (and temporary) home of Tony the Landshark...
Future home of some other spineless attempt to appease a tyrannically unappeasable minority with a politically acceptable mascot. Heck, at the current pace of the administration's race toward the event horizon of the soul-sucking black hole of political correctness, a lump of mud will eventually be entertained as mascot material... and be found wanting by some progressive (the most incorrectly used word in the current cultural zeitgeist) social justice whiner for its passive aggressive retro-reference to a by-product of a culturally appropriated geologic process.
But, the Colonel digresses...
There is a remarkable love-hate relationship between Oxford and Ole Miss. The town loves their money, but hates the students -- particularly their rich daddy-bought SUV-causing traffic that congests a local road infrastructure designed for half as many vehicles as travel the streets when school is in session. (And, don't get the Colonel started on the choking carmageddon of an SEC home football game.)
To drive down one of Oxford's main thoroughfares during rush hour is to invite collision with either, a rich daddy-bought SUV driven by a coed dividing her attention roughly 90/10 in favor of the latest OMG text over the vector and velocity of her minimally-guided wheeled missile; or a rich daddy-bought monster pick-up driven by a testosterone-overdosed frat-rat dividing his attention roughly 90/10 in favor of the OMG-texting coed over the lyrics of the latest rapine rap (for the LSU fans following along, that leaves zero percent of attention to the velocity and vector of the rich daddy-bought monster pick-up).
If one survives the death-race on Jackson Avenue, one still must negotiate store parking lots through which race coeds and frat-rats at very nearly the same velocity and errant vectors achieved on surface streets.
So... the Colonel and his best friend limit their trips to town to coincide with the ebb of the daily traffic tide (settle down, Bama fans -- this is an rtr-free zone) and minimize their trips to town by maximizing the errand-running and resupply efficiency of each trip. The SOP (Standing Operating Procedure for the meager civilian readership of this egregious waste of precious rod and cone time -- not to be confused with Standard Operating Procedure which would imply universal use of the Colonel's and the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's unique spouse squad procedure) employed by the Colonel and Miss Brenda upon safe arrival at a store front is a sacrosanct routine born of years of shopping survival success.
Step 1. The Colonel vigilantly escorts the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda across the parking lot and through the store's front door. Great care is exercised to ensure that a minimum 5-yard buffer zone is maintained surrounding the Colonel's bride to prevent inadvertent jostling of the most precious of the Colonel's possessions (yes, he used the word possession to describe the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda -- deal with it).
Step 2. The spouse squad member whose personal shopping list contains the least number of items located in the least disparate aisles of said store procures a shopping cart. Great care is exercised in the selection and preparation of the shopping cart to ensure it is clean and serviceable.
Step 3. The spouse squad member whose shopping list contains the least number of items is responsible for security, navigation, and efficient loading and organization of the shopping cart. Ordinarily, particularly when shopping at Kroger, the Colonel has cart duty. This does not preclude, however, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda from taking temporary custody of the cart and sending the Colonel back to a previously navigated aisle to procure a missed item. At Walmart, on the other hand, the Colonel normally has the most items on his list and the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda navigates the cart on her slow meander, while the Colonel ranges throughout the store finding his items on disparate aisles and rendezvousing frequently to deposit said items in the cart.
But the other day, the Colonel had just a few items on his list and they were all in the pharmacy/over-the-counter meds section. Sounds simple enough -- but, in reality, finding just the right personal medication and/or toiletries in Walmart is actually one of the most challenging acts of shopping the Colonel ever attempts. Ranks right up there with finding trousers in the appropriate length and waist size. The Colonel was taking, in the estimation of the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda, an inordinate amount of time, so she said, "Knucklehead, you find what you need and come find me. I'll either be in housewares or mumbledemumble."
The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda returned a few minutes later and dropped a couple of items in the cart. The Colonel was bent over scanning the bottom row of a disheveled shelf looking for the second item on his list. Miss Brenda spoke from behind him, "I just found the cutest mumbledemumble for mumbledemumble. I'll be in mumbledemumble or..." The ringing in the Colonel's tinnitus-ravaged ears drowned out the rest. The Colonel stood to face her and ask for a say-again.
She was gone.
Poof.
The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's super power is her ability to disappear in a store in the blink of an eye. Turn your head on her and she'll beam up right there in the antihistamines and roll-ons, and back down instantaneously in the dairy and orange juice. She can also unconsciously sense the direction in which the Colonel will begin his search pattern and adopt a diametrically opposed path.
The Colonel has learned not to panic in these situations. If he doesn't find her in his first pass through the store, he heads for sporting goods and waits for the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda to come find him -- she knows that's where the Colonel always ends up.
Ordinarily, the Colonel pushes his cart through Walmart with hardly a glance from fellow shoppers. The coeds have their noses in their phones and the frat-rats have their noses in the coeds. The adults are too busy trying to keep from being run over by coeds and frat-rats to notice the Colonel.
But..., something was different.
A few coeds smiled at the Colonel. A frat-rat looked at the Colonel and snickered. A man about the Colonel's age smiled and winked at him...
The Colonel quickly checked his fly. Barn door all secure.
What was going on?!?
Then the Colonel looked down into his cart and his blood ran cold.
Perched at the back of the cart facing forward was a stuffed animal.
A pink stuffed Care Bear.
A pink stuffed Care Bear with a huge rainbow across its chest.
The Colonel quickly reached down and pushed the pink, rainbow-bedecked stuffed Care Bear over on its stomach.
But it was too late...
The Colonel looked around and found a circle of folks grinning at him and one particularly dapper gentleman smiling broadly at him.
The Colonel dug his phone out of his pocket and thumbed Miss Brenda's number. She answered in the way she lovingly reserves for only the Colonel, "What, knucklehead? Are you lost, again? Just head over to sporting goods and I'll come get you."
The Colonel summoned his deepest and most manly command voice, "Brenda! You need to find me right now and take this cart!" He raised his voice a score decibels higher so as to be clearly heard in a 100 yard radius, "Your pink, rainbow-bedecked, stuffed Care Bear is drawing way too much attention!"
The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda was understanding and sympathetic as always, "C'mon, Knucklehead! Thought you were secure enough in your manhood to handle something like that. It's just a pink stuffed animal."
The Colonel's voice climbed another 20 or 30 decibels, "With a huge rainbow on its chest!"
"I know, Knucklehead. Isn't it cute?"
"Brenda!" The Colonel's voice was drowning out the loudspeaker calling for clean up on aisle five. "You left the Colonel to wander around alone in a store with a pink stuffed Care Bear that has a huge rainbow on its chest!"
"Ohhh... Hahahahahaha!!!
The Colonel didn't need the phone to hear his best friend's cackle. Everybody else in Walmart heard it.
Everybody else in Walmart heard it for the next two minutes as she slowly made her way back to sporting goods.
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