Every Jar…

Oklahomaisms never fail to delight me. I love to hear a good session every now and then. Here’s one I especially enjoyed.

We drove to a little town my mom still visits to get her hair did by her long-time hairstylist, Linda. I sat in her home/hair salon a few months back listening intently to their conversation next to her year-round Christmas tree (decorated in Americana fashion) while my mom got her hair frosted. This process, incidentally, has to be the most degrading-looking hair-styling method known to the female species. First they plaster your hair down with a plastic cap–and that looks just great– then they pluck tiny threads of hair out all over your bald head. You end up  looking  like a cross between one of those pathetic, hairless dogs and a science exhibit. Anyway, on to their conversation…

 Now, Linda loves to chit-chat about everything and nothing. Her first rant was on discipline and young children. She lit in on one particularly bad case. “I’m tellin’ you, this customer kept tailin’ her lil boy that he was makin’ some bad choices. She’d say uh ‘now, is that a good choice? Are you making a good choice?’ Meanwhile he’s tearin’ this playce apart. And I tail you what- that lil’ boy was about ta get some choices from me; the choice between a belt and a paddle, ya knowhutImean?”  My mom agreed with eye contact, not being able to nod her head, while Linda poked her little pokey gadget at the mirror.

But the best part of the conversation, which was mostly one-sided, thankfully (because I love to hear her go on) was when she used a fun new expression I hope you’ll try to use at your next cocktail party.

She was telling us about her love life, and how she wasn’t too hopeful that she’d ever find anybody, but she hadn’t given up completely. Linda’s an attractive lady in her late fifties who has been married a couple times but talked as if she were a decrepit old spinster. She said, “Now ah buhlieve that every jar has a leed. You might haveta screw a lotta leeds, but there’s one out thair.”

I don’t know if she recognized that the “screwing” analogy was somewhat problematic, since her earlier rant had included how inappropriate it was for a young girl to announce in church that she’d lost her virginity. “I don’t need ta know thayt!”  I’m 100% certain that Linda doesn’t condone the casual screwing implied in her metaphor and I had to suppress the snicker clawing it’s way up my chest and past my clamped lips. She kept it going too. “I’ll just keep on screwin’ til’ ah find my leed,” she said shaking her head and plucking the strands on my mom’s sci-fi head.

If you get a chance, stop on in and get your hair done at Linda’s place. I promise you’ll come away with some food for thought and a slight drawl in your speech.