Do WHAT?????

Sometimes you really just want to give someone a good smack up side the head. In my case, today that someone would be Martha Stewart.

Miss Martha took some time away from her busy schedule of demonstrating how to turn autumn leaves that the neighborhood dog peed on into a festive Thanksgiving centerpiece for her table to tell us all that (her words, not mine!) that “Sarah Palin is dangerous.”

Oooh, Martha….I’m scared. What’s Sarah going to do? Design some moose print comforters and sell them at Macy’s? Oh wait….I’ll bet Sarah’s going to have sweet potato pie for dessert at Thanksgiving instead of (GASP!!!)….PUMPKIN pie. Or could it be something even MORE sinister….like she’s planning on using paper plates instead of pulling out her good china.

Martha…you really need to get a grip on yourself. If anyone is dangerous, you need to take a good look in the mirror. Do you realize that you are the mentor to thousands of Stepford wives? Your entire show, magazine, etc., is centered around perfection.

YOU can’t be happy with just putting plates, silverware and glasses on a table. Oh no,no, no,no,no…..YOU have to do something creative like making placemats out of brand new dishrags, lighting up candles, creating a centerpiece, and putting place cards on the table so everyone knows where to sit.

Before it’s all over with, you got so much sh*t on the table there’s no room for the food!

If I’m going to go to the trouble of making a trip to Walmart for brand new dishrags, I’ll be d@mned if I’m using them for placemats. And as for the candles, if the power goes out, I’ll scrounge up a candle or two. And what’s wrong with just yelling out “Jake you sit there, Jane you sit there, Paw Paw sits at the head of the table and I’ll sit next to little Clyde to keep him from feeding the dog some turkey; turkey gives ‘ole Blue the runs.”

Then, Martha (yes YOU Martha) had the audacity to call out Rachel Ray the other day. Apparently, Martha was being interviewed for an upcoming piece on Nightline. I think that she was probably upset that she had misplaced her broomstick, but after reading her quote, I’ll bet I know where the broomstick is. Here’s what Martha had to say about Rachel Ray:

In her first television interview since serving five months in prison in 2004 for lying to investigators about a well-timed stock trade, Stewart, 68, talks to ABC News’ Nightline about rebuilding her brand — and slams Ray, 41, one of her TV competitors.

“Well, to me, she professed that she could — cannot bake,” Stewart says of Ray in the interview, airing Thursday. “She — just did a new cookbook which is just a re-edit of a lot of her old recipes. She — and that’s not good enough for me.”

When it comes to writing a book, Stewart says she want to publish something that “is a unique and lasting thing. Something that will really fulfill a need in someone’s library.” Ray, she says, “is different.”

Stewart says Ray is “more of an entertainer … with her bubbly personality, than she is a teacher, like me. That’s not what she’s professing to be.”

Scout says Martha is “more of a b*tch….with her holier than thou attitude”.

Plus, I ain’t seen Rach in an orange jumpsuit picking up beer cans on the side of the road, either. I’m just sayin’.

So what if Rachel can’t bake? I can’t fry chicken worth a d@mn, but that doesn’t mean I can’t cook. So what if she redid some of her recipes to sell another book? I redo recipes all the time…lightening it up some of I can, adding more (or less) spices, etc. And I didn’t know (apparently Rachel didn’t either), that Rachel needed your approval before publishing another cookbook.

I swear Martha, you need to take a chill pill…..or something.

Before you go any further, you’d better just keep your mouth shut about Paula Deen. That woman can take a frozen ham to the face and still walk away with a smile.

I have a feeling my Paula could beat you’re a$$ with one hand and fry up some catfish, hushpuppies, and homemade biscuits with the other and not even break a sweat.

If I had my choice of hanging around either of you, I’d choose Rachel and Paula over you any day. They have something you don’t.

It’s called a personality.

The Mableton Bus Riots of 1974

School kids today do not know how easy they have it.

In most school districts, bus routes are set up for children living one or more miles away from school. Not only that, but in most cases, the bus will pick you up and drop you off right at your door!

No matter that little Timmy just lives two doors down from little Johnny; Timmy will get picked up at his house and the nice bus driver will drive that 50 feet up the road and pick up little Johnny.

Little Johnny gets on the bus and the nice bus driver will begin the long 30 foot trek to pick up little Linda. But wait! The bus driver slams on his brakes. Little Johnny’s mother is running up the road waving little Johnny’s sweater. She hands it to the nice bus driver, they exchange pleasantries, then the journey to pick up Little Linda’s lazy butt begins.

Let’s step into the “way-back” machine and take a trip back in time to 1974 and visit with the Mableton 972 Patterson Heights Riders. 972 was our bus number and Betty T was our driver.

Back then, students had to live 2.5 miles from school in order to be on a bus route. (Little Timmy, Johnny, and Linda probably have never even WALKED 2.5 miles in their lives!)

Our neighborhood was not on the official bus route. Translated, that means we had to go somewhere OUTSIDE of our neighborhood to meet the bus. In our case, we had to walk through a wooded vacant lot, through someone else’s backyard, and through someone else’s side yard to get the corner of Center Street and Mimosa Circle. That was the route for the kids living on Grace Street; the kids living on Luther Drive, which was behind us had an even further walk.

Year after year, our parents complained to whomever set up the bus routes and year after year they were ignored. Until the fall of 1974 when we were informed that our neighborhood was now officially on the bus route.

So that morning, we all gathered outside to wait for the bus. And that brought forth the first argument….where the bus stop would be located. Everyone, of course thought the bus should stop right in front of their house even though we all lived within two to three houses of one another. After much deliberation, it was decided that we would split the difference and have the bus stop at the midway point of our houses.

We waited and talked and waited and talked…and finally we heard good ole’ 972 chugging over on Center Street. We heard it make its usual stops and we began to watch for it at the top of the hill in great anticipation.

And we listened as the bus drove further and further away.

The bus had skipped our neighborhood. So we quickly tracked down a parent who was still at home to see if they could take us to school.

We weren’t sure exactly what had happened, but we would find out that afternoon.

The final bell at Floyd Jr. High School rang at 4pm; we all ran down the hallways and out the front doors to locate bus 972. When we got on the bus, we asked Betty what had happened and why she didn’t pick us up earlier that morning.

Betty said no one had told her anything about the new route and until she had been told to do otherwise, we would continue to be picked up and dropped off at our old stop.

By this time, we were all a little aggravated with the entire situation, so we decided to take matters into our own hands.

When the bus pulled up at our old stop, we remained seated.

Betty looked at us and told us that we were at our stop and to get out of the bus.

We continued to sit. Someone in the back of the bus began singing “We Shall Overcome”. (ok….I just made that part up.)

Finally, Betty figured out that we weren’t moving, so she continued on up Center Street and turned the corner onto Landers Drive. Betty was going to our neighborhood!

That brought up the next big argument…..whose street was going to get picked up/dropped off first. Betty told us we better be glad she was doing this at all and we better get it settled right now.

Since Luther Drive had more kids and were acting like big babies about the whole thing (the whiney “we’ve had to walk further than y’all, there’s more of us, blah, blah, blah) we decided to let them have their way and be picked up/dropped off first.

The Mableton Bus Riots of 1974 ended peacefully.

I just hope Little Johnny, Little Timmy, and Little Linda appreciate our pioneering efforts.