Ed. Note: This is Part 3 of the adventure. You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

A grizzled veteran of many a war sat in a rocking chair. Pushing into his sixties, the white-haired man with a white beard lit a cigar as his nieces and nephews sat around him.

“Uncle Jim, it’s almost Halloween,” one little girl said.

“Why yes, Brittany, it is. Why do you bring that up?” Uncle Jim said as he took a few puffs from his cigar.

“Could you tell us a scary story tonight for Halloween?” Brittany implored. The other children erupted in cheers and pleas for Uncle Jim to spin one of his signature scary yarns.

“Well,” Uncle Jim said with a smile on his face, “I suppose I can’t refuse the whims of one of my favorite princesses.”

AND SO HE BEGAN…

Legend has it once on a moonless, stormy night in Driftwood County, Beulah Rae Dupree answered a knock at the door of her double-wide trailer what sat at the only crossroads in the entire county.

A man allegedly was at the door. He was a master water damage mitigation technician, and his service truck had broken down. He’d asked Beulah Rae if she would be so kind as to call for a tow truck so he could be on his way.

Beulah Rae told the man she didn’t have a cell phone and lighting had rendered her landline unusable for the current night, but if he wanted to come inside and take a load off for the evening, Ms. Dupree would gladly take him to a phone at the Grassy Knoll Pub the next day.

The next morning, children, that nameless man rode into Mud Lick in Beulah Rae’s ’67 Chevy and out of this story. Nine months later, Beulah Rae Dupree gave birth to arguably the two dumbest people in Alabama: Roxie and Marge Dupree.

Saying these two poor girls were dumber than a bag of wet hammers might be too charitable. A better phrase to describe them might be “Tetched.”

“What’s ‘Tetched’ mean, Uncle Jim?” asked a child named Sophia.

“Bless you, child, I forgot your daddy’s a Yankee,” replied Uncle Jim. “Ask your mother when he’s not around one day.”

Anyway, Roxie was the firecracker of the two. Always angry at everything, always believing it was the fault of some man who did her wrong over time. And if she even suspected you of trying to disrespect her in any way, your ass was as good as cooked. Marge on the other hand was charitably described many a day as “No thoughts, just vibes.”

The one thing the two sisters could do well was clean up water damage in homes. They claim they learned the skill from watching TikTok videos, but no one actually learns anything from TikTok so that can’t be true.

One thing’s for sure, kids, if you get Roxie and Marge Dupree attending to your home, you’re in for a world of shit. They pull up a ton of unnecessary flooring and appliances. They expect you to lose your kitchen for over a week, suggesting you use DoorDash every night like they do.

They’ll tell you the project is done in three days, then when an actual accomplished male says otherwise, they’ll get him fired for sexism and bigotry. And it’s the poor shmuck whose door they darken that’s the worse off for it.

“Did you ever have to use them, Uncle Jim?” asked a young man.

Uncle Jim blew a long puff of smoke from his cigar.

“Let’s talk about something else, children.”

TO BE CONTINUED…