Vegetable Soup

Sit back and have a cup of coffee and try to stay more then 56 seconds.

The Following monologue is for Herman Cain, the GOP and the Tea Partiers.  This is the voice of the common American, our elderly and, to me, a rich source of story no matter how disjointed they sometimes appear to be.   When your are formulating all of your plans to stop spending on Social Security or cut vital programs for the mentally ill or slash the wallets of your grandmother’s or grandfather’s income, remember this woman because these are her EXACT words as I transcribed them 22 years ago from a voice recording.  Here is the story:

Vegetable Soup

While I was making vegetable soup, Mrs. Ingles, my landlady, all of 82 years young,  begins to speak while she watches me prepare the aforementioned vegetable soup.

 I wish they would go.  Anne was actin’ like she had an invitation to have him.  Every time I call down there this morning he’s been busy.  Marie called once and wanted to know what the admission was and what did it cost—but Lucy TOLD me it was free and Bill said what difference if it does cost somethin’—just goin’ out to eat. 

Morris (pronounced Marsh) is tight.  I said “Morris.  Unzip that ole back pocket of yours and that billfold.  You’re goin’ with me!  I BET he’s got 40 thousand dollars in the bank.  More than that!  I’m goin’ to get them to send me a new……

There’s Henry’s new number!  I can’t never remember that number down there…They’d get in the phone down there and Susan’s down there and they…

Drop some onions in there.

Susan…and she makes drapes too! 

But you know…when my sister’s husband died, Bill went to the funeral and I was so sick then…with this brace on my back…I had just hurt it tryin’ to raise this window.  The doctor said “No—you can’t go and so he went in ‘cept nobody didn’t know him.  Not any of his cousins knew him—and the ONLY one that knew him was my sister, Lucy—said she knew it all the time…and my sister-in-law or my niece, married my nephew—lives downtown in Frontville, said—Oh my God  “WHO’S that good lookin’ man!”.  I’d like to know who he is so I could just go!  Bill, her cousin and so my sister got up and had to tell them all who he was.  Wasn’ that something? 

You need to stir that…

And they hadn’t seen him since he came from Vietnam.  They didn’t know him and Bill got the biggest kick out of it that it was…

I’m like Morris—Even it it does cost somethin’ to go out and eat supper—What’s that?  Spend it every day—suit me just fine. 

I believe that Morris will go.  I believe that Janice will keep on and keep on and keep on….Susan will be in school and….oh…

that soup smells good don’t it?  That’s pretty thick soup though..

I’m goin to call them and see how they’re doin’…

(Mrs. Ingles is now on the phone)

What are you doin?  You have an invitation to come down and eat supper… Here..From John…Yeah..he made a great big pot of vegtable soup…NO..he won’t be here tomorrow night.  I mean we won’t have the soup tomorrow night.  He made a bigh pot of vegetable soup and is its really good…well, bring them with you…won’t  hurt..oh, she hadn’t Well, just let her wear anything…I am here..don’t matter what she wear down here.

We’re makin’ the soup.. and got a great big pot full and there’s everything in it ‘cept the horse’s hoof…forget the horse’s hoof…We’re just talkin’ about it .  We didn’t know it ourselves til we decided to make it.  He asked me if I  knew how to make vegetable soup—I told him “yeah”.  Oh you have what?  Well, put ‘em back in the refigerator and you can have them tomorrow night.  Oh you won’t?  Well, you’re workin’ tomorrow night?  Don’t do nothin’ you don’t want to do—Well, we hve to watch everything…You have to watch it…I guess we’ll have to eat that big pot of soup by ourselves.  Well, they’ll keep until tomorrow…Why won’t she cook?  You just cook ‘em, put ‘em in there and they’ll keep.  Oh—shoo—well, OK…yeah…oh, listen are you going to meet us down here or do you want us to pick you up there?  Wouldn’t hurt…be a good idea..Roger’ll be here and John will be in and hout…he won’t be goine nowhere..well, he’ll be down—he got to help that girl move in…it’ll be alright…well..park it in the backway…they don’t steal gas aaround here.  NOBODY stole gas around here—you just park it in the back way up to the door…yeah…yeah. .be a week from this Saturday…I’m so glad to be goin’..I don’t know what to do…see all them ole boyfriends I had…I tole Morris…tole Morris Lee..tryin to get thim to go… I tole him before he go to pick out his step daddy. 

I think Janice might want to go but I think that Morris might resist tellin’ me that—you know how he is…yeah…Abingdon…It’s at Abingdon where we go…so…ush..he said he might hve to work that night…I said you might hve to go fishin’.  He don’t work on Saturday nights…not very often…he could get off if he wanted to ..now he doesn’t want off—‘cause he know he could..soup sure does smell good.

Well…it don’t have calories—well, he sure did make a good pot of soup.

(she giggles)

You know what John said…you know what  he said?  Get your rump down here!  Get your RUMP down here…

(to me)

she done got her supper laid out…pork chops for tonight.

(to phone)

He said to bring it..Well that alright—bring your company with you.. you can fry the pork chops and have the soup too.  Wy yeah, they’d be good together.  They’d be good together and …and..uh..vegetable soup together… Well, decide what you want to do..well ok..bye…

(Mrs.Ingles hangs up phone)

She said she didn’t know whether she could or not and said she been washing and all this stuff for Debbie getting’ all her clothes and she had to watch her gas…and I know darn well that I had. My back hasn’t hurt for days with this brace on…No it hasn’t…When I go down there I goin’ to wear no brace that night that night…I’m not going to take it. I’m goin’ to wear my regular clothes.

Have you tasted it?

I tell you there was no darn man who’d tell me where I couldn’t go…Nobody’d tell me..my husband didn’t…he trusted me…anywhere I want to go…I went…

Them carrots are not quite done.

I may get married…he wants me to…I don’t want to though…I hadn’t see but that one man that I want and he told me three lies and that turned me against him.

If he lie on one thing, he’ll lie on somethin’else and he had no reason to lie and when he write to his sister or sister in laws they ask if they seen or heard anything from me…and he was just so nice as pie to me and he come up here and he had some friends up here that played checkers a lot and he’d go to the store, git groceries, anything that I’d need he’d git and when he came he said “do you have any money?” and I said I’ll take two or three thousand dollars if you got it!  It wasn’t nothing for him to give out a hunnert dollars.  That’s the durn truth..but that lie…he had no business…I said “why’d you do that” and HE said  I was getting’ so close to him that he had to tell something.—I said “why didn’t you tell the truth?” So I made him give me the key back to the front door….and THAT”S his checkerboard sittin’ in there and he’s never goin’ to git it.  Perhaps I’ll change my heart—

you need some salt in that—That’s a big pot…

Well, sometimes I get the feelin’ that I’d give anything in the world to see him—then the last time he came I wanted to see him so bad but when he DID come I didn’t care whether he come or not—his sister and his sister in law tell me everything…

it has a good taste to it…It needs to be cooked some more though…

Hey, John—put about a tablespoon full of sugar in that…Give it a good sweet taste…

I got to see that ole doctor on the second…on the second I got to go see him.  He said he was goin' to give me an X-Ray of my back and see if I couldn’t go without the brace…this is a different one!  There’s something wrong with that…you see this –I had one fracture type—to raid that window there and a fractured rib—and they put this one on it.

It hurt all day yesterday…see…It’s right…right in here—its where that arthritis has been busy and I’s tellin’ my sister what I had…said she had the same thing—said it was caused by liftin' patients in a hospital.  It won’t hurt you while you’re doin’ it but you pull and lift and twist and turn and then when the husband got sick I had to lift him by myself.  Now you can’t believe that I have…He’d had dysentery so much all the time and you just had to lift him and change him and they just sent me great big boxes of pads down here from the hospital and the orderlies from time to time would come in and help me and he got so he could lift himself—he couldn’t turn.  I did it.  Shoo…you talk to me .  You work around the hospital and now we had orderlies that would come and help you with men…and the women will get up their big heavy people—maybe two women—will get under their arms and lift those heavy men up into wheel chairs…what’s that goin’ to do to them…I tole this lady..Miss Bizarre…I said—Miss Bizarre—I wouldn’t do that .. You know what you’re doin’ to yourself..why don’t you get your orderly..she said they didn’t have no orderly. I said  “how can you two small women lift that heavy man into that chair and then from the chair into the bed.  Now you know that’s too hard for a woman to do..

Stir the soup..you don’t want to burn the bottom.