“It looked like some kind of bullfrog, only uglier…”

Well, I knew it was only a matter of time until one of Granny’s friends would pop out of the backwoods and send in a story. I swear, I let that old lady read this last night and she giggled and snorted and spit out her lower teeth at one point. That’s when I got up and drove over to Catlow’s trailer house. Sometimes y’a just gotta get away from old women, ‘specially when they’ve been tippin the jug while they’ve been doin’ their daily chores.

I don’t know what else to say about this story except you better swallow that Starbucks before you start this one because you’re about one minute away from a good ol’ belly laugh that will make your day go better.

This story was sent in by Shawna A. Smart, (I suspect a nom-de-plume), but never the less, it’s going to be a classic and probably discussed around here for a long time.

So, without takin’ up any more of your time, here’s one of the funniest yet………..

Golf Clubs Wanted

by Shawna A Smart

“It started when the ship was seventy light years away from our home planet.” My husband told the grandkids. “That was the last time your old granddad got to play a good game of golf.”

I rolled my eyes, up to my elbows in soapy dishwater as I scrubbed the dinner pans. Here it comes, I thought, sighing to myself a little. He was never going to get over not being able to get more of them titanium golf clubs he won for retiring with a perfect work record from the General Motors Plant.

I reached out with my foot and kicked the doorstop loose so the door shut between me and that story. It still bothered me some to hear him complainin’ and all. I still remember that day like it was yesterday, and although I guess I saved the whole planet and everything, Herb was still kinda teed off about his golf clubs.

Okay sure he ain’t ever played another one of those tournament games and won, but honestly, you’d think that golf was more important then mean little aliens, with long fangs drooling acid on my nice hardwood floors.

According to NASA’s telescopes, the scout ships that landed in my back forty were advance lookouts for that great big ship that had parked itself all those light years away; not that I have the foggiest idea what a light year is but Herb seems to love saying that. Just between you and me I doubt he knows either.

Anyway I sure do remember that day, although I’m gettin’ on in years now and I reckon I just had me my sixty-ninth birthday. I still have more knives in my kitchen drawer then Herb ever had, bless him, though I know better then to go on about such things with that man.

He might not be so almighty sharp, but the man never did miss a day’s work in his thirty years at General Motors building cars on the line. He come home most nights, and always paid the light bill. Never done no nonsense like running around on me or drinking overly much neither. I am sorry for his clubs, and I guess I’ve said so ‘bout a hundred times already, but when a lady has her back in a tight spot, why anything that comes to her mind to do is just natural I reckon.

I had just finished up doing a fresh load of sheets in the washtub, and I had them all piled and smelling sweet in my favorite straw braided basket, which also got ruined that day, though you won’t catch me crying about it. I was fetching them out back to the nice clothesline Herb strung for me between the house and my prize-winnin’ patch of tomatoes.

Course I do have a pretty nice dryer, but it was high summer and there was a brisk Arkansas breeze blowing down from the hills, just as sweet smelling as you please. No dryer sheet in the world can match the perfume of wind-dried sheets on a day like that. I took special care of my house, still do I’d say and there’s things you kin do that can’t ever be beat by store bought; I ‘spect that’s one of ‘em.

So I carried that basket out through my back room, heading for the laundry line with a bag of pins settin’ on the top of everything. I had just got down the back steps and all, when I saw one of them little alien things squatting by my prize tomatoes in my little garden plot.

Well I stopped dead in my tracks, and I can’t rightly say what I was thinking about just then, other then I jest couldn’t believe my eyes. I don’t rightly think I knew what I was seeing at first. It looked like some kind of bullfrog, only uglier from behind, like maybe one that had got itself into some of that radioactive stuff they make up in them late night television movies.

Well, then I noticed my prize tomatoes next, all smashed, broken and some tore up by the roots, and without giving it much thought (I’ve always had a quick temper just like my mama) I took about five quick steps and kicked that ugly ole thing square in its backside.

It squalled right loud and after flying a few feet it hit the ground hard, but then it popped back up and turned around so fast I blinked a couple times, then fell back a step with my mouth hanging open wide. It might have been an ugly sight from the back, squatting on all fours, but from the front it was a mean looking thing, sure enough.

It rose up on it’s hind legs, and it’s face was down right horrifying, with a pinched-up looking four- cornered mouth that sprang open in all directions, as some kind long, thin fangs popped out into sight. Clear strings of boiling drool began dripping off of those teeth, and soon as it hit the ground those drops just burned clean through everything they touched. There was a single bulging knob on it’s chin that looked to have clusters of eyeballs on it, like a housefly got, and its front paws had some very sharp looking spines too. I reckon it had about twenty or so on each one.

There were all kind of yellowish warty looking knots on that face, and they was oozing some kind of nasty green stuff that started streaming down it’s black skin. I seen every one of those eye clusters turned a glowing red when it squealed at me, too. The thing took one huge hop and landed not more’n three feet away, and then it spat a pretty good stream of that clear seethin’ liquid at me from that nasty mouth.

I guess it was only sheer fright that saved me from gettin’ my face burned clean off, ‘cause with a shriek I threw that straw basket down at it, and pickin’ up my skirts I cut and run for the porch steps before you could say Jack Robinson. I don’t recall as I touched a single step on my way up, neither.

Well after levitatin’ up my steps, I slammed the door so hard behind me that some plaster pieces cracked and fell right out of my porch ceiling, and gasping I shot the bolt on it, and then stood staring through the door glass at my basket of wet clothes; they was burning just as fiercely as seasoned cord wood.

That critter was just standing, there kinda staring at the basket, and it was then I noticed there was two more of them further back in my tomato patch. Well Lord, I could feel my heart pounding away as I stood watching them for awhile, I can’t say for sure how long I done that either, but it was long enough to see that third one get back to drooling on my plants with t’other two.

I looked again at my laundry basket, and by then it weren’t nothing but a smoking hole in the ground where it had fallen. It was right about then that I really started to get mad, ‘cause my mama gave me that basket and a goodly number of those sheets as well. I was double damned if some little monster was going to come and burn up everything nice I had.

I turned around, marched into the living room and called up the Sheriff’s Department, but when I talked to the dispatch girl I said I had some vandals out back. Guess I knew well enough what they would think about what I really had out back there. Then I headed for Herb’s gun cabinet and snatched out his old double barrel shotgun, and a few more rounds of double ought as well to reload her with.

Then before I could lose my nerve I ran back through the house to my porch door, and smashed the glass clean out of it with the butt of that shotgun. Then I swung it back up near my cheek to get a good line on one of them. They were all kinda bunched together, and the sound of that breaking glass brought all three of ‘em swinging around to look at me as I stood there, and I shucked the action on that gun real forceful like.

I centered the middle line running between the barrels dead center on the nearest critter and pulled the trigger just as I seen the farthest one jump, and t’other two went up in a fiery sheet of flame as they were blown scattered into the sad remains of my tomato stakes.

I staggered back under the shotguns kick, but as I was fumbling for the other loads in my apron pocket, that third critter slammed into my porch door so hard the frame cracked, and then I seen its needle like claws come tearing through that hard walnut door like it was paper.

One of the little bits of wood that come flying off that door hit me dead in the eye, and it hurt so bad I dropped that shotgun like it was hot and clapped a hand to my face as I stumbled back from the entryway. There was a rapidly widenin’ hole in that back door, and with a holler I turned and scrambled for the living room, thinking I wanted to get to my room and maybe just hide before it got all the way in. Herb had the car and it was seven miles to the next neighbor, so I knew I was in trouble for sure.

So I ran through the house with my eye jest smartin’ like crazy and scrambled upstairs to my bedroom, where I almost skated across the polished wood floor to the walk in closet at the back of it. Grabbing the handle I pulled it shut just as quiet as I could, and then kinda fell to the back of it, gasping and trying to stop breathing so loud for fear it would hear me. I reckon I will never forget that time, the sweat pouring from my forehead, and my heart jest a pounding so loud in my ears I couldn’t hear a thing. I started groping around trying to find something I might use to fight with, if it came to that.

Yep sure ‘nuff, my hand fell on the shiny new leather lining around the top of Herb’s new golf club bag, and I grabbed the first titanium iron I touched and slid it out of that bag, and then tried my dandiest to hunker down behind the it in the corner of that closet.

Right about then that cussed thing slammed powerfully hard into the closet door, and my nerves were so pitched up I let out a scream. Next thing I know those terrible claws came tearing through the door again as the critter began diggin’ through it; guess they never heard of doorknobs where ever the hell it came from.

By now I had tears streaming down my face and I couldn’t get my right eye open a ‘tall, and I had snot and sweat all over me as well , so I decided that I had taken all I was going to take. Standing up I took a fresh grip on that golf club with one hand and lifting the bag up with t’other I kicked that door just as hard as I could.

There was a pained squeal of rage from the thing as that door hit it square in its ugly little face, and it flew back sliding along my waxed hardwood floor as that big knob of eyes kinda popped and went grey. I hefted that bag of clubs right up with one hand, and just heaved them at that little monster as it squatted squalling with pain, and drooling acid all over my good wooden floors.

To this day Herb just can’t believe I threw that bag clubs and all, he used to stagger a little gettin’ those things in his car trunk, but sure ‘nuff it went sailing across the room and landed dead square on that little bugger; it popped just like a bug gettin’ squashed by a tire. A great big gush of that clear liquid came running out from under the bag and the whole shebang caught fire as them titanium clubs jest slumped into that spreading pool of acid.

The next ten minutes was a mite crazy, as I ran around the house, putting out the fire upstairs and down with my little fire extinguisher ( I got that little honey the town safety fair last winter and its a good thing I did); Right about that time the Sheriff car pulled up.

Well, there was lots of flashing lights after a bit and all kinds of sirens, and off I went to the hospital to get that bit of wood out of my eye, and some of that salve they slather on you for burns; I got a few putting out all them fires. Meanwhile all kinds of troopers, newsmen, and nosy bodies came to stand on the road in front, and look on the mess that followed.

As I sat about a month later watching the TV, it finally came on the news that they had examined those critters and figured out they came from some ship they had seen with their telescopes, but it left not too long after I killed that third critter, and they thought I’d scared ‘em off for good, maybe.

I tried explaining it all to Herb, but I don’t think he really ever got the whole thing straight in his mind. Like I said he ain’t the sharpest knife in a set, but he ain’t ever let up on how I ruined them golf clubs.

I keep thinking ’bout how the President sent me a letter, after I told everyone I didn’t want to go to the White house and all to see him. Seeing how I never have much liked going anywhere, I politely declined, although he wanted to give me a ceremony or some such; reckon if maybe he would give Herb another set of them clubs?

I sure get tired of hearing about ‘em.