Turkey Day with Bob Cox

After much chewing, chatting and tooth-picking, I can reflect upon the past twenty-four hours fondly and call it a drowsing-yet-satisfying success. 

Phrase of the day:  "DON'T TOUCH IT!"  -- attributed my husband's uncle, the original Ouachita Mountain Bobcat, whose actual name shall not be violated in writing.  Not that you couldn't keep a secret; he just likes to go by "Bob Cox" whenever he's in mixed company.  It's his way of "staying off the grid", he says.  Not like drawing a government check diminishes that kind of anonymity, right?  After all, one must always be on guard and prepared for the fall of modern man. 

I somehow, toward the end of the meal, became the designated pie slicer.  Lemon, chocolate meringue, turtle cheesecake, all the stars were out.  Uncle "Bob" leaned over grandma and I, eager to bestow his wheezing breath upon the portions displayed below.  "What can I do fer ya?" I piped in the local brogue.  "Iiiii think I'd like yonder piece of lemon, please," he said, decided only at the last possible second. 

I carefully split the pie, carefully beginning with the DIVINE shortening-laden crust and inching my way toward the precisely-congealed center.  As the piece I had so carefully cut began to lean over and give way to the weight of the meringue on top, I began to reach over and catch the wobbly confection when the Thundering Voice of Zeus hollered:

"DON'T TOUCH IT!"

And now I know better than to stick my clean finger into the man's holiday pie.  The very same man who relocates his sleeping quarters whenever the ticks take over his previous one.

REALLY?

Really.