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This week’s column almost didn’t happen.

After lots of positive feedback from last week’s piece, a local agent has been working tirelessly to shut me down. I could fill the page with all his titles, but you know this agent simply as Life.

Did you ever have one of those weeks that just pulls on you? Almost like a poor family member?

That has been my week.

The crushing weight of even everyday tasks can sometimes sneak up on a single guy. When you work around the clock during the week and attempt to enjoy a few of Starkville’s cultural opportunities on the weekends, sometimes things fall through the cracks. Insignificant things. Things like bills, laundry, or putting gas in the car.

But contrary to what my feeble mind may believe true, ignoring these tasks does not negate their necessity. It only makes their Importance Ranking on the next day’s depth chart higher and more costly.

I wish I could just afford to hire a personal assistant.

Life would just flow so much smoother. They could make sure I’m eating healthily, clothed properly, and staying in touch with the whole lot of my family and friends.  They could go to the bank for me, which I loathe, or even the grocery store. They could handle all the tasks that distract me from getting important things done.

In ancient cultures this person was always known as, if my translation is accurate, a wife. But ever since Barbara Walters led the feminists out of Egypt, the term “Personal Assistant” has come to be the preferred terminology.

These types of “assistants” are very expensive, my married friends tell me. First, there are several thousand dollars in upfront costs. There’s also a diamond-studded signing bonus that most companies require before you can even take the assistant off the lot.

Then there are all sorts of upkeep costs involved (maintenance, health care, dental, flowers, etc.), and they seem to expect a raise each year on the exact date of their hiring.

Most hires require long-term contracts, although I have heard rumors that you can rent one by the hour over in West Point.

The cheapest option on the market though, and one that several of my other single friends have chosen, is an older unit called “Mom.”

I’m still interviewing a few candidates, but until I find one I like, I have to do the whole of life’s menial tasks by myself.

Sigh.

How do I make it through them, you ask? How do I keep from breaking down and crying out Scarlet-style at the horizon, cursing the never-ending struggle of a simple man trying to survive his twenties?  Well it’s simple.

Bojangle’s.

Starkville has a new fried chicken outlet that has even the staunchest of Health Nuts bellying up to their famous chicken and biscuits.

Last Saturday, on my first visit, I saw two police officers, a fireman, four co-workers, and an entire softball team dining on some of Bill Cunningham’s finest.

And then stuck over in a corner, trying desperately not to be seen, was my old workout instructor from the gym eating a fried chicken biscuit. Dad’gummit, I thought to myself (his favorite expression), if even the healthy people can’t resist this stuff, what chance does a guy like me have?

I’ve been three times since then, and last night I tried to deep fry my undershirts in Cajun spices. I now have purpose again. I now have a reason to get up in the morning. It’s like I’ve got a new lease on life!

Granted, just not a very long one.

This weekend I called my mother and told her I loved her.

I wasn’t drunk or in need of money, I was about to attend my first biker rally.

I’ve lived in Starkville for many years now, and before last weekend I had avoided the Sturgis Bike Rally like it was manual labor. But here in the twilight of my youth, I decided it’s an experience worth having.  Plus for a humor columnist, any event with that many freaks in one spot is like shooting fish in a barrel.

But a biker rally is not something to tackle alone, especially when you’re slow and sarcastic like me. So I set out thusly to – as the young folks say – “rustle up my homeboys” for a trip into the biker netherworld.

The homeboys I found weren’t boys at all, but rather full-grown men. Men who had seen the world and could protect a fragile youngster like myself, should things get out of hand. In order to protect the guilty, I’ll refer to them only by their aliases: Doc, Scout, and Ty Adair.

We started off the evening with some ritualistic male bonding at Scout’s apartment. We watched a couple westerns, compared shoe sizes, and bemoaned the struggles of the day.

The testosterone, she was a flowing.

When the time was right we headed out toward the county line, following the trail of exhaust fumes and crushed beer cans. Part of me thinks such littering is wrong, but another part thinks if that’s what it takes for visiting bikers to find their way back home, so be it. I sure don’t want them stuck in Starkville.

When we arrived in Sturgis, the sight was inspiring. And by that I mean it inspired me to make sure my unborn children bathe regularly.

The streets were lined with motorcycles, more motorcycles, and bail bondsmen.

The bikes ranged from simple crotch rockets to giant Harleys. One was a converted Volkswagen Beetle. One sported a six-foot tall Coors Light can on the rear. Some bikes weren’t even bikes; they were more like houses on wheels. I was very impressed with these until I realized they were just the trailers that are parked there year round.

There were people for miles, each one dressed in some combination of leather, metal, and facial hair. And that was just the women!

Some bikers and their families had tents set up in a field nearby, cooking burgers and playing football in the last of the summer sun. It reminded me of an MSU tailgate, only without the imminent threat of education all around you.

As we took it all in, speechless, Doc broke the silence.

“Guys,” he said, “when our founding fathers drafted the constitution, this was what they had in mind.”

God bless America.

We perched ourselves directly across from the library (which doubled as the official diaper changing area for the weekend) and counted the unattended children as they walked by. One was smoking a cigarette and using a retainer case as an ashtray.

Food was the next task on the agenda, and the rally had that in spades. Sausage corndogs, shrimp on a stick, turkey legs, giant nachos, and even lobster tails were all available.

Salads were not.

We bought as much food as we could carry (cargo shorts make excellent egg roll holders), and headed back to the truck.

We sat on the tailgate and listened to visitors from all corners of this great nation squeal tires and rev engines for four hours before heading home.

Motorcycles and machismo will never be my scene, and one night Sturgis sure didn’t make me want to blow my meager savings on a hog and hit the open road.

But good friends and funnel cakes are hard to find, so count me among those crusty souls who can say they’ve enjoyed Little Sturgis and lived to tell the tale.

Serenity in Starkville is over.

I enjoyed the final few minutes of it last night on my front porch. I watched a beautiful sunset while holding hands and singing campfire songs with two tiny squirrels that I’ve come to know and regard as friends.

But before we could finish our last few tunes, I heard a low rumbling in the distance. I looked west, toward Wal-Mart, and saw a cloud of dust headed in my general direction.

As the earth around my feet began to shake, my squirrel friends scattered. I’ll see them again in May, unless Starkville land developers can cut down all the trees in town before then.

Ok that was a joke. There’s no way all the trees in Starkville will be cut down within the next year. There are several still standing near the proposed Cotton Mills development and it looks like no one will be building anything there for quite a while.

Anyway, I didn’t panic when my peaceful small-town world starting crashing down around me. I’ve lived here for many years now and know to just shake my head and smile.

The Students are back.

This week college-aged kids from literally all over Northeast Mississippi will be descending on Starkville to attend Mississippi State University. They bring with them closets of maroon apparel, daddy’s credit cards, and a healthy appetite for alcohol and fast food, all cornerstones of a healthy economy.

But these cornerstones go home every summer, and for a couple of months Starkville residents are treated to some time off from our noisy neighbors next door.

We generally maximize this downtime by visiting other towns with larger populations or staying inside our homes while the streets melt.

And it’s wonderful.

But every fall the students return, and they do so with all the grace and delicacy of The Rapture.

In fact, looking toward the edge of town each August might make an uneducated Starkvillian think they were experiencing the End of Days.

The above-mentioned students arrive in U-Hauls, trailers, pickups, and flatbeds with more hand-me-down wares than a depression-era thrift store.

These 18 year-old greenhorns are escorted on all sides by a trove of parents attending to their every need, much the way agents and publicists hover around celebrities.

After the trucks are unloaded and the apartment is fully endowed with both futon and mini-fridge, parent and child will exchange a tearful goodbye and – once the other is safely out of sight – begin plotting how best to enjoy the next four (or more) years.

Now I know what you’re thinking. This scene is fairly common and is easily replicated in many college towns across America.

But neither student nor resident is ever fully prepared for what drafts into town behind the students each fall… bikers. Thousands of them.

As if leaving Mary Clare behind at college isn’t tough enough on her parents, they have to see leather-clad rednecks on Harleys heading into town as they leave.

The Sturgis Bike Rally, held just south of town, brings a surly brand of rural-burlesque human being to our fair county, and their presence (combined with that of the returning students) is impossible to ignore.

Just walk into the local Applebee’s around dinnertime this Saturday night.

No other restaurant in America will be serving patrons with a wider range of education, disposable income, or hygiene.

You won’t catch me there. Like most locals, I’ve stocked my fridge and pantry with enough food to sustain me for several weeks. A Wal-Mart trip during a week like this is as dangerous as it is fruitless.

No, I’ll be on my porch.

Looking for squirrels and counting the empty U-Hauls as they ease back off into the rural Mississippi night.

These are the best of times, these are the worst of times… The school year has started.

I generally try to keep my professional life private (and my personal life public, weird I know), but as any teacher with any modicum of dedication can tell you, the challenges and excitement of the first few weeks of school encompass both the mind and soul. I couldn’t write on another topic if I tried.

So here I am, a harried public servant once again taking a voluntary free-fall off the 180-day cliff that is the school calendar.

It’s incredibly ironic that I currently serve at a school whose mascot is a yellow jacket. The yellow jacket, in all its stinging splendor, has been a scourge to my nirvana since a very early age.

My first experience with the creature came at around three years old. I was playing out back of my grandparents’ house in rural McNairy County, Tennessee.

Though I was raised in the suburbs, my family is no more than a generation removed on either side from the slow-paced, simple country life of a farmer.

In other words, this little blogger can fish.

So I was wandering barefoot near the goat pen on one sunny summer afternoon, minding my own business and searching a good strong tree to pee on. All of a sudden, I felt a pain radiate through my foot that rivaled what I imagine my first kidney stone will feel like.

I looked down and saw this oddly-colored creature with wings slamming its butt into my ankle with all its might. I swatted at the tiny beast, but missed wildly. I didn’t develop coordination until somewhere around my 17th birthday, and this little guy wasn’t going anywhere.

Even at such a young age, I quickly realized I was ill-equipped to fight this fight on my own. So I did what any self-respecting three-year old might do: I took off at a dead sprint in the direction of the house… and my momma!

Now at three years-old, I lacked the vocabulary to explain the situation to my very-confused parents. As far as they knew the situation could have ranged in seriousness anywhere from a broken limb to a loss at Red Rover.

Not being on the receiving end of this painful ordeal, they kept asking me question after question about just what it was that had attacked me.

“I don’t know,” I yelled. “Something that hurts!”

Ever the calm one, my dad asked, “Son, can you describe it?”

In my frustration I said the only thing I could come up with.

“It looked like a cricket with wings,” I said. “And it had a green stomach on its back.”

From that they determined yellow jacket, and that nest fell victim to a gasoline enema.

Later than night, after a bath and some ice cream, I was thinking clearly again. I thought about the nest and all the innocent yellow jackets that had paid that ultimate sacrifice for the sins of one disgruntled loner. I hoped my name would not now be known by the whole of the yellow jacket community, lest there be reprisals. I would have my answer just three short years later.

Kindergarten. Pearl, Mississippi. Northside Elementary cafeteria.

As we left the cafeteria headed back to our classroom/trailer, Mrs. Gray assembled us by the door.

“Class, when we walk by the dumpsters outside, there are a lot of yellow jackets buzzing around today,” she said. “Do NOT get stung.”

Seemed solid advice at the time, but now I look back on it and think, how exactly does one do that? That’s like asking someone to make sure the sun comes up.

But at the time, I took her challenge very seriously. I was doing my very best, given the limited variables under my control, not to get stung. I was walking in a straight line. I was not talking to the people in front or behind me. I wasn’t making eye contact with any student from another class, and certainly not with any of the circling yellow jackets.

All to no avail.

Yep, I was attacked. It was done mafia style, from behind . My attacker was gone before I knew what had happened. I fell to the ground in slow-motion, like a scene from an Oliver Stone movie, my Ghostbusters lunch box cracked open on the pavement for all to see.

I can only assume it was retribution for what happened to that hive of innocents back in Tennessee, but who knows with these things.

I’ve had it out for the yellow jackets and their ilk ever since.

Except for the ones that attend public schools.

As I was flipping through the channels yesterday, I noticed that CNN was replaying the old Disney classic, The Ugly Duckling.

Then I realized it was just their coverage of the Chelsea Clinton wedding.

The reporter kept describing the event (which some have estimated at almost $5 million) as a “fairy tale.”

And I kept thinking, “Yes! I’ve heard this story before! …Now when does she become the beautiful swan?”

Of course those who know me best know of my deep-seeded fascination with and respect for the Clintons.

Whether it’s because of our shared Southern roots or the fact that he was president during my most formative years, I’ve always respected and enjoyed the Clinton perspective on the welfare of our union.

But even I can’t ignore the inherent humor of Bubba & Family.

So after watching the coverage of daughter Chelsea’s marriage to investment banker Marc Mezvinsky on Saturday in Rhinebeck, NY, I decided to take a trip down memory lane.

The first memory I have of Chelsea is of seeing her on inauguration day in 1993, grinning from frizz to frizz one moment and then nodding off the next. The whirlwind event had caught up with the young girl.

I watched the event live from Mrs. Oral’s third grade classroom at Grenada’s Carrie Dotson Elementary. I was one of the few in my classroom to vote for Mr. Clinton in our school-wide election a few months earlier, so I was quite proud to have picked the winner correctly in the first presidential election I could really remember.

My limited reasoning behind selecting Clinton stemmed from a series of blurbs Nickelodeon ran in-between their vaunted cartoon schedule. The quick-hit commercials showed both Clinton’s and George Bush’s stances on several issues, especially ones affecting kids.

I don’t remember the issues, but I remember liking Clinton’s ideas.

Now at the time, I really didn’t think Chelsea looked much worse than most of my similarly-southern and similarly-awkward grade school classmates. As a kid who never could quite get the girl, I’d have sure given that orange ball of hair and teeth a shot.

Later that month, during a semi-regular visit to my mom’s folks in Pearl, I heard my mother and my grandmother (we call her Mimi) discussing the inauguration. I was already curious about all things political, so I stopped firing plastic pizzas (from my official Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Pizza Thrower) at my sister long enough to listen to the conversation.

I remember Mom saying how nice it all was and how tired Chelsea must have been. Then I remember my Mimi, who I’m pretty sure wouldn’t vote for Jesus if he ran Democrat, saying to my mother, “It’s a good thing that poor girl is rich. She sure ain’t gonna win any beauty contests.”

Fast forward almost twenty years and here we are. While others have grown up and transformed themselves into beautiful Southern belles, poor little Chelsea is, though improved, still struggling.

I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself after reading this passage from a CNN story after the wedding:

When Bill Clinton was seen in Rhinebeck earlier this week, someone asked him if his daughter was going to look beautiful on Saturday.

“She looks beautiful every day to me,” the beaming father said.

But then we all know Slick Willy never did have much taste in women.

The fact that Chelsea’s chosen suitor is Jewish had to be a tough pill for her mother to swallow. Just over a decade ago, a Clinton and a Jew were making headlines too, but of a far more scandalous variety.

In an ironic twist of fate, now it’s the suave, rich Jew settling for the homely Clinton, not the other way around.

Life’s funny that way, eh?

Perhaps somewhere in bowels of a makeup factory, Monica Lewinsky is crying over her tea leaves.

But in all sincerity I couldn’t be happier for Chelsea, who seems remarkably well-adjusted given how unconventional both her parents and her upbringing have been.

Chelsea’s wedding, and the fact that she seems to be genuinely happy, give hope to many other Ugly Ducklings that they too might find true love.

Courtney Love, Amy Winehouse, and Rosie O’Donnell will all sleep better tonight.

I know I certainly will.

With every summer a young man spends in Mississippi, the threat of Hell holds less and less sway.

Eternal fire and damnation just aren’t that compelling after 6 months in Oktibbeha County under similar conditions.

Having grown up in this state and lived here for the entirety of my life, heat is just something that comes naturally. It’s as dependable as the changing of seasons that I’ve read occur in other parts of the country.

And the humidity!

It is not uncommon in the South to see – on a July day such as this one when the air is so thick with humidity it can cause choking – young children and the elderly wandering around outside with sweat just streaming from the edges of their diapers.

When Martin Luther King, Jr. described Mississippi as a state that was, “sweltering from the heat of injustice and oppression,” he failed to mention that it was also sweltering from the heat of… heat.

Naturally people of my demographic suffer the heaviest burden during these brutally hot times. The weather takes a toll on us as a people and grinds the weaker of our number to a halt. What’s worse, no government or media outlet seems to be sympathetic to our plight.

I’m referring of course to the Plus-Size population.

Fit people have no idea the effort level involved in mobilizing 350 pounds of mass to get up off the couch and go mow the lawn in 102-degree heat. Or what it takes just to trudge to the mailbox. Or move to the other end of the couch.

I thought when Mississippi elected Haley Barbour as governor, there might be relief on the way for “people of size.”

Surely the fattest governor of the fattest state would pander to his base? Moving sidewalks anyone? Fried Twinkie Week?

But no.

What does Barbour do? He launches “Let’s Go Walking, Mississippi.”

WALKING?!?! I certainly don’t see The Guv making laps around the Capitol on his lunch hour. No, he’s safely inside, being wheeled from meeting to meeting by his handlers in a tobacco-lined wheelbarrow with a full bar attached to one side.

It’s tantamount to party-swapping, so far as I can tell.

There are many things a person might do to escape the Mississippi heat. You could go sample the heat in Alabama or Texas, for one. My friends in the city tell me the New York heat is nice right now. Or, If you’re looking for prestige and have no problem with little things like loyalty or morals, I hear lots of people are heading to the Miami Heat these days.

Personally I have chosen to join a gym.

I visit it almost every day. I don’t actually exercise, but I do like to hang out there. See I had my cable cut off because it was too expensive. So for half what I was paying the cable company, I bought a gym membership and now get all the free cable, air conditioning, and tap water I want.

Management’s decision to clutter up the place with exercise equipment is an ill-advised choice of décor, in my opinion, but I manage to work my way around it.

Most of the televisions are connected to the fronts of the treadmills, which can be a bit tricky, but I just pull a reclining weight bench up onto one of the belts so I can watch my shows from a seated and comfortable position.

I get several glares from sweaty strangers when there’s a King of Queens marathon on, but most people are pretty accepting.

Most people.

There was this one old man in a brand new diaper who told me to, “Go to hell!” when I refused to give him my machine.

I just turned up the volume on my headphones and politely told him “I’m already there, that’s why I’m here.”

Last week I took a Carnival cruise to Mexico with my family.

Now this may sound like a fantastic, relaxing spectacle until you realize that it’s a Carnival cruise to Mexico… with my family.

First, there’s my parents, who listen to Bluegrass music en masse and like to congratulate each other on the small things in life like finding the cheapest gas.

Especially my dad, who is, well… a budgeter. Some misguided souls might call him cheap. He borrows internet from the neighbors, drops ESPN from his satellite package in the offseason, and plays free Tetris on his prepaid TracFone. A true man of the world.

My mom is a smothering sort who doesn’t mind at all interrupting the natural flow of any event in order to ask everyone to stop and face the camera for a picture. She does this so that (theoretically) we may on some distant date, after she’s long gone, come across that picture and remember fondly the very event she kept us from enjoying.

Then there’s my younger sister and her husband, who are weeks away from moving to Memphis and starting new jobs, stressed to the gills with the growing weights of adulthood.

My brother-in-law Josh is an artist, a sculptor. Very talented. My sister’s artistic talents manifest themselves in much subtler ways, like garage sale posters or elaborate signatures on credit card receipts.

And so the five of us set out toward New Orleans (and eventually Mexico) like five characters in some modern Twain tale.

For those uneducated about  life aboard a cruise ship, there is food. Lots and lots of food. One Carnival cruise ship could easily feed the entire starving populations of Burundi and Malawi, with enough leftover to support at least one Baldwin brother.

Buffets for breakfast. Buffets for lunch. And – since this was a Gulf of Mexico cruise – Jimmy Buffett performing live on an oil derrick.

On the Lido Deck, I witnessed one young lady who had to be physically detained for hoarding a bucket of sausage-stuffed calamari fritters, fending off security with a plastic crab zipper. I just shook my head at the scene and returned to my chocolate and mango sushi.

At sea there are different terms for everything. Port and Starboard mean left and right, Forward and Aft mean front and back, etc. I realized this lingo was dangerous in the hands of Southerners when a guy from Auburn nudged me one day at a bar by the pool and asked me if I had “checked out the aft on the girl in the orange bikini.”

My dad, in over 2,300 passengers, found and befriended an elderly hippie from right here in Starkville. He and his wife were celebrating their 40^th anniversary and renewed their vows aboard the ship. My parents both agreed that after forty years, a more proper vacation would be separate cruises.

In Cozumel, Amanda and Josh went snorkeling. Both are whiter than an albino Eskimo, so it surprised no one when they returned to the ship looking like honorary members of the Aztec Nation.

I spent my own time in port seeking out some of the finer things the natives had to offer: golden margaritas, a silver chain necklace, and sweet-smelling Cuban tobacco. All duty free and of the highest quality. One simply would not believe the deal I negotiated for these wares.

But like even the finest of siestas at even the finest of cantinas, the adventure had to end.

By the time we returned on Saturday, Mom had digitally documented three quarters of the ship and was declared Ship Champion in Speed-Sudoku. My sister purchased several pieces of art, none of which impressed her husband, who was too busy nursing a water blister that boiled over like Old Faithful every 37 minutes. (I timed it!)

Dad left the ship with half a dozen new friends and quite proud of himself for achieving the high score on Tetris. I haven’t the heart to tell him that he’s playing only himself and the previous high score was his from last week. He’s happier this way.

As for myself, I declared three street-grade Mexican cigars and a green necklace, cursing the damned Mexicans all the way home.