Country Questions, Country Sayin's.....

Country living brings so many questions to a person's mind.

Questions like, "Is it true you can't eat wild rabbits in the summer?"

Or, "Is it normal for two rooster pheasants to pair up & roam the fields together, or are your pheasants just gay?"

"Is that wheat, or hay- and if it's wheat, why is it balled up and treated like hay?"

"What is the proper procedure for dealing with escaped cattle? (Especially when one does not have a trained cattle dog handy?) Do the cows bite, kick, stampede or pose a threat of home invasion? Is this considered a legal South Dakota Good Excuse To Shoot My Shotgun?"

"What's the best way to humanely slaughter a meat-rabbit, without looking like that creepy lady on that Michael Moore film, Roger & Me?"

Also....while "Useless as Tits on a Boar" will always have a special place in my heart as the Best Southern Saying Of All Time...there are a couple new phrases I've learned in South Dakota that are pretty darn good.

One is "Useless as a popcorn fart". Now I'm all for finding new and creative ways to describe the utter uselessness of something. I've got two Basenjis, after all....and one can't come up with enough ways to express frustration with them at times. Other variations would be "dry as a popcorn fart" and "light as a popcorn fart." But I like useless. Fart-related insults are the best.

The other would be "Poured like piss out of a boot." A concise and evocative description of the weather. The Weather Channel would gain some much-needed spice if they started using this phrase liberally where appropriate. (The Weather Channel could also stand to lose the elevator music and play weather-appropriate music. Like gospel songs about Noah's Ark for rainy weather. Or Dethklok for tornadoes and hurricanes. C'mon, smooth jazz sucks, unless you're Courtney, but I digress.)

Either way, when I hear someone say "It poured like piss out of a boot"....I have two questions. Why is there piss in your boot, and....No, seriously, WHY IS THERE PISS IN YOUR BOOT? And don't try to blame it on drunkenness, as a drunk person can't aim well enough to get it all inside a boot's relatively narrow opening. A drunk person would just piss in the refrigerator at 3 am, just like my friend's stepdad did when I was 12.

South Dakota has changed me, for I will never view a torrential downpour the same way again.