Tales of Harper, short stories and poems
about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle
Harper Lake
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Snooping
All you hear about on the news these days is about snooping into our private lives. Well, here in Harper snooping has been going on for years. Back when we had to rely on telephone operators to send our calls through we had this one operator, Mazie Mygosh, who was kinda like the CIA is today. She figured it was her duty to discover, and report, tidbits of news she picked up listening in on our calls. One time her snooping caused a friend of my grandmother particular harm. I won't get into all that happened, but it broke up a happy marriage. My grandmother and my great aunt suspected Mazie as the culprit and devised a plan to trap her. They got on the phone several times discussing an event for ladies only (made up event) they were planning for the church. They discussed what they were going to bring and decided it should be pot luck. Nobody would know what was coming in the way of food until they opened the lid on the dishes at the moment of the feast. The party was to be held on a Thursday evening at 7 o'clock and grandma and Aunt Evie Sue stated to each other that they were supposed to be at the church with their dish at 6:30 promptly. That Thursday night they showed up at the church. Grandma brought chicken and dumplings and Aunt Evie Sue brought an apple pie. They had agreed if nobody showed up they would simply bring the dishes back home and feed them to their husbands. At around 6:15 ladies started arriving with food and according to grandma by 6:45 over a dozen covered dishes sat on the table. At seven Mazie showed up. She didn't bring anything but her appetite. Everyone ate to their filling and when the meal was over, grandma tapped her water glass with the edge of a fork and gave a little announcement. She said that Mazie was to be thanked for arranging this nice event. Grandma said that while the meal turned out to be a good thing, it would be prudent for everyone to be careful what they said on the phone in the future. Mazie claimed she didn't know what grandma was talking about, but all the ladies there knew where they had received notice of the big event.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
My husband grew up in White Bluff Tennessee which was "blessed" with a phone operator much like Mazie. If you think the government knows about your phone calls you haven't met Mavis Lee. In general she was a time saver: "Reba's not home, she's down to her momma's" or : "Mary Pearl's not back from that doctor in Dickson Her knee is real bad." Mavis Lee's sister was the operator on alternate shifts; the phone exchange was in their house. Everyone thought it was a lot more trouble when the day came that they had to dial direct. It was so much easier just to pick up the phone and say "Ring Horace, will you Mavis Lee.
ReplyDelete