BEEP

by CraftyNotepad

Excuse me just a moment while I check my messages ... A collection of 200-word or so phone messages left on the answering machines about Pickford. You're not only invited to read; you're invited to submit your own! GUEST AUTHORS' BEEPs ARE SHOWN IN CAPS

77. You Say Potato, I Say Tomato Surprise

Disclaimer: Don't judge me too harshly just because I don't own Phil of the Future. Maybe a consolation prize? How about a Dress-Me Hoop?

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B. Diffy? I'm Mr. Fleet, Tomato Ranch Public Relations Director, and this year's Executive Coordinator at Pickford's Potato Festival. I'm not a judge, so I can tell you ahead of time that your sculpture of a jolly lady pig made me smile. Delightful, B. Diffy. She wonderfully captures the emotion of the Potato Festival; she even looks a little potato-y! Well done, and your first entry, too. The reason I'm calling is I'm afraid there might have been a mix-up in the registration forms. I'm just not confident that this is the title you've dedicated to your piece. "Expression of Pent Up Frustration" just doesn't seem to embrace the experience your art creation will treat viewers, too. Can I share a secret with you confidentially? The rest of the committee has been enchanted with your art and the happy feelings it seems to coax out of them; there's even talk of making your porcine sculpture the official mascot of this year's festival, replacing Percy, the Polite Potato. That's unprecedented, and if it happens and I think it will, I don't see how the judges can not award you with the blue ribbon, but this is on the hush-hush, so keep it under your bonnet, as I say on the Ranch. But the title of your piece ...?

Now, I do have another entry by a P. Diffy coated in spackle (the submitted entry, not the artist) that embodies, nay, radiates frustration, accompanied by a deeply repressed inferiority complex only masked by an onslaught of materialism not witnessed since the Dot Com boom, perhaps even the 80s, but I'm not judging because I'm not a judge this year. Wait a tomato-pickin' minute -- B. Diffy, P. Diffy -- I wonder if that's "instigator Phil Diffy," tomato-throwin' scourge of my most recent Ketchup Days Celebration? Maybe you just better come down here, B. Diffy, and straighten out what you're calling your clay piggy yourself. It's a new Pickford Tomato Ranch Rule, I don't deal with Diffys anymore.

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