Quit Dilly-Dallying Around

I’m fixing to quit dilly-dallying around.

My momma used to tell me to quit dilly-dallying around when she had me working in her garden.

About every other butter bean I picked, I would shell and eat the beans raw. I would take the neck of a crooked neck squash, marvel at the smooth, knobby yellow surface of it, and then try to spin the crook around my finger real fast without dropping it. If I found a June Bug or a Lady Bug I would toy with them until she slapped them out of my hand.

My Uncle Curvin used to tell me to quit lolly-gagging around when he was working me in his cotton field.

While picking, we would search for hard cotton bolls which had never popped open. When we found one we would wait until someone’s head appeared a few rows over, then chunk it at them. A hard cotton boll would raise a sizable knot on your noggin if it caught you squarely.

My father used to tell me to quit piddle-paddling around when we were cutting fire wood.
He and my oldest brother would be handling the cross cut saw to drop the trees and saw them up into blocks to be split.

My job, to keep the blade from sticking, was to periodically douse the blade with kerosene from a Coca-Cola bottle with green pine straw stuffed in the neck of it as a filter. They always had to wait on me because I would drift off into the woods and be picking huckle berries or chasing chipmunks.

Today, I’m not dilly-dallying, lolly-gagging, or piddle-paddling around, because day after tomorrow is April 15, and I’m fixing to get my taxes in the mail.