Dear Reader -- please know that although Lofton County, VA is fictional, the so-called "gumbos" described in this post and the last are not -- I have eaten one, and I just heard that someone I know got sick on another! You can't make all of this stuff up!
Image by Gundula Vogel from Pixabay
“Hey, Pop-Pop, while you are buying up restaurants that make no sense, you should buy up Slocum's Spectacular Salads with Slocum's Fried Fabulous, because they are doing a version of gumbo featuring their potato salad for the vegetarians.”
As ever, nine-year-old Vertran Stepforth was sitting in with and helping billionaire Thomas Stepforth Sr., his grandfather, with business research.
“Yes, Vertran, they are part of the same group, and since they are making the vegetarians sick along with everyone else, Monsieur Dubois and I are considering buying up the whole group – did you hear my grand mogul and chief research assistant, Jean-Luc?”
Eight-year-old Edwina Ludlow handed her popcorn to her seven-year-old sister Amanda and got back down on the floor, laughing.
“The self-breakage baddage continues!” she said.
“Ain't it the truth,” eight-year-old Gracie Trent said, shaking her head.
“The what?” Gracie's big sister, almost-18-year-old Vanna, said.
“It's Eddie's term for when nobody has to break bad on you because you broke bad on yourself,” Gracie said. “Self-breakage baddage: don't do it, because we will laugh at you!”
“Yeah, that is pretty funny, actually,” Vanna said as she refilled Gracie's bowl while laughing.
“So many people are into that right now,” Vanna's big brother 21-year-old Melvin said.
Ten-year-old Andrew Ludlow, Edwina and Amanda's big brother, shook his head.
“A whole lot of people just need to find a new church or a whole 'nother person to associate with,” he said, “because I would be frankly embarrassed to call myself a Christian and just be breaking baddaging on myself like this.”
Jean-Luc Dubois, on the other end of the phone, blessed Mr. Stepforth with his huge, musical laugh.
“I would not like to come home to Papa and Grandma like this after they went through all that to become my parents, too” Andrew explained. “The name Ludlow means something. The name Christ – uh, no, the title of Christ – means even more.”
“Over being mad that someone new to the area and not like you makes good gumbo and got the Ludlow bubbly deal,” Andrew's big sister eleven-year-old Eleanor said. “I mean, I know the Slocum-Bollings are our cousins, so the Slocums are too, but like ten times removed, so it's not like we owed them the Ludlow Bubbly contract.”
“It's like Grandma Jubilee says: change your ways or change your name,” nine-year-old Milton Trent said. “I mean, we just can't with all these Trents and Stepforths – we better not do any self-breakage baddage, just like y'all Ludlows!”
“But it ain't even about the family history,” Andrew said. “It has to do with trying to punch down. They know they can't roll up on Papa, so they think nobody is going to stand up for Black folks from Louisiana – but then, they don't even know how to rip off the recipe right. Who puts fried food and potato salad in soup -- just ruined all that good food at the same time! Folks are just breaking and baddaging themselves crazy out here, mad because someone they think is less than them is doing good.”
“While Jean-Luc Dubois is working with Pop-Pop to buy up everything they own, and they didn't have to do this to themselves,” Gracie's older sister eleven-year-old Velma Trent said. "If you think the self-breakage baddageness is bad now, wait two months when our families and friends own all their stuff!"
“You mean one month,” Vertran said from his computer screen. “It's all over the review sites – apparently over at Slocum's Fried Fabulous, the people who fry the chicken were thinking that they just needed to do a light fry because the soup was going to cook it the rest of the way, but they didn't know that you have to simmer gumbo for a long time and cook chicken to at least 160 degrees internally. I got the feed from Lofton Dynast Hospital – Tom is there reporting live on 20 food poisoning cases!”
Vertran's big brother 16-year-old Tom Stepforth was a young reporter from the Lofton County Free Voice, and had seen what was happening on Yelp and gone to get the scoop for his paper.
“The self-breakage baddagement is already out of control!” Amanda said. “That is not safe, at all!
"Even Gustavo Fring from Breaking Bad couldn't have gotten them this good!" Edwina said as she rolled over, laughing.
“Yeah, I gotta get this blueprint done for a new chicken shack,” Edwina and Amanda's little brother six-year-old Grayson said as he put down his popcorn bowl and picked up his blue construction paper. “I'm also going to build a new Sunday building, Andrew, but I'm not going to call it a new church. They need to get saved and repent and stop food poisoning people before they come to church.”
“It's like we could never,” Andrew said as he put his head in his hands. “Not as a Christian, and not as a Ludlow. I think I am having my first 'I can't even believe it' headache!”
"You need to hydrate, baby," Mrs. Velma Stepforth said to her most thoughtful guest under 18, and handed him a water bottle and gave him a quick hug. "It's hot everywhere right now."
“I gotta get through law school real quick -- like, next year -- because this is going to be some cases -- hey, Vertran, when you get done with the buyout research, could you look up where to get accelerated courses for the rest of elementary, middle school, high school, college, and law school for me?” Andrew's nine-year-old brother George said. “But, yeah, Andy: we couldn't even come home if we did this!”
“Right – we're not going for that – not with the Ludlowness vested in us!” Ludlow baby brother five-year-old Lil' Robert said, “but, see, I could go for some more popcorn, Miss Vanna, please!”
A nice story
Thank you!
Thank you for reading!