Titles...

No one just plain holds down a job, brings home the bacon and is a middle-classed person anymore. Everyone has to be something. After all, who wants to go to a ten, twenty or fifty year class reunion or meet an old flame's wife on the street and say that they are a waitress or a cashier or even just the grandmother of a dozen rowdy grandchildren.

Not that any or all of the above is beneath anyone's dignity. A job is a job and sometimes they're harder to come by than a dollar to buy a loaf of bread. It's all good honest work and brings on wrinkles as fast as "presidenting" the U.S. of A.

But it does not sound as good as a title with a fancy name. Everyone wants to be something high sounding and the more words the title has the better. It can stretch into a whole paragraph and that makes whoever is giving themselves that title very important and a great benefit to the community where they live.

And if they can't have a nice, long really rich sounding title then they want to be "into" something.

Take for instance Cousin Hortense. She's always been a "few French fries short of a Happy Meal" and we all had to help her or she would have never graduated from the Northside Elementary School. But nowadays she is the Assistant to the Head Director of Engineering in a local business. Which means she is the dishwasher down at Mabel's Bar and Grill located in the alley behind the dry cleaning place.

Remember Beulah Beth Smith who dated Bubba Buford in high school. Ask her what she's doing the next time you run into her at the grocery store. She'll tell you that she's into computers which means she runs the electric cash register at Bubba's Tire Shop down south of town.

And me? I smile and whisper, "I'm the keeper of coupons."

Everyone knows I'm a romance author but whispering that makes them think I've told them a secret. They can't wait to get away from me, pull out their cell phones and call all their friends to report. "Hey you remember Carolyn Brown from Tishomingo High School? Well, she's doing something for the government. I don't know if it's the FBI or the IRS but be careful what you tell her because she's the keeper of coupons and I bet she could get you locked up with a wink and a nod."

What the keeper of coupons really means is that I'm the tight wad who peels out a stack of coupons at the check out counter and make the cashier be sure to give me double duty on anything under one dollar. It's posted right out there on the outside of the entrance door so I fully well expect to have full credit for my coupons. Or I could call the IRS or the CIA or maybe the WGAD agency. That last one stands for Who Gives A Dang but shhhh...it sounds important.