Once I had this teacher who had a jihad on wasting time. Boy, uh uh, no, did she not like wasting time. She had her good points and her bad points as a teacher, but if you took time to catch your breath she’d claim that it was a breath wasted. On the last day of school I put a bumper sticker on her car — this was in the early 70s now — that read: “Honk if you smoke pot.” Later that day I saw her car parked in front of a store on the courthouse square of our little town. I noticed the sticker was still there. I wonder where she was when she, or someone else, discovered the little prank? I also wonder if she cussed? I never heard her cuss before. Nevertheless, by putting the bumper sticker on her car, I feel as if I did something constructive. I certainly wasn’t wasting time.
That was a long way of saying I wasted a bunch of time this afternoon reading Cajun jokes. On the other hand, I feel as if I was continuing my cultural awareness of the Cajun-French. I live in Southeast Texas but a bunch of Cajuns live here. Some even consider this part of Acadiana. Others call it “Cajun Texas.” Here is a joke I found that takes place where I live, in Beaumont:
Boudreau and Thibodaux are walking down the street in Beaumont, right over the Louisiana line in Texas , and they see a sign on a store which reads:
Suits $5.00 each! Shirts $2.00 each Pants $2.50 each
Boudreau say to his pal, “Look here, Thib, we could buy a whole mess of these linge there, take ’em back to Lafayette, sell ’em to our friends in the bayou, and make a fortune. Just let me do the talkin.’ They hear your accent, they might think we’re ignorant Cajuns, and won’t wanna sell that stuff. Jes watch now. I’ll talk real smooth so’s they think we is from Lufkin or somewheres else over here in Texas .”
They go in and Boudreau says with his best fake sophisticated Texas accent, “I’ll take 50 of them suits at $5.00 each, 100 of them there shirts at $2.00 each, 50 pairs of them there pants at $2.50 each. I’ll back up my pickup and…”
The owner of the shop interrupts. “Ya’ll Cajuns are from over by Mamou, New Iberia or somewheres, aren’t you?”
“Well…yeah,” says a surprised Boudreau. “How come you knowed that?”
“Because this is a dry cleaners.”