Moving Out with Southern Aristocrats

PERCY: Well now, hold on, good sir. I do believe that if you take another look at Mama’s will, you’ll see she bequeathed all seven acres of this estate to yours truly, including Father’s fine velvet chair.

BLANCHE: Percy! Mama would never leave our beloved home to a thieving little scoundrel like you. What manner of legal hornswagglin’ have you pulled?

ME: Huh? Velvet?… Whatever. It’s cool, Blanche. Percy can have the futon if he—

PERCY: Why, Blanche! I have never been so insulted. Are you insinuatin’ that I… I manipulated the will in some way?

BLANCHE: Don’t be coy with me, Percy Lee Grangerford. I’ve seen you down at the riverboat talkin’ with Mr. McCoy from the loan company. That no-good snake-in-the-grass has had his eye on our plantation since the war ended.

ME: Look, just give Blanche the futon, okay Percy? You can have the… the computer desk we got at Ikea last fall.

BLANCHE: (fainting) Heavens to Betsy, no! That davenport has been in our family for four generations, it has. Why, it belonged to our great-grandfather, General T. Thaddius Clemens. And it was supposed to pass to our beloved brother, Whitney.

PERCY: Whitney?! (laughs) Why, that boy’s got such a wicked case of the consumption he can barely lift his pale white head off that silk divan he’s always lying on, much less a piece of fine mahogany like this. Ain’t that right, Whitney?

WHITNEY: Cough. Cough. (whispering) I’d hate to be a bother, but would one of ya’ll be kind enough to replace the leeches on my stomach? I believe I’m about due for a fresh blood-lettin’.

ME: Jesus, Whitney. Don’t you think you should see a doctor or… something?

WHITNEY: And let some quack with a degree from a scalawag northern university poke and prod me about like a common harlot? You must not be well. When was your last leechin’?

PERCY: I’ll tell ya’ll what: why don’t I have Hannah fix us all up a couple of tall, cold mint juleps, and we’ll have ourselves a sit on the porch whilst talking this over like descent, civilized folk?

ME: I don’t think I have the stuff to make mint juleps.

PERCY: I beg your pardon? You mean to tell me you ain’t got so much as a scratch of bourbon here, and still have the… the audacity to call this a Christian house?

ME: Well, I’m Unitarian, so I don’t know.

PERCY: Sweet Jesus! This boy’s got the devil in’em. Quick Blanche, get the leeches.

ME: Stop trying to fix everything with leeches, Percy! Guys, I put up with the moonshine sill in the tub, that feud with the Hatfields across the hall, and the constant racism, but I can’t take this anymore. I just want to get this over with.

PERCY: Very well. Then I bequeath to you our transmitter radio. I have repaired it myself.

ME: Why are there leeches all over my boom box?