A Shrimpin’ and a Dippin’: At Billy Bob's Boat and Bait

Seems like this here story just keeps gettin’ interrupted, but I figured you’d like to hear about Nilda for a change, instead of just my ramblin’s, and then all them other things a come up. But now we is a gettin' back to that city feller and Billy Bob’s boys, I could tell that city feller was not a getting’ the information he wanted, but if I understood it rightly when it come to them two boys, getting anything right was something that weren’t never a goin’ to happen.
They was a goin’ at it right hard, and when them boys just turned their backs to him and headed off into the boat and bait, I figured it is my chance to show off my new found nautical knowledge, and get me some free boat time in the bargain. He weren’t a lookin’  two happy when he comes back out, so I puts my biggest grin I can on my face and says,”Only thing dumber than Dumb or Dumber is Dumb and Dumber,” figuring that would show him that I was filled with local knowledge, and a man who could help him out.
Except he gets this screwed up look on his face, turns a little redder than he was, and says something about me gittin’ out of his way cause he’s had it with stupid bafoons who couldn’t tell one end of a boat from the other. I still had that grin a plastered on my face, and just as I was about to launch into telling him about the starboard and port ends of the boats, he looks at me a little slantwise, and says’ “Say, aren’t you staying in the RV Park around the bend?”
Now that weren’t what I was expecting him to say, but since he did, I told him I were, and afore I knowed what was what, he was a treatin’ me like a long lost cousin or something, I had to admit, he did look a little familiar, havin’ some of the same features as the Pauling side of the family, but while he might favor them some, he sure weren’t one of them. Even so I couldn’t let it just lay there, so I asked him, “You aren’t a Pauling are you?”
From the look I got, you’d a thought I’d slapped him up aside the face, then he says, “Oh, you mean is my last name Pauling.” Of course I did, and just what in blue blazes did he think I’d asked him? He must have took my look as a yes, cause he says, “No, I’m not.” Figurin’ to let bygones be bygones, I says, “Well I thought there for a minute you favored one side of my family.” To which he replied, “No, I‘m sure I’m not any part of your family.” I have to say he had an interesting way of saying “your", but then Nilda says that accents vary from one part of the country to the other, so I chalked it up to that.

Seein’s that we’d broke the ice so to speak, even though it was nigh on 80 degrees already, I figured to see if he could use some boatin’ help. He seemed a little standoffish, but as we talked, I think my knowledge of all them nautical terms was a swaying him over. Seems his wife wasn’t to big on him a renting the boat, particularly from those two idiots, as she called them, at Billy Bob’s Boat and Bait. He’d been told that they was just a couple of local boys and everything would be alrighty then he found out it weren’t so.

Problem was everything wasn’t alrighty, in fact everything was the opposite, what with nothing going right. Guess he really didn’t know much about driving a boat even though he let on to her that he did. Then when he went back to Billy Bob’s to pick up some gear that those two bozos as he described them, had forgotten to put in the boat, he runned into more problems.

Seems he misjudged the dock on his approach, and almost throwed his wife out. Mindin' my manners like Ma taught me, I didn’t tell him I’d seen him do just about the same thing a little bit ago. Then he tells me that when he and the wife was about to leave Billy Bob’s, he got all tangled up trying to adjust the boat and his wife gets stung by a bee, Lawdy, lawdy, this is that city feller they was telling the stories about back at the campground, and I’ve done throwed my lot in with him.