…and you oughta be happy about it, because times are real tough around here what with John Bell’s economy stinkin’ and shrinkin’ and us gettin’ ready for hurricane season down here in Barataria Bay. We don’t got much time for a joke – hell, the state’s a joke enough as is, right?

But I do got one, and it’s about my friend Boudreaux who lives up in the big city. That bein’ Lafitte.

Boudreaux was installin’ a new door at his huntin’ camp on da bayou, and what he noticed was he was missin’ on of dem hinges on de side.

So he call up Clotilde, dat’s his wife, on her cell phone and he say “Hey Clo, you got to run down to de Home Depot an’ get me a hinge fo’ de do an’ Imma screw it in.”

Clotilde said “Mais yeah, Imma go dere.”

Clotilde didn’t know where de hinges at in de Home Depot, so she went to customer service and waited on the manager to finish with another customer so she could axe him for directions. But while she was waitin’ she saw a bathroom faucet she done fell in love wit’.

When the manager, whose name tag said “Thibodeaux” on it, got finished with dat other customer, Clotilde axed him “How much y’all want for dis faucet here? Dis somet’in’ else an’ I got to have it, me.”

Thibodeaux said “You got some good taste, mais you expensive to keep fa’ sho’. Dat’s a gold plated faucet and it’ll run you $5,000.”

“Mais what!” Clotilde said. “Five t’ousand dollars? Shooo – I don’t got that an’ we sure can’t put that either at de huntin’ camp by the bayou or at de house.”

Clotilde then described the hinge Boudreaux sent her to de store for. And Thibodeaux said “Well, we got that in stock an’ all it’ll cost you is $3.49. Lemma go get dat for you.”

And Thibodeaux walked Clotilde to the aisle where the hinge was, found it and axed, “Ma’am, you wanna screw for dis hinge?”

Clotilde was taken aback a bit, and then said “No. But I will for dat faucet!”