Whither Mud?

Ah've been a big ol' fan a mud pert near mah entire life. Hell, ya could say Ah was born on mud. Mud's all what surrounded the broke-down shack where mah momma gave a-birth ta me an my seventeen siblins, all by her lonesome ceptin for the crazy Gypsy midwife what lived deep in the swamp. Mud is what Ah got ta play in for the first eight long years of mah life, an mud is what we buried half mah brothers an sisters in when they couldn't stand ta live round the mud no more. Mud is all Ah got when mah momma died givin birth ta my last brother and daddy took ta drinkin hisself to death. Mud is what Ah worked on steada goin to school for an education an mud is where Ah brought the only woman what ever loved me home ta when the preacher said "Now git."

Of course, none of that is true, & furthermore I am not sure that's even a real accent. It certainly sounds like someone trying to be vaguely Faulknerian while also trying to remember how the Beverly Hillbillies sounded. (Busted!)

I hate mud. I hated it when I was a kid. Among the slightly neurotic dislikes I have is getting stuff like mud caked on my hands. I don't care if it's on my knees or in my hair, but man it's annoying when it's on my hands. Same thing with oils, or lotions, or anything that slightly caky or greasy that in some way affects (I think) my hands' ability to touch things. I'm convinced it's the sensitivity of my hands that makes mud & stuff on them something weird.

One truth supersedes all in this matter: pigs love mud & I love pigs & therefore mud is a good thing.