I’m wondering if maybe I should start shopping at Kroger’s, because every time I go to Marsh, I run into the strangest people.

Wait. Kroger’s?

Never mind. I’ll stick with Marsh, even with last week’s little boys racing up and down the aisles, and today’s little boys bowling with heads of cauliflower.

And say, Mumsy, your sweet little sons sure had an extensive vocabulary of dirty words. Maybe you should sit down with them and teach them to use them properly; grammar is important, even if it’s just to determine which obscenities are nouns and which ones are verbs, and when it’s appropriate to use “shittin'” as an adjective. You know, as in, if I may quote your innocent little child, “Hey bro, this shittin’ head’s a-rollin’ and it’s goin’ fer yer dick!” Oh, it was darling. Too bad the mean old kindergarten teacher will probably try to nip all that cute creativity once your kids start school. Well, you can always make yourself a constant presence to be reckoned with at their school. And I bet you do, too.

What, you don’t understand that sentence? That’s okay, dear. Just go home, unload your beer, licorice, chocolate milk, Red Man, Pepsi, and frozen chicken nuggets, and you and the boys settle in to watch Jerry Springer to see if that episode featuring your sister is on today. The TV guide is somewhere but it’s too hard to read, anyway. And since I couldn’t help overhearing some of your extremely loud conversation, I know your plans for tonight, too.

So don’t doze off. Your church’s Harry Potter Protest is tonight, and you don’t want to miss that. Imagine, the schools trying to get kids to read anything you don’t personally understand that awful stuff. After all, your neighbor’s mother-in-law’s hairdresser’s minister’s wife’s grocery boy heard from the deli lady’s brother that there was BAD STUFF in those books. You don’t have to read anything yourself to know what’s bad.

You’ll only be gone an hour or so. The boys will be fine till you get back; your cable will keep them interested and occupied, and will no doubt give them even more vocabulary words with which to impress the people who are trying to dodge the rolling cauliflower heads in the grocery store aisles. They’re four and five years old, after all. Not babies any more, sniff sniff.

If I knew where you lived, I’d call the cops on you. The grammar police alone would lock you up for life.

Also, you’re a lousy parent and a terrible influence on your children.

And your kids are smelly, dirty, foul-mouthed, obnoxious little brats, but hey, consider the source. You.

But it’s still better than Kroger’s.

P.S. Where did you get your tattoo? Three words, and two of them misspelled. I hope you didn’t pay full price. “Heavon Down Yondir” over the buttcrack of a 250-pound woman ain’t a purty sight. You don’t have a muffin-top; you’ve got a mushroom cloud. Cover that up, thankyouverymuch.

P.P.S. If you’re going to show your buttcrack in public, buy a razor.

P.P.P.S. Use it on your upper lip, too.