A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband, Part II

Let’s take another look at Bob and Bettina in the continuing saga of “A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband (with Bettina’s Best Recipes)” by Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron.

Just like real life, the newlyweds are going through their first year of holidays. With Halloween coming up soon, let’s see how Bob and Bettina are getting ready and how they are going to entertain their friends.

Chapter 72: And Where Was the Dinner? (Bob arrives home, can’t find Bettina and does not smell his dinner cooking)

Bettina: “Dinner will be ready in half an hour.”

Bob: “Half an hour? But, Bettina, where is the dinner. I didn’t see any!

Bettina: “In the fireless cooker, you crazy boy! Are you ’most starved?” (I finally figured out a fireless cooker is a crockpot. Who’dve thunk it? Electricity is really an amazing thing, isn't it?)

Bob: “That cooker was the neatest, stiffest-looking thing in the kitchen!” (Uh oh, the pain of erectile dysfunction already!)

Chapter 73: The Dixons Come To Dinner

Bettina, speaking to her friend Charlotte who wants to know how she stays so organized: “Planning the meals seems simple, but it really requires a lot of thinking sometimes.” (That Bettina was never meant to be a rocket scientist, was she? Oops, I forgot, this book was published in a time when planning meals was the most important part of their existence. Sheesh!)

Chapter 75: Halloween Preparations

Bettina (to Bob): “I feel the same old Hallowe’en thrill that I used to, years ago when I turn around suddenly and see a jack-o’-lantern grinning in the window! Don’t you love them?”

Bob: “Those are the Stewart children.” (Wow, one can only wonder what the Stewart kids’ parents look like if they resemble Pumpkinhead. I'm thinking one of them must be Michael Myers' grandparent). “You girls ought to give at least an imitation of a shriek apiece. You don’t have ladylike nerves at all!”

(I bet if Bob pulled out a knife and started chasing “the girls” around the room, they’d shriek, in a very ladylike manner, of course)

Chapter 76: Hallowe’en Revels (as the newlywed’s first Halloween party begins)

“The two witches, who were evidently the hostesses, commenced a weird chant in a minor key.” (Only several months married and Bettina has already turned into a witch in Bob’s eyes, apparently) “The male ghosts, three in number, immediately took up the music, if it could be so called, howling in loud and uncanny tones.” (What, only chanting in major keys can be called music?)

An interesting thing about Bob and Bettina’s party is that they toasted marshmallows over candles, and played a game with a swinging doughnut. Instead of “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” it was “Pin the Tail on the Black Cat”.

Sounds like a real lively party. If you're five years old, that is.

Until our next adventures with Bob and Bettina, Happy Halloween!