The local Red Hat Society sounds like a stupid name. If you were to go to one of their meeting you’d soon realize the name is perfect. The Society is stupid. It’s a bunch of old ladies sitting around passing gas, gossiping, and wearing red hats. They might be wearing purple dresses but they still wear red hats. It’s a tradition.

This has been going on since time began. For these ladies, that was the end of the Civil War. None of them were around then although you might think it at first glance. To them the Civil war ended Southern life as it should be lived. Those Damn Yankees brought their uncouth ways in and Southern manners took, as Agnes Morehouse says, “ a dive”.

At their meeting they serve tea and small, crustless sandwiches. The tea is okay but no one ever eats the sandwiches. The caterer, knowing this, serves the same ones everytime and hopes no one eats one. Ptomaine and lawsuits.

“Jeez, if they ever eat one I could go up for manslaughter”, the boss tells his waiter.

They discuss the latest music program of the Symphony. They all go there even though some of them can’t hear well enough to know if the music sounds right or not. The music may not be classical for all they’d know. Okay, they’d know at the next meeting because of certain gestures the other ladies make when the music comes up. One of which is gagging and throwing up a hairball. A blue hairball, of course. This always worries the caterer until he sees the hairball isn’t green.

“It’s okay, boss, it’s blue”, the waiter says.

During the thirties and especially during the Cold War the ladies thought of changing the name from Red hat to some other color. This was squelched by Mildred Hennypacker.

“The only thing that matters is we lost the War and the Damn Yankees took over. I say they are getting their just desserts. Speaking of which-”

The caterer did have good desserts. He bought them at the Krispy Kreme. Always good, always fresh, always drew oohs and aahs. Plus, they were soft. That’s a huge factor to these ladies. No pecan rolls for them.

They used to play cards until Belle Bellum got caught cheating. They didn’t mind her cheating so much as her getting caught. Her age must have crept up on her. If it did, it might creep up on all of them. Next thing you know, someone will be wearing continence pants...the kind with lines.

“Are you having trouble holding your water, dear?”, Constance Ringgold asks her friend Dorothy Killdeer.

“Well, you shouldn’t have switched seats with me, that’s for sure”.

No one is supposed to show off their wealth. That’s considered boorish. This may be the largest gathering of boorish women in America.