Commentary by Lucas Hargis
My mama grew up the opposite of rich. As a kid, she lived in a house on a bend in a dirt road way out in the North Carolina country. Her family of seven kept a few chickens pecking the yard, escaping the southern sun in the shade under the house. Mama fed those chickens through gaps in the kitchen floorboards. In exchange, the chickens supplied eggs.
One day in 2nd grade, Mama got in trouble for eating a mustard sandwich. That’s all she, her brothers & sisters ate for lunch most days. Well, she didn’t get in trouble for the actual eating of the mustard sandwich. Nah, she was forced to walk laps around the ball field at recess because of another little girl’s tattling to the teacher.
Now, it’s possible the principal’s daughter simply misunderstood what my mama answered when asked, “What you got for lunch, Debbie Jean?”
But when Mama tells the story, there was no misunderstanding. The tattletale twisted Mama’s words around. She knew exactly what she was doing.
Seemingly unrelated, there’s this archetype that’s been in the social consciousness for, idk, plenty of years. As soon as you read the words, you’ll be like, “Oh, yeah. Totally know that phrase. Everybody knows it. Heard it so many times I aint never thought much about the truth behind it, tbh.”
Voices from the Borderlands 