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All the regulars know, and those that visit the saloon quickly learn, that Barry Carney is a barrel of laughs. He is the undisputed life of the party!! But also, for saloon regulars and other Natchez citizens that seldom visit the saloon, Barry is also respected and his opinion is often sought. He is level headed, has seen and lived a lot of life in his short 52 years and he can give, those who seek it, a view they may not have considered.
But back to this article, we don’t know where Barry gets all the jokes and stories he comes up with, but he always seems to have a new one.
Where do jokes come from?
One evening, several months ago, there was a discussion at the saloon about where jokes originate. We questioned how anyone could continually come up with the jokes &/or stories that we all hear. Well…we came to the conclusion that all of those jokes may well originate right here in Natchez and more specifically from Barry Carney.
While Barry is quick to throw a joke, or hilarious story into saloon discussions he doesn’t exclude telling one on himself, and that’s what this article is about.
To set the background for those that don’t know, Barry, like a lot of people nowadays, has been divorced…more than once. Barry doesn’t mind sharing the situation, or results, of a divorce if the circumstances are right. But he always seems to share his personal experiences with a bit of humor. As Barry has said, “It’s better to laugh about it and move on than to cry and live with misery”.
One of those times occurred after a divorce and Barry shared it with those at the saloon one evening.
Barry’s story
As Barry tells it, “I was feeling kind of down and hadn’t been doing anything but sitting around the house so I decided to get out and stir around. I didn’t want to be around a lot of people so I decided to go to some garage sales, which I don’t do a lot of”.
Barry told us he went to several garage sales around Natchez. He wasn’t buying anything, just looking and not having to talk to the few people he came into contact with.
As Barry went on with his story he told us, “I was at my third garage sale, and as I was looking over all of the stuff they had I saw something that caught my eye and made me chuckle.”
 “Hanging out of its original box was one of those plastic blow-up sex dolls, but she was partially deflated. When I asked the man holding the garage sale about it he told me, ‘the doll was a joke my wife played on me’, and I asked him why was it loosing its air?”
Barry said the man told him that his dog had played with the doll and punctured it in several places.
By now Barry had everyone’s attention and he went on with his story, “I’ll tell you guys, when I saw that blow up doll and the box she came describing ‘The Perfect Wife’ I knew this is what I needed.”
Barry told us, “I took the doll and her box home and began to fix her up using gray tape. I soon had her patched enough to see if she would hold air.” Sure enough, I had done a good job and now I had someone I could talk to and not get in trouble with what I said.”
Selecting a name
“I sat her on the couch and took a look at my new friend trying to think of a name that would do her justice. She was sitting there, quiet as a mouse, with about 6 feet of gray tape on different parts of her plastic body, and it came to me!”
“I decided to name her Patches. It fit real good you know.”
We were all laughing pretty good by now and Barry told us, “Me and Patches got along real good most of the time. However, one time she tried to run off.”
“I took her on a picnic in the country and she was sitting down beside a little stream soaking up the sun and I was walking around.”
“All of a sudden it started to rain and I darted under an old shed. It was raining so hard that the water rose very fast where Patches was sitting. I looked out of that old shed and noticed Patches was running away with total trash that was washing down that stream.”
“I was able to catch up to her and when we got back to the car I gave her a piece of my mind, and told her she better not ever do that again.”
Patches runs away
Well Barry had us rolling now, and he told us how he lost the “Perfect Wife”. He said, “Me and Patches were in the yard one day. She was sitting in her favorite spot and I was doing a little yard work and along came a big dog that went right up to my Patches, grabbed her in his mouth and took off.”
“I ran after that dog yelling all the way, but it looked to me like Patches was holding on instead of trying to get away from that critter. I guess she liked it kind of rough, like she was when I found her.”
New Patches
We enjoyed Barry’s Patches story so much that one of the saloon’s regulars decided to get him another Patches and these pictures are Barry and his new Patches.
Being the good sport he is, Barry accepted Patches, laughing along with everyone at the saloon.
Never one to slow down Barry soon grabbed a paper saying, “I knew it! I saw him just last week. Now gather around and listen what happened when I talked to Elvis.” |
