FRANKLIN – Jerry Bunn, 32, was dining with childhood friend Tommy Lipton, 32, in Franklin Thursday night, catching up on recent events, when their waitress strode by to take their order.
“I knew right then and there, not to look at Jerry, ‘cause I woulda bust out laughing if I had,” said Tommy. The young waitress then took their order, and walked away, as soon as she was out of earshot, Jerry lit up, “Boy she had some tig ol’ bitties didn’t she?” Tommy could only laugh and nod in approval, never tiring of this exchange between the two that has now endured 25 years.
“I wish I could tell you that after 25 years we’ve grown up, and are above such things,” said Tommy, “but I think I laugh just as hard now, when I hear ‘Tig ol’ bitties’ as I did when I was 7 years old.”
“Tig ol’ bitties was originally intended by adolescents to deceive adults into thinking they weren’t talking about a woman’s bust,” said Jasper Higgenbottom, as he sat at the bar enjoying the restaurant’s best boxed wine. “Tig ol’ bitties was a code word often used to get the point across without being compromised by an authoritative figure. Say Tig ol’ bitties to yourself. You can’t say it without laughing or smiling can you? I, myself, often find the term liberating, as Tig ol’ bitties can apply to anyone, it doesn’t discriminate based on age, creed, or race, it’s a beautiful thing. Well, except Chinese women, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a Chinese woman with some tig ol’ bitties. Matter of fact, we better not let the Chinese in on this, with all this debt we owe them, they might want to trade up for some tig ol’ bitties instead of dollar bills. Tig ol’ bitties is its own currency, you know.”
Carl Thomas, who was loitering outside the restaurant, also took notice of the display, and did not require his usual interpreter to describe his visual experience, as tig ol’ bitties influence his speech pattern, as singing does to Ozzy Osbourne. “Dem some tig ol’ bitties right there,” said Thomas smiling profusely as he said it. “I’d like to mo’boat dem sumbitches, they’ll push your Schlitz raft right ‘round. I coulda used dem when the Boykins flood came.”
The waitress in question scored a 20 on the Tig Bitty Motor-Boating Scale, which puts her in the mid-range, according to Motor-Boating Scale expert, Dr. Coppen A. Feel. “The Tig Bitty Motor-Boating scale is a medical breakthrough that has taken its rightful place among the polio vaccine and the we don’t know what you have, here’s a Z-pack treatment,” said Dr. Feel. “This carefully crafted scale equates the horsepower of an outboard motor with the motorboatability of tig bitties. Anything above a 9.9 is considered significant. Anything above a 20 and you could be having a party in the ocean in the near future. Anything above that and you better take a damn picture or I’m not gonna believe you.”
One thing all the experts seem to agree on is the fact that the term tig ol’ bitties will remain in the male lexicon for eons to come. “People need to realize it’s all in fun,” said Jerry. “It’s one of life’s great treasures to sit amongst your friends, have a few beers, and laugh like school children every time your best friend mentions tig ole bitties.”