The Tale of Stack O' Dollah

Many years ago I worked in the tax accounting department of a large manufacturing company. There were about 8 to 10 of us in the department. One of my work-mates, Lynda, was black. And she felt that it was her God given duty to educate all of us "white breads" (that was her term for us) on the ways of the streets!

Please do not misunderstand. Lynda was an absolute riot to work with. She was really, really good at her job - but also really, really funny. And she took great pleasure in making fun of us white folks not understanding what was going on the world outside. As each new slang word was invented, she made sure we knew what it meant. You know, in case we got stranded out in the streets, we'd be able to take care of ourselves!

One morning, Lynda called in and said she was going to be late. Boy, we could hardly wait! She was never late for work. We just knew there was going to be a story behind this. And was there ever!

The night before, her brother, Stack O' Dollah, had been arrested. Seems that one of his employees had not been performing as expected and he had slapped her around. I guess when you're a pimp, that's just one of the many duties you must take on!

Anyway, Lynda had been out half the night going to friends and relatives to get up the money to make bail for Stack. She did manage to get him bailed out at about 4am. But that's not why she was late - - oh no - she said she could have made it to work okay.

Why was she late?

Her momma made her go first thing that morning down to the newspaper office and wait for the late edition of the paper to come out. Why? Well, she had to buy 20 copies of the late edition because it had a big picture of Stack O' Dollah right on the front page - and a story, too - all about him being arrested and all. Momma wanted to make sure she had plenty to mail to the rest of the family that lived up north!

True story.