First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes poisoned black-eyed peas.

Advice to the New Graduate Mary Anne had the right idea, that you should explore the world and check out all your options. Wanda wasn't using even basic common sense when she simply stayed in her old home town and then all she found was Earl. Whatever you do, don't be dumb as a post. Do not limit yourself like Wanda. If you need help exploring your options, consult with a guidance counselor or visit the library. If all you're finding is Earl, then broaden your horizons.

Look Out for Earl Before Marriage For some reason, Wanda didn't know before they were married that Earl would be abusive. But the simple fact that it was less than two weeks after their wedding that she started getting abused means that Earl was already set to go off. How could this situation have been prevented? We have to admit first that we don't know exactly how long she knew Earl and how long their engagement was. If they were engaged for a few years, she would have probably had a much better perspective on Earl's personality. If, however, they just met and married quickly, then he could more easily hide his abusive side. Most counselors recommend an engagement of between 10 and 15 years simply to give yourself time to get to know your potential mate, and this is wise. Here, though, one feels somewhat justified in assuming that Wanda and Earl did not have a long courtship. She looked "all around" the town and all she found was Earl. Can we presume that she had really exhausted her options? Not likely. One fact supporting the short engagement theory is the rather snap decision Mary Anne and Wanda made that Earl had to die. For such a situation, literally a life and death decision, there needed to be more exploration of options. (Although the song's "rejected verses" indicate some degree of tumult in Earl and Wanda's relationship.) So, what if Wanda and Earl had had a lengthier "getting-to-know-you" time? What might they have discovered about each other? Wanda for her part may have noticed certain traits in Earl that would be troublesome in any marriage: possibly road rage, cruelty to animals, cursing when he was disappointed, making fun of people more successful than he, listening to country music, two legs, male, etc. And these traits leave out the conduct Earl might have shown toward Wanda directly during their courtship period, such as failing to open the door for her at finer restaurants or a lack of tenderness "in the sack," etc. This is not to blame the victim, but only to suggest that it's wisest to take certain preventive steps to keep from becoming a victim.

What About Reforming Earl? Beyond any debate is the fact that Wanda and Earl's relationship was a sour one, and it happened sooner rather than later. Again, it was not even two weeks after they got married that Wanda started getting abused. Earl was what the trained and employed psychologist likes to call "a bad apple." But as any eater of apples knows, there's a bad apple and then there's a bad apple! That is to say, some apples may be seriously bruised from a single fall to the ground yet still be edible and some apples may be rotten to the core. And who among us has not seen the apple that is absolutely wasted away, and is completely brown and mushy? So, where would we place Earl in this spectrum? The evidence suggests that Earl is rotten to the core. He is immoderate in his violence and he is willful. The suddenness of his abuse against Wanda, his complete disregard for the restraining order, the degree of her injuries necessitating intensive care (!) lead to this conclusion. There's an unanswered question here, however, as to why Earl would come back after Mary Anne and Wanda had hatched out their plan with the black-eyed peas. Was he really convinced that things were now all right between him and Wanda? Wasn't he suspicious when she was solicitous about his appetite and comfort? (Of course by then it was too late, but what kind of ignorance put him in this vulnerable position?) So, again, we would have to classify Earl as rotten to the core, kind of brown and mushy in the head, with wide open spaces where there ought to be gray matter. But let's back up, and ask: could Wanda have ever hoped to reform Earl? This would be tough, as Earl doesn't appear to be the kind of person who would do the kind of work of self-reflection and self-criticism that reformation demands. His bullheadness in the face of the law, not to mention his continued possessiveness after Wanda finally gets the nerve to file for divorce, speaks volume about a man who lives way beyond the niceties of marriage counselors or of filling out a personal inventory quiz, say, in the Reader's Digest. On the other hand, Wanda could have mitigated the severity of her injuries by fully kowtowing to Earl's every whim, doing as he demanded when he demanded. It could very well be that she has a "mouth" on her, and that she likes to "sass" and to "talk back." Plus, the fact that after Earl's death she didn't lose any sleep at night says something about her own ability for reflection. This, and the apparent snap decision to marry such a specimen in the first place, along with the snap decision to kill him don't suggest a person fully in touch with good judgment. Conclusion: Reformation of Earl in this case seems highly unlikely. But it could be that Wanda's not exactly a prize either, since killing a person can also be considered moderately abusive.

When is Enough Enough? WIth the possibility of reformation out of the picture, and Wanda's obvious dissatisfaction with the relationship, what else could she do? At some point she got the nerve to file for divorce, but by then it was really too late. By now she was fully and painfully aware of Earl's dreadful personality and behavior. She no doubt wanted to get a divorce sooner but couldn't because she feared the exact thing that did happen, an outburst from Earl great enough to put her in intensive care. How do you know when enough is enough? When do you cut your losses and let go? The answer is that there really isn't an answer. But of course it has to be somewhere between the first sign of trouble and going to intensive care. This is a matter for the individual to decide. Just as there's no second chance to make a first impression, there's seldom a happy-after-ever after intensive care. For Earl, there will be no second chance to get it right. For Wanda, having offed one husband, she'll know what to do next time, assuming that she and Mary Anne are not themselves by now "together" and sworn off men. PICTURE FROM PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE: "One thing's sure: Inspector Clay's dead – murdered – and somebody's responsible."

Black-eyed Peas - Miracle Food Wanda and Mary Anne's decision to poison Earl's black-eyed peas was a stroke of genius. The reason for this, and it's unknown to almost everyone, is that the black-eyed pea alone out of the whole pea family absorbs poison, passes it on, and by some unique chemical process later dissipates every trace of the poison. So it is the food of choice for the perfect crime. This is why it's illegal in 34 states to buy black-eyed peas in bulk without a permit from the sheriff. It might be interesting to compare the black-eyed pea to the navy bean. You get exactly the opposite result if you try to poison someone with navy beans. The navy bean is distinct from the rest of the bean family in this one characteristic: the taste and properties of poison completely eliminate the taste and properties of the bean! The effect of course is that if someone eats poisoned navy beans, he is dead surely enough, but the evidence lingers and actually multiplies over the course of time. By the time they get the body to the autopsy table, it's five times its original size and dripping gallons of poison through ever natural orifice and several irruptions in the skin opened up by the poison. Yes, black-eyed peas are like a miracle food, which naturally leads to cleaner and much more sanitary conditions in autopsy rooms everywhere.

Plotting Your Revenge If, as they say, the best revenge is living well, how much better is it to live well while your enemies don't live at all! This was the way it was for Wanda with Earl's demise. Fortunately, Wanda had a friend (Mary Anne) who would come flying to her side for the assistance she needed. It takes real friendship to catch a midnight redeye express to come help someone stupid enough to look all around a town and only find Earl. But with Mary Anne's greater world/life-experience and Wanda's rashness in making decisions, it was certain that they would come up with some way to exact revenge against Earl. And that's just the way it worked out. We know that it didn't take them long to decide. The verdict of this judge and jury: Earl had to die. The details of how they plotted their revenge are not given. But, to recount, somehow they had to convince Earl of renewed goodwill on Wanda's part. Part of it was easy: they could count on Earl being ignorant of black-eyed peas as the perfect food for poison. But parts of their plan might not be so easy. This was where some good plotting came in handy. Here are some good pointers if your husband or boyfriend (or someone else) is abusive and you think a "Goodbye Earl" revenge is just the ticket: 1) See your circumstances clearly. You are going to be caught up in a swirl of activity when the actual deed is being done. You are going to be looking for deviations from the plan that will demand adapting to changing circumstances. It is vitually important, as far as it is within your power, that you have your head clear beforehand, and that you anticipate what might come up. Like the attorney who never asks a question that he doesn't already know the answer to, you've scouted the whole territory, and you've lessened the likelihood of surprises down the road. You've researched it, and you've found out whether black-eyed peas are truly a miracle food for murder or whether that's just a humorous claim someone on the internet is making. One thing you don't want is this, that it turns out that navy beans are the perfect food for murder and that black-eyed peas make the body bloat up to five times its original size, with spewing eruptions, etc., etc. 2) See things from the other guy's point of view. In the case of Wanda, Mary Anne, and Earl, it would be vital for Wanda and Mary Anne to try to see things from Earl's point of view. If indeed he has suspicions, they've anticipated what those suspicions are and they've run through the answers they need to remove his doubts. And it really would not help for Earl to see Mary Anne standing there.* She needs to be somewhere on site, of course, in case Wanda falters and Earl becomes violent. Then, in the ensuing struggle, she can maybe get some poisoned black-eyed peas down his mouth. Or, if this is impossible, because he has locked his jaw tightly, perhaps she (with Wanda helping) can get some black-eyed peas in Earl's ear, then pour some poison over them. This is what they did back in the days of Socrates or of Hamlet, and death came rather speedily. Here again, one is depending on the miracle properties of this particular variety of pea to make the evidence of the actual poison disappear. *This is contradicted in the "rejected verses." 3) Pay attention to detail. This is so vitally important in any kind of crime. How many criminals, say bank robbers, have fouled up in some little way, such as writing their demand for money on the back of a piece of paper that has their name and address on the other side? Then the worst part isn't getting caught, the worst part is having Paul Harvey chuckling about your stupidity on the radio. Everything has to be right, right down to the biscuit on the plate that Earl has come to expect. This is no time to cut corners. On the other hand, there's another detail to watch out for, and that is not to do more than your victim has come to expect in similar circumstances. For instance, if you've never put a sprig of parsley on Earl's plate before, this would be a bad time to start, because of suspicions. Can't you hear Lieutenant Columbo saying, just when you thought he was leaving, "Oh, uh, one more thing. Did Earl usually take a sprig of parsley on his plate?" 4) The fewer partners the better. Football is properly a team effort, murder is not. Try this simple experiment sometime: Line up 10 people and look at them carefully. What do you see? That's right, one mouth per person equals 10 mouths. 20 people, 20 mouths, and so forth. Mouths talk, get it? If you need any partners at all, limit them to one or two at the most. With Wanda, Mary Anne (best friend all through high school) is apparently a good partner. They're both in it together, then together they stay. That's a positive sign that they might just get away with it. Probably the 4-H Club and the FFA don't want any credit for this, but somewhere they learned the value of bonding. 5) Living with the consequences. If you're not prepared to live with the consequences of your actions, it would be better to forego revenge, or perhaps to take a less drastic form of revenge. Instead of killing Earl, maybe get him drunk, put him in a short skirt, spray perfume on him, and send him into a bikers' bar. By the time he comes out the back door, more than his lipstick will be on crooked. But, let's say you are prepared to live with the consequences of your original plan. Take stock of what all this entails: the police, the insurance investigation, the newspapers, Earl's parents, brothers, uncles, cousins sneaking around all suspicious-like, etc. And definitely, under no circumstances, should you soon move out on Highway 109 to open a roadside stand selling Tennessee hams. You must stay put and show everyone by your daily life that you had nothing to do with Earl's disappearance. (Yet when you do this, you risk the people assuming you had something to do with his disappearance, since everyone knows that a guilty person could never move. Which in a reverse-psychology way makes moving out to Highway 109 look like a brilliant move. Except for this one caveat: The subtleties of reverse-psychology can be notoriously dangerous to live by. But see how it plays. Perhaps consult with Happy Fanny, the Internet's First and Finest Hillbilly Fortune-Teller, as to your ultimate decision. She's never been known to be wrong, providing you ask the same question enough times.)

What to Do with the Body Among the consequences of killing that one has to be aware of is the problem of disposing of the body, as there's very little sense in keeping it. And of course every solution has been tried at some time: everything from complete dismemberment and piecemeal disposition to disguising it to appear alive as in Weekend at Bernie's. For Wanda and Mary Anne, Earl was wrapped in a tarp for a time. Then when they needed a break, they stuffed him in a trunk and took him out to the lake. One assumes at this point that although three went to the lake, only two will be returning. Is the plan to fill Earl's trunk with concrete blocks and to go to the deepest spot of the lake and dump him off? While this is technically littering, a crime we can never sanction, there still is a certain finality to it, especially if the trunk is one built to last. And it should go without saying here that the sooner the better. Dead bodies only get more unpleasant and more difficult to handle with the passing of time. It might not hurt to invest in some rubber gloves and face-masks and a strong disinfectant, especially one of the more potent brands especially made for cleaning morgues. Perhaps all will go well for you, and perhaps not. If you have an inept investigative team coming over like Mary Anne and Wanda had, you'll do OK. If they actually make any effort whatsoever to do their job, well, then you might be in some trouble. One little morsel of DNA in the wrong place, just one little nugget, and you'll be doing time, not selling Tennessee hams out on Highway 109. And maybe the tarp isn't such a great idea. The formula goes something like this: Tarp=DNA magnet.

Fitting Last Words Let's face it, Wanda, you loved the big lug, didn't ya, huh?, maybe a little bit, can't you admit it a little bit? You looked all over the town and he was all you found, for heaven's sakes. There must have been something about him that struck a chord with you. Then for whatever reason, you went ahead and married him. That day he kissed you at the courthouse, for that one moment at least, you must have had some kind of hopes and dreams about the future concerning your choice of Earl. Yes, then it wasn't two weeks later and you started getting abused. But what about that first week? Weren't there more than a few sparks flying? Weren't those five to seven days great? OK, having admitted that much, while you and Mary Anne are out in the lake with the trunk containing Earl and the concrete blocks, did you come up with any fitting words of tribute to speak over Earl either before or after sending him to the local branch of the Davey Jones' locker? Of course you did. You weren't expecting it to happen, but from somewhere in your heart, from somewhere in your being, there came a whisper. The whisper then grew to a mutter. The mutter grew into a grimaced aside. That grew into the beginnings of an actual eulogy, while in your mind, just around the edges like a creeping Morning Glory, Earl's favorite hymn came to you. First the tune; how'd it go? Then the words, "Da, da, my God to thee.... [humming]." Then as if by some divine assistance, the words came into clearer focus: "Nearer my God to thee, nearer to thee, de de da da da da da, nearer to thee." Then Mary Anne began singing, too, dirge-like at first, then finally with reckless abandon. Soon you were up on the trunk doing performance art like the River Dancers, running through all of Earl's favorites, everything from "Tonight The Heartache's On Me" to "Let 'Er Rip" to "Give It Up Or Let Me Go," ending finally with "Never Say Die" seguing into a chorus of "Mother Machree." Wouldn't it be great to bury his favorite 8-tracks with him? All right, now for the last words you speak over him. "Goodbye Earl" would be good. "Hey, hey, hey, hey!" would not be as fitting. You know, the word "Goodbye" derives from the phrase, "God bless ye," so can you truly say you don't have feelings for Earl? Unless you mean it ironically, of course, spoken in place of "Good riddance," which is entirely possible.

Appendix: Rejected Verses Well Mary Anne got there in the nick of time 'Cause Earl was drunk and gettin' mean. He had Wanda backed up in a very tight corner, And it was lookin' like an ugly scene. But Mary Anne put her hand on a vodka bottle And with the other passed Wanda a rock. And while Earl was thinkin' that she'd pour him a drink, Then both the girls gave him a shock. Would Earl have to die? Then when Earl came to he was all black and blue And he was lookin' for another round. But this time it wasn't for a bottle he thirsted, And he sprang from the floor with a bound. Well Mary Anne and Wanda were caught by surprise, They were fearful maybe Earl would win. But with a forearm clothesline and a suplex double, It was lookin' like a wrestling gym. They knew Earl had to die. Then Wanda sat down for just a few minutes And she was tryin' there to catch her breath. When old Earl jumped up and he was mad as a hornet, And it looked like he was thinkin' of death. Then Mary Anne with a crotch kick sent Earl flyin', He was hopin' he might land on a bed. But when the man came down there was no bed around, And there were stars circling all 'round his head. Yes Earl had to die. Well now it would seem almost to anyone That Earl'd maybe had enough. He was lookin' like somethin' that'd come from a grinder, And all his meat was tough. But he went for a gun and a knife either one, And he was shootin' and a'stabbin' the air, But with a kick from Wanda and a shove from Mary, They sent him down a flight of stairs. Is Earl ever gonna die?

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