Gwen Petersen: In a Sow’s Ear 8-12-13
Big Timber, Mont.

Snoose can refer to chewing tobacco or snuff — that powdery nicotine stuff users tuck inside cheek or lip. Dipping snuff can result in a tendency to drool which can be embarrassing.
Scene: A snuff-dipping Macho Cowboy sees a pretty Cowgirl dressed in an attractive Not Much. She looks at him and smiles. His mouth drops open and snoose juice dribbles forth. He’s so chagrinned, he can’t speak, let alone ask her for a date.
But she is a Cowgirl, so maybe she understands the brown stuff trailing down his chin like a liquid mustache. She lets him take her to church. When the parson asks the throng to stand to sing “The Old Rugged Cross,” Macho Cowboy’s cheek full of snuff gets loose and a splat drops on the hymnal. Mortified, he tries to sop it up with his bare hand. Unfortunately, the gesture merely smears the splat.
Macho Cowboy apologizes and vows he means to quit the snoose habit — soon, maybe right after the weekend rodeo where he’s up for bareback riding.
Cowgirl, always an admirer of rodeo, watches from the stands as M.C. comes out of a chute on a big gray-white bucking horse. He makes the ride! A pickup man gallops alongside. Macho Cowboy smoothly transfers to the pickup horse’s rump. Woops. A dribble of snoose juice slithers down the back of pickup man’s shirt. Sadly, the pickup man happens to be Cowgirl’s brother. She thinks the incident is funny. Her brother doesn’t. An altercation is imminent. Result: Another sheepish apology. Another determination to quit.
Snoose Juice
Inside his cheek
For about a week
A dip of snuff
Has made it tough
To eat his dinner
He’s getting thinner.
If he don’t soon spit
His face may split
His jaw has swelled
By what its held.
Look out! It’s loose!
I see the juice
Ooze down his chin
Drip on his shin.
He spits on a bug
It drowns on the rug.
He spits in his shoe
Icky thing to do.
He spits in the air
He don’t know where.
He spits, patooie,
And still he’s gooey.
He started on Monday
And then by Sunday
He’d filled a spittoon
And half the room.
Ya gotta admit
If he don’t quit
He’s gonna drown
The whole durn town.
An old, joke asks the question: “How do you know if a cowboy is level-headed?”
Answer: When the snoose juice drools evenly from both sides of his mouth. ❖