Oiled As A Diesel Train

While Houtzdale is the place where I was raised, it is not my home.

Who would want to call this little shit-nowhere town home? Everything here revolves around two key body parts: Lips and Fists. The last few months have inspired me to give some attention to the latter.

In Houtzdale, the measure of a man isn't in his job, his family, or what good he does for society in general. No, the true measure of a man in this redneck-wannabe Huh?ville is much, much more primitive: Your status is based on who's asses you've kicked, how many you've kicked, or how many times you've had your ass handed to you.

Like any kid, I got in my share of fights. I won some and lost more, but in the end, I'm just a nonviolent person at heart. Yes, sometimes I rage, but what human doesn't? I have the presence of mind to keep that primordial, wild part of the human animal at bay, suppressing it in favor of a more refined, somewhat socially acceptable demeanor. What does that make me?

Ask any Houtzdale "tough guy" and they'll tell you that makes me a "pussy." And simply because these "tough guys" can beat my ass, they think it somehow makes them better than me.

FAIL

To understand this mindset, you have to understand the Houtzdale Drunk, because 99 times out of 100, their muscles come from the large quantities of alcohol they've consumed since they got home from work, if they even work at all.

Around 5pm, these hot shots show up at your local bar and proceed to order the first of what will be many bottles of domestic piss that they, of course, think is the best beer out there. First of all, for fuck's sake, that's not beer! Good beer isn't yellow: it has at least SOME good brown color to it. Good beer is also not watered down to the consistency of soda. Right there, these guys have lost valuable style points.

These tough guys, thinking they're (insert deity here)'s gift to women, will most likely start hitting on the pretty girls in the bar. And it's not just limited to female patrons, either: bar and wait staff are all potential targets of their beer-induced Casanova-ism. When they're shot down, they'll return to the bar, and as buddies begin to flow in and get a buzz on, they'll strike up conversations about their favorite subject in the whole world: kicking ass.

"Well, I beat this guy's ass, beat the fuck out of this other guy; I remember this one time I was kicking this guy's teeth in and... Oh, that pussy, I don't know how many times I've punched that fucker..." It really goes on and on. It's almost as if all they know how to do is drink beer, get shot down by women and fight people. After a few rounds of this, and now with wingmen in tow, they'll go back to trying to impress upon the ladies how much they can "rock their world" with cliche pickup lines and drunken hugging.

Denied by the women that Budweiser tells them they deserve, they get cranky, and when they get cranky, guess what they want to do: Kick some ass. Surprised? Neither is anyone else, really. What these tough guys will do is find someone in the bar whom they figure won't be able to beat their ass, and go pick a fight with them for whatever stupid reason they can dream up. Yep, they'll pick on someone weaker than them (and yes, I've been that weaker guy a number of times, though actual fights resulting from those situations are really quite a rare breed) intentionally, mostly because they know (despite the alcohol's amplification of their already retarded minds) that they can't lose in that situation.

Barring that, the tough guy will most likely pick a fight with someone who randomly bumps them, accidentally spills their drink, or even a guy who manages to start up a conversation with a girl that shot him down earlier in the night. If this scenario doesn't pan out, though, and no fights happen, then our friend the tough guy will find another outlet for his frustrations: Local Fat Chicks.

Yep, they've had so many brews and warped their minds around their own failures so badly that they'll resort to chubby chasing. Since the hot girls won't give them the time of day, and bigger girls around here are desperate as hell to have ANY man, toughy boys will, at the end of the night, start grinding with albino milk duds, their confidence in their attractiveness to the opposite sex renewed, albeit impaired by what has now become an over-a-12-pack night.

If they get to take Moby Dud home and get some play, the cycle then starts over. Work (or PlayStation if they don't work), then bar. This time, there's the addition of the story of his most recent sexual conquest, although the female lead is recast as someone less Mama Cass and more Reese Witherspoon. But again, the outcome is the same.

Drinking, fights, and trying to get laid. The lives of too many people around my area, and sadly, around the nation.

They'd find it hard to believe that I have a steady girlfriend, a (step)son, I get laid on a regular basis, and that I make a decent living doing things that I love to do. Why? Because I'm a "pussy," and there's no way a "pussy" like me could possibly have a better life than someone who can kick my ass. Well, tough guy, too bad. I like my life, and yes, I think it's better than yours. I'm not obsessed with kicking someone's ass every time the mood hits me. I pride myself on being refined enough to use the head on my shoulders instead of the fists below them. It's all about staying above.

But hey. If you want to stay down below, be my guest.

...Lies The Key To Imagination

It's Redneck Hospital 2: Electric Boogaloo.

You know, the ignorance of Rednecks never ceases to stop amazing the crap out of me. That's just a given anymore. I mean, these people are oblivious to the fact that they singlehandedly keep the human race needlessly tethered to lifestyles and ideals that went out with the dawn of the airplane.

All too often, stupidity is tied to that ignorance. Take, for example, the devout NASCAR fan I ran into this morning at the doctors' office. How did I know he was a NASCAR fan, not to mention a devout one? The jacket said it all, and said it loudly. Not only was the NASCAR logo plastered all over the bloody thing, but it's once-bright blue color was stained to high heaven with what could only be several different kinds of natural and synthetic industrial and automotive lubricants.

The mullet didn't hurt my deduction, either.

At any rate, we were behind this older couple, waiting to check the Bear in for his follow-up. Off to our left, looking obviously impatient and worried, stood Captain Stock Car, a hillbilly of about 45 years of age, looking more like 55 after years of Church and Go Fast, Turn Left action on Sundays and raising some rowdy kin-folk.

Well, the old couple taking a bit I can understand. Let's face it: they're old. If they do anything fast anymore, it's pretty much a medical miracle. You can't fault them for their age, nor the fact that they're living in an era that's way ahead of them in terms of social speed. But Captain Stock Car was looking like he was desperate to cut in front of us, even though we had what was obviously a slightly-under-the-weather 11 month old with us.

So, when the old folks were done, he asked us if he could cut in line real quick. His all-important question, the one that forced him to cut in front of a sick child?

Could he use one of the dozen or so wheelchairs sitting in the lobby - which are there for patients to take and use if they need to as soon as they arrive in the building - for his mother.

Idiot thought he needed permission. Yeah, in a place where people are sick and time is of the essence, you have to throw a wrench in the works to ask if your sick mother can use a wheelchair that they put there for people like your sick mother to use without having to ask.

Seriously. They let these people have kids? If the blazingly obvious passes you by completely and you don't even feel the breeze, you need to seriously rethink your situation.

Sure, it was only a hold-up of about 15 seconds, and the Bear wasn't in any dire need of medical care (it was just a follow-up to his ER visit on 500 Years of BS and Turkey Day), but come on! If you'd come down out of the hills every so often and see what civilized people are doing with their newfangled advancements, maybe you'd know things like medical centers put wheelchairs by the entrance for patients who need (or feel they need) them.

What a modern concept that is. Go home and watch Speed Network, hillbilly. FAIL.