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.