Yesterday as I was getting in my car to go to my weekly League Of Super Excellent wRiters meeting, my neighbor Meat came running out on his front porch.
"SJ, hey SJ, hold on...can you give me a ride?"
"Sure Meat, where to?"
"The bus station."
This is probably a good time to point out that the closest "bus station" to Elkhorn is in Ashland. That's 120 miles, slightly out of the way of my meeting.
"Oh...sorry Meat, I've got to be somewhere in twenty minutes. Don't think I can get you to Ashland and back in time."
Meat threw up his hands, called me names I can't type in a family newspaper, and stormed back into his house. I proceeded to my meeting, where we plotted how best to contrive plots.
When I got back home a couple hours later, Meat was in his front yard strapping a camo duffle bag onto a bicycle. It looked curiously like the one that's been rusting in my driveway for the last six years. He had one of those knock-off AK-47's you can pick up at any flea market or pawn shop in a 200 mile radius strapped over his shoulder. He was dressed in shirt and pants that, surely by coincidence, matched his duffle bag.
"So what are you up to Meat?"
"You think I'm going to tell a pinko like you? No way."
"Well, isn't that my bike you're loading up there?"
"So it is. If you must know, I'm riding it to the bus station."
"Ok, so where are you taking a bus?"
"That's all you need to know SJ. Just remember...Remember the Alamo."
I should have guessed. Meat, like most other flat headed tin foil hat wearing psycho-Americans, has become convinced that the United States Of Obama is about to invade Texas. That's Texas, one of the fifty states. This isn't a reach for someone who believes the president is a secret Muslim socialist. They'll all tell you he's bent on creating a caliphate in Happy where the residents are thrilled not to be living in Loco.
Yes, those are both towns in Texas.
Although my dear mother the saint was born in Texas, I can't imagine a place our country would be better off without. Shouldn't we be trying to auction it off instead? If Texas was put up as collateral for all those Chinese loans, it's time to default.
Texas has given us the two worst presidents of my lifetime. One, Lyndon Johnson, managed to take someone else's bad idea and turn it into the most ill-conceived military action in American history. If you think they were rioting in Baltimore you should get a load of the rioting during Johnson's administration.
The other worst, George W Bush, a giant of a shrub, ignored his father's wisdom, lied to get us to invade Iraq and further destabilized a region that was never more stable than a man walking a tightrope.
You don't mess with Texas. Based on those two, maybe the slogan should be changed to You Don't Texas a Mess.
"Ummmmm...Meat. You know nobody got out of the Alamo, right? Everybody died. And if that happens, who's going to bring my bike back?"