Monday, September 3, 2012

To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your principles.


Also, it helps to not have principles to begin with.

So for those of you that don't know, I recently moved to Columbia, South Carolina.  I'm going to optimistically assume that none of you are cereal killers and won't abuse that information.  Anyway, almost two years ago I moved from California to Atlanta, and even though I was back on the eastern side of the country, Atlanta didn't really have that Southern feel I was used to when I lived in Mississippi or central Georgia.  Well, now that's over.  South Carolina has made up for it and more.  About a week ago, I participated in something about an hour north of Columbia, called The High Cotton Classic.  And if we're embracing stereotypes, and The Daily Tablet always does, it's pretty obvious that this event is about as Southern as it gets purely because it has "cotton" in the name.  Anyway, The High Cotton Classic, or "High Cotton" as us locals call it, is a skeet shooting competition.  If you don't know what skeet shooting is, it's when these clay discs get launched into the air and you shoot them with shotguns.  If you don't know what shotguns are, then you're an idiot.  I know what you're thinking:  "So basically it's bunch of rednecks with loaded guns running around shooting them in the air just to see shit explode?"  No, that’s not "basically” it.  That’s exactly it.  And it's AMAZING.  Turns out, as extremely surprising as it was, I'm a natural when it comes to shooting shotguns.  As awesomely terrifying as it is, I'm like goddamn sniper out there.  It was a nice change of pace, considering how when I first stepped out there, I had to turn to the guy next to me and ask him how to load the shells, how to turn off the safety, and whether or not he closed one eye when aiming.  Pathetic start I know, until I fucking NAILED those clay bastards out of the air like they burned down my family tree.  Beast mode whatup.  Damn, I did it again.  I wrote an entire paragraph just because I wanted to say one thing.  Consider all that an introduction.  I wanted to talk about a certain guy at High Cotton, at least until you distracted me.  Anyway, when we were lining up to get started with the competition, this guy drives up on a four wheeler, decked out in camouflage, shotgun on his back, and wearing the most nerve-wracking sneer on his face that I've seen in a very long time.  Now I don't mean to judge a book by it's cover, but have you ever looked at somebody and thought, "I am confident beyond a shadow of a doubt that this human being in front of me has killed a man."  I have.  And of course I'm sitting on the back of the cart, forced to face the probable axe-murder armed with a shotgun.  Now I'm no pansy (*yes I am), but this was thoroughly disconcerting.  It was all I could do not to load up and shoot him right there in a preemptive attempt at staying alive.  I didn't though, I just sat there calmly with closed eyes, muttering prayers and clutching my probably unloaded shotgun.

I'd like to take this time to rehash my hatred for small animals.  Rats, squirrels, small dogs, and my roommate's cat.  If I could rid this planet of every rat, mouse, gerbil, shitty little dog, and Pluto the cat, I would do it in a heartbeat, then spend the rest of my incredible life celebrating.  Actually, so far there are two crappy little dogs I wouldn't kill.  One in southern California because it is quite possibly the funniest looking creature I've ever seen.  I’m pretty sure it’s a distant cousin of the Taco Bell chihuahua, and it clearly took fast food eating to a whole new level. It’s not as much “fat” as it is “perfectly spherical.”  I have actually kicked this dog across the yard because I thought it was a soccer ball*.  It’s far too entertaining to execute.  The second mutt is in northern California, and I wouldn’t exterminate this one simply because this particular owner is even more obsessed with their dog than most microwaveable-dog owners, and wouldn't stop bitching for the rest of eternity.  The cat, on the other hand, I would have no qualms about slaying.  It pissed in my room TWICE less than 24 hours after I moved in, has bitten two of the four houseguests we've had over, and meows extruciatingly loudly and high pitched every 1.6 seconds.  To be clear, I will give $50 to whoever offs this cat.  I don't even want to know who you are, just come to my house, eliminate it, and slip your address under my door.  I will mail you cash, burn the address, and the world will be a better place.

This summer was an interesting one, for good and bad reasons.  I was scheduled to moved into my house here on August 20th, after renting a U-Haul trailer, packing up, and driving from Macon, GA (about 4 hours).  What made this interesting was that at 9:00pm on August 19th, I was about 2,600 miles away in Chico, California.  I made it work by driving to Sacramento, taking a red-eye flight to Charlotte, NC, then another flight to Atlanta, a shuttle down to Macon, then renting the U-Haul, packing, and driving to South Carolina.  And all of this with no sleep.  Well anybody that follows me on Twitter knows how my flying experiences tend to go.  I've basically established that flying is the way God retaliates for everything wrong I've done in my life.  I have yet to have a single flight without a screaming baby, a kicking child, a fantastically sweaty and obese neighbor, or vomiting passenger within arms reach, and these two flights were no exception.  This time I won't go into detail, though, because that's not what this post is about.  In my sleep-deprived, slightly angry and completely delirious state of mind, I started thinking of what my ideal flight would consist of.  The list escalated quickly and this is what I came up with, or at least the stuff I remember thinking… 
Ladies and gentlemen, we know you have a choice when it comes to flying, and we’d like to thank you for choosing Hirschey Airlines.  Here’s what your flight will consist of:
-There is no first class restriction, and the front is a soundproof room with Tempur-Pedic mattresses
-Coach is just one big beanbag.
-There is a plane-wide Rochambeau tournament (that’s “Rock Paper Scissors for you uncultured folk) to determine who gets to try to land the plane.  (Don’t worry, we land in a giant ball pit so you’ll be fine.)
-Babies, dogs, and fat people ride in the cargo hold.
-There is a mandatory mid-flight freestyle rap contest between two randomly selected passengers.
-The tray folds down and already has a plate of freshly cooked bacon on it.
-Anyone deemed overwhelming annoying or high maintenance by a majority vote must sit in the bathroom for the remainder of the flight.
-There's an option to drag behind the plane for the duration of the flight while it's at cruising altitude.  (Yes, I know this isn’t possible right now, make it happen NASA.)

Also, on this plane, to hell with the oxygen masks.  If the plane's going down, the only thing dropping from the overhead compartments are jellybeans, cause let's be honest, when your plane's about to haul ass into the ground at five hundred miles an hour, putting a yellow cone over your face isn't going to do shit.  Unless of course you're trying to imitate a duck, in which case they can be located at the front of the Tempur-Pedic section.

Fact of the Day:  There was once an underwater post office in the Bahamas.

Shout out to Victoria Shao.

No comments:

Post a Comment