by Schuyler Bates - April 16, 2008
Don't talk to me about bitter people in small towns with guns. When I was a little girl, my dad took me to our cabin on Lake Wagalla, or something, just outside of Youngstown... Scranton? Wherever. Anyways. We'd go out behind that cabin, which he built with his own hands, and with the hands of 3 masons and half a dozen carpenters who built cabins for a living. We'd fish, we'd look for bugs, I'd play my "I'm President!" game that I made up. You know, kid stuff. And dad taught me how to fire a gun. We'd set up bottles, cans, Barbie Dolls dressed up as hippies. It was a great way to unwind after a busy summer day of being a shrill and overbearing toddler.
In fact, when I turned 18, I celebrated by blowing a hole in a ballot with a .44 on election day. "Yeah! Ka-BLAM! Prop 31!"*
We'd recite this little saying while we cleaned our guns. How did that go...
"This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will..."
That's all I remember. Good times.
Anyways, it's all rather hazy, but the next thing you know, I'm in the middle of nowhere in the Cambodian jungle, a sniper in a SEAL Team deep in-country with Ho Chi Minh in my sights waiting for the "go/no-go" signal from my spotter. (Bill was in Canada tending bar at the Toronto Bennigan's.) And that's when it happened.
"Charlie" lobbed a grenade into our hooch. Gunny backed off while Dutch dug a hole 3 feet deep 5 feet wide and covered it with palm fronds. I grabbed my first aid kit and dismantled that "eunuch maker" with nothing but tweezers and a curling iron.
And that's when I got religion. Not here. [points to heart] Not here. [points to head] Not here. [points to left ankle] But here. [doesn't point anywhere in particular] The sort of religion you people have: non-descriptive, judgmental, the one that has very little to do with the teachings of Jesus H. Christ.
Then I got shot down over North Vietnam and spent 12 years in the Hanoi Red Roof Inn being bullied by the South American Free Trade Lobby and was cheated on by my husband for 18 years.
So let me just ask you this: Do you want your next president to be an out of touch, uppity elitist who calls bitter disenfranchised middle-Americans "bitter", can't bowl but can smoke one, and reveres The Constitution? Or do you want a president who's a scorned wife who makes shit up and is bitter as the day is long and panders to each individual crowd she's speaking before then changes tactics given the hourly polling data?
That's what I thought. Thank you, Philadelph- er... Pittsburgh... ia. You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead rhetoric! Tested. Been there, done that. Ready day 1. -ish.
Brought to you by Citizens Who Don't Think The President Of The United States Should Be "Your Average Joe" Because That's Not Worked Out All That Well In The Recent Past
*props to P. Oswalt
Schuyler Bates is a former snowboarder who'd like to make enough $$ to be a stay-at-home-drunk. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama and rarely blogs at The Outer Sanctum.