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Thursday, July 2, 2009

I’m Sorry, What Did You Say?

Jim is on vacation in the Florida Panhandle, he’s surrounded by people who speak a bizarre and incomprehensible dialect, Southern Ultra Conservative. It’s OK, mostly he just pretends to be deaf, dumb, blind, and angry – so he fits right in…

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I spent yesterday afternoon on the beach.

I got sunburned – I was already sunburned a bit, and I was slathered in sunblock, but seriously the Florida sun is a killer. It actually sunburned the top of my head, this morning my hair hurts.

I got bruised ribs from the surf – the waves were running four to six feet and they were knocking the crap out of me.

I got ridiculed - the kids thought that watching Uncle Jim repeatedly falling off his surf board and being pounded into the bottom and dragged across the coarse sand was hysterically funny.

Still, I had a good time and despite the sun and sand and the giggling derision of small and terribly cute girls (nieces who will be getting something “educational” for Christmas) the afternoon was orders of magnitude better than the morning – which I spent with other relatives.

The other relatives being the Ultra Southern Christian Conservative relatives.

I learned something.

I learned that that otherwise perfectly normal people can harbor the most bizarre of delusions and cling to those delusions despite all evidence to the contrary, despite common sense, despite reason, despite logic.

(Just so you understand the situation, on the back of the couch was blanket carefully folded to show the presidential seal and the words “A gift from the George W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation.”)

Relative: So, what do you think of this, uh, guy, in the White House?

Me: I think he’s doing a pretty decent job so far, and I…

Relative [Aghast, Appalled, Outraged]: He’s not even an American citizen!

Me: Wha…?

Relative: He’s still hasn’t produced a valid birth certificate!

Me: Oh for crying out loud…

Relative: He can only produce a copy. A copy! Not the original!

Me: Wrong. The State of Hawaii has long since settled this issue…

Relative: It’s just a copy, not a real birth certificate! We need the original for examination!

Me: Who is we? Who, exactly, should be doing the examination? Because the State of Hawaii…

Relative: Those things are faked all of the time!

Me: You have proof of this, right? The State of Hawaii is conspiring to fake birth certificates so that foreign nationals can take over the government?

Other Relative: Our pastor said so, and he doesn’t lie.

Me: Ummm, ooookay. Just for the sake of conversation, what exactly do you think is wrong with the President? Other than he’s not an American, I mean?

Other Relative: Uh, SOCIALISM, duh!

Me: Oh for crying out … what exactly do you mean by that?

Other Relative [first relative is now pissed and won’t speak to me]: He bailed out the auto industry!

Me: So George Bush was a socialist too then?

OR: What? George Bush was a good Christian! (There no good Christian socialists, apparently).

Me: Well, Bush bailed out Wall Street…

OR: [in a change of logic simply breathtaking in scope] Obama is just using President Bush’s ideas and taking credit for them!

Me: Say, hot enough for ya?

I also learned that Canadians are bad, because they don’t sufficiently appreciate the awesomeness that is America. And that Sarah Palin is just the bestest thing ever (I, of course, being an Alaskan, don’t actually know anything about her. She’s just the best and they so hope she’s the next real President).

If you need me, I’ll be on the beach, pounding my head in the sand.

12 comments:

  1. Teh Stupid(tm) is growing by leaps and bounds. If there were a stock trading symbol for it, I'd invest. I expect huge dividends before the year is out.

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  2. The scary thing is that these people vote.

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  3. More proof that you don't belong on a beach. Everyone knows you don't pound your head in the sand...you pound sand up your ass.

    Stupid Northerners.

    And BTW, why do you keep defending Obama Bin Laden. Is there something you aren't telling us? Hmmmm?

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  4. The really scary part, Jerry, is that these people vote however their crazy fucking born again and the Earth is 6000 years old pastor say to vote.

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  5. If nobody could vote because they can't produce a real birth certificate, then nobody can vote.

    Any thing a person ever sees/gets is a copy. I signed the original on my son, his incubator was otherwise occupied. She was given a copy to take home with him.

    Make a WAG as to which Supreme Court Justice wanted to hear this case? It was rejected, as was the appeal of the rejection someplace, by the Federal Courts in I think New Jersey.

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  6. Jim, you should ask them why any of them even cares who will become President after they've all been Raptured away.

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  7. Tyrannosaurus Rex flying F-14 Tomcats. That'll learn 'em.

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  8. Tyrannosaurus Rex flying F-14 Tomcats.

    Don't be silly! The T-Rex can't do much more than play the mandolin with those stubby little arms.

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  9. Don't be silly! The T-Rex can't do much more than play the mandolin with those stubby little arms.

    Somebody missed the Calvin and Hobbes ref ;)

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  10. My wife spoke to yet other relatives today: They are firmly convinced that Obama is the literal anti-Christ as foretold in Revelations and that his election is a clear indication that we are in the "End Times."

    Seriously, it's not even possible to have a rational conversation with such bald faced crazy.

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  11. I have more rational conversations with my cat, to be honest. And his vocabulary is seriously limited ("maow", "meow", "raaa", and "ah-ooo" just about cover it). Perhaps your relative sshould talk to him, instead.

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  12. Somebody missed the Calvin and Hobbes ref

    Nah. It's just that my friend Kim & I have a running joke about T-Rex and what one could or could not do with those puny arms.

    Mandolin, yes. Upright bass, no.

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