I Was Raised With American Family Values
That’s probably the key reason I spend a full 11 months in gestation. I did not want to be here. For decades, I tried without success not to be here.
It was obvious no good could come from such horse exhaust as makes up the foundation of our nation of miserable fucks.
If a kid hears “Because I said so” enough times as the answer to a question as simple as “But why?” there will be one day hell to pay. Especially in a country where even mass shooters and serial killers are guaranteed the right to own and bear weapons of mass destruction, because God says so, or something equally absurd.
I was taught who to hate and also who hated me, even if I didn’t want to or didn’t feel like I was.
I was not supposed to do anything that would let Ethyl from up the block say things about mom’s family that might reflect badly upon her to people who may or may not actually exist.
So it goes.
One of my favorite stories involves a guy being chased through a forest by a bear.
He comes to a cliff that towers over a small marshly river filled with alligators hundreds of feet below. Did I mention he was being chased by a bear?
He jumped, of course, having come to an agreement with himself that he would decide what to do next on his way to the river.
So it goes.
About halfway down, an opportunity for the man to change the outcome if his shitty situation presented itself to him in the form of a small but sturdy cottonwood tree jutting unexpectedly out from a small outcropping on the cliff face.
And the man, of course, grabbed hold of a branch on that tree and came to a halt midway between death by bear and death by alligator.
“Whew,” the man thought, “That was a close one!” because, of course, he could never leave well enough alone.
So the gods sent an industrious woodchuck out from this tiny cave near the small outcropping on the cliff face to begin gnawing on the branch of the cottonwood tree from which he was suspended midway between two equally unpleasant deaths.
“Ah shit,” the man thought, “Me and my big brain. You'd think I could manage things better than I do.”
He had barely finished not saying these thoughts aloud when he saw the bright red laser-like beam from a wild strawberry plant a few feet to his right.
As the woodchuck continued chucking wood and the cottonwood branch he hung from began to cringe and creak, the man shifted and swung his weight until he grasped the berry between the index and middle finger of his right hand and brought it to his mouth.
“Mmmm,” he said. “Delicious.”
