Where are the Men in Black When You Need Them????

(Post was started on the weekend but finished today, Tuesday, June 6, 2006): Phew, I think I'm going to live--I think I'm over that bad cold that had me feeling awful for a couple of days. I must have used 5 boxes of kleenexes. Although I let my housework go, I did get some work done on the sleeves of the sweater-coat:

And I also worked on my Big Black Soldier Sock--here it is with the COOL bag I got from Socks for Soldiers Cafe Press (I'm using it to lug around my paperwork and clipboards to all the ranches and farms--I love this bag--it is so cool that I bet I could use it someday as a saddle bag if I'm ever fortunate enough to get one of those gorgeous paint ponies I yearn for.....)

Anyway, I went back to work today but still felt a little weak. I made my usual rounds at several ranches and fortunately didn't have any negative encounters with any unruly animals. Texas summer weather is approaching and it was just too dang hot for anybody, man or beast, to cause any trouble today. I practically scalded one of my poor patients by placing a hot stethoscope on her arm, not realizing how long the thing had sat in the car heating up. Poor thing now has "Littman" branded into her arm where I took her blood pressure. (Heh heh, I lied about that--just wanted to see if you were paying attention, wheeee!)

Anyhoo, I finished my rounds and drove home, wanting to get to the grocery store to re-stock on some things I had run out of while I was moping around my place sick all weekend. So off I headed to the one grocery store in my town.

And so there I was, innocently strolling through the grocery store, minding my own business, making Major Grocery Store Decisions......like which flavor Blue Bell Ice Cream to get? Or should I?-or shouldn't I? buy some pork chops to put on the grill? Or whether or not I should get the frozen baby peas or the vegetable medley with lo-fat butter sauce?.....

And then I prepared to make my Really Big Decision: the one where I pick which tabloid gossip magazines to buy, hee hee. (Okay, now you know my guilty little secret.....)

Now before you start laughing at me and judging me for being a goofball for reading those things, I want to defend myself and say here and now :

That I only read REPUTABLE tabloid "gossip" magazines! And I can't help it--I'm addicted to movie star gossip!! It's like a monkey on my back, I'm telling you!! My enquiring mind just has to KNOW which movie stars are fooling around behind the backs of which other movie stars, or else which movie stars had plastic surgery that turned out badly, or who got canned from their TV show, or who landed in jail for something, etc, etc.

And I....er...also appreciate the beefcake, shirtless, pictures of my favorite male stars when the photographer catches candid shots of them on the beach or something, you get the picture.

(Sad Note: Recently my heart was completely broken to smithereens when one of my favorite gossip mags revealed that my idol, Dog-The-Bounty-Hunter, got married, dammit---let me tell you that this came as a huge disappointment in my life because I've been pining for him for ages.....)

Oh yes, back to the grocery store. Anyway, I was strolling down Magazine Lane when to my surprise I saw a tabloid magazine whose glaring headline practically screamed in big black letters:

"REDNECKS SHOOT DOWN SAUCER!!"

The accompanying picture showed two rednecks with shotguns standing over a downed flying saucer and a dead "alien".

Now I do know that a lot of these tabloids are nutty, like the ones who have headlines that say things like "Alien Woman Gives Birth to 3-Headed Baby" or "Jimmy Hoffa Alive and Well in Fresno", but this particular headline DID give me quite a start -- because I live in the land of Rednecks And Their Guns.

But then, of course, after a second or two I realized that this WAS one of those crazy tabloids (unlike my "reputable" tabloids") and I started giggling and laughing---because this particular headline about rednecks shooting down flying saucers really wouldn't be too very hard to believe in Redneck Country! And I wasn't the only one who thought so.

"Good God, that looks my neighborhood!" said a farmer behind me, spying the picture and the headline. I giggled some more and he continued: "And those guys look just like the Bendleton boys! Yep, that's it. You know how they'll shoot anything in sight!" "Who shot down a flying saucer?" the check-out girl asked. Quite a crowd was beginning to form around this magazine. "Naw, that ain't the Bendleton boys," remarked a grizzled cowboy buying chewing tobacco, "Them there boys look more like those crazy Stringer brothers. Last year those idgits got drunk and shot down what they THOUGHT was a flying saucer--- but it turned out that what they'd shot down was the rotating crown on top of the Catfish King drive-thru -- and that durn thing hasn't twirled around right since."

Come to think of it, I thought to myself, that sign HASN'T twirled right in a long time.... So after I paid for my groceries, I went outside to check. Sure enough, it wasn't twirling. Dang these rednecks and their guns.... (See? It ain't twirling.)

But you have to understand WHY people around here would be so ready to believe that headline. Because if you've ever lived in Redneck Land, you know as well as everybody else that the number one "Law of Redneck Land" is:

that Rednecks Will Shoot Anything.

And I mean anything. Rednecks consider guns part of their everyday clothing ensemble--much like how women always carry pocketbooks or teenagers their IPods. A Redneck wouldn't be caught DEAD without his gun. Rednecks will shoot anything. Anything.

Again--let me make myself perfectly clear---

Rednecks Will Shoot Anything.

(Especially a drunk Redneck who's deerhunting or dove-hunting or quail-hunting or something.....) And the other thing that Rednecks like to do, after they've shot something, is brag about what they've shot. After they shoot something deader'n a doornail they will always tie it up onto the front bumper of their vehicle and drive through town yee-haw'ing and yippee-ki-yi-yay'ing and shooting into the sky to announce their prowess, yelling stuff like: "This ain't no fender steak, yall--we shot it fair and square!" Shooting something "fair and square" is important to honorable Rednecks. It's got to be a good clean shot that actually downs their prey or they're not allowed to brag about it. For example, "fair and square" does not mean that one killed a deer by hitting it with their car. That doesn't count as being "fair & square" and so therefore one is not allowed to brag about it. And not only that, but good manners dictates that you shouldn't even tie it to the front bumper of your car trying to fool everybody, either. Because if you're alone with no witnesses to the hunt and you come driving up with a big ole deer on your front bumper--well, people will CHECK it for bullet holes, by golly, and they check GOOD! There is Redneck Honor that must be maintained, afterall.

Which brings me to the second "Law of Redneck Land", which is:

That the Protocol for having killed something in any other fashion other than "fair and square" calls for just tossing it into the back of your pickup truck, NOT tying it up onto your front bumper--that's cheating and frowned upon. Whether you ran it over, stomped it in anger, your dog caught it, or you chased it down in a barn--none of that COUNTS. You had to have shot it "Fair and Square" to be allowed to tie it up to your front bumper--got it?

You can still eat the deer, dove, quail or whatever it was that you killed in another fashion other than "Fair and Square", but it's considered "fender steak" and not a fair kill. (And everybody who eats it with you is secretly thinking that it "tastes too gamey" no matter how well it was prepared--because everybody knows that fender steak doesn't taste as good as something shot "fair and square".)

Speaking of shooting something "fair and square", I heard that one time old lady Bradley shot her own husband in the leg for hitting her with his pipe after she yelled at him for spilling pipe juice on her stack of quilting squares. They say she got madder than a wet hen when her husband called an ambulance -- because she had intended to tie him onto her front bumper to take him to the emergency room. It was whispered that she even argued with the paramedics over the whole thing, saying things like: "He ain't fender steak---I shot him fair and square!" while her husband kept yelling in the background: "No it WAS not fair and square, by jingo -- she only winged me and followed the damn blood trail!!!"

Umm...back to the flying saucers, a thought just popped into my head... and I wonder.....

Do you think it's possible that "Men in Black" come to investigate Redneck UFO Sightings like they do in other areas of the country????? I wonder... But who knows. But if they do, I bet they don't look like good ole Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith in the real "Men in Black". With our luck around here they probably come investigate in beat-up pick-up trucks, wearing Walmart camouflage jumpsuits, Budweiser baseball caps, and carrying spit-cups for their tobacco juice. And instead of those fancy "outer space" guns that the real Men in Black used, the Redneck "Men in Camouflage" probably just pull down one of their best deer rifles off the truck's gun-racks....