Pees Be With U

First off, I’d like to congratulate the Priers on the birth of their baby boy. I realize such a pronouncement on a blog steeped in sarcasm and profanity lacks a certain sincerity, but I really do mean to congratulate them.

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So I went to Home Depot yesterday for the first time since we’ve been here and the first time in like 12 days. I knelt on at the threshold and said, “Forgive me HD for it has been over a week since my last purchase.” I didn’t really have anything to buy; I just needed to go be among my people for a short while. Yes, it’s a new town, but I felt like I was hanging out with the same old crew. There was Bob the Plumber, Rick the Electrician, Andy the One-Armed Carpenter (unfortunately his business has been cut in half since the accident), and Horatio the roofer/mason/landscaper.

The place was an absolute madhouse. Granted, I never typically went to Home Depot at 2 in the afternoon on a weekday, but there were so many people I thought for a second they were giving away free Oxycontin when you purchased 4 sheets of plywood or something. I only ever had Oxy once when I went to the wife’s medicine cabinet looking for a Tylenol and accidentally took a little of the Poor Man’s Heroin, and I didn’t really need any plywood, but I thought I’d check it out just to see. Turns out, they weren’t giving anything away for free; it was just that busy. The problem was, with all those people there I couldn’t figure out who the fuck actually worked at the Home Depot and who was just wearing a Tony Stewart NASCAR shirt because damn near everybody had a Home Depot logo on their person.

On my way home from HD, I passed a car that had the letters “G-S-U-S” spray-painted on the side. I was as confused as you are until I realized I was in the Bible Belt and apparently the Hooked on Phonics belt as well.

I wanted to laugh at the guy for driving around in a rusted out old car, but then I realized I was the one without air conditioning, driving around with the windows down, sweating my ass off. It’s so hot down here they have a different sort of heat index. Yesterday it was just Hot as Balls. Today is Sticky Underwear Hot. Tomorrow is supposed to be a record-setting Bellybutton Puddle Hot. Apparently that’s what happens when you perspire so much the sweat collects in your bellybutton like a little puddle. Fortunately from all the salty sweat stains I’ve been seeing, the Tony Stewart NASCAR t-shirts are extra absorbent, so at least they don’t need to worry about mosquitoes nesting in their navel.

Speaking of hot as balls… We went to the pool yesterday where I observed some pretty remarkable things:

1.    1. A young couple, sunbathing next to the pool, both drinking 22 oz. Pabst Blue Ribbons. I can only imagine the thought process that led to that purchase: “Sweet G-sus, honey, they’re selling doubly-deuce PBR’s, two for $1.99. That’s like a dollar and a half each!”

2.   2. There was another dude frolicking around the pool and at first I thought to myself, “why on earth is he wearing a sweater vest in the pool?” Turns out he was just that hairy. I immediately had second thoughts about getting in the pool after that. I had visions of myself getting all tangled up in his man sweater like a dolphin in a tuna net.

3.   3. We saw a pretty husky dude roll in with his big old cooler and plop himself down in the corner of the pool on the steps in the shallow end. I’m not sure if that was the prime pool real estate or what, because dude didn’t budge for over an hour. In fact, he just sat there drinking Miller Lite after Miller Lite and smoking cigarette after cigarette. 5 beers and 10 cigarettes later, I wanted to get up and just punch the guy in the throat for being so unhealthy. Not to mention a fucking camel couldn’t drink that much and go that long without peeing in the pool.  At least I took comfort in the fact that he was going to wake up this morning with a beet-red sunburn from his belly to his receding hairline with two crescent-shaped smiley face tan lines under his man boobs. I’m going down to the pool today just to see him come back and try to even that sunburn out… Then I’m going to punch him in the throat for being an idiot.

4.   4. Nashville is known as the Athens of the South (Athens, Greece for all of you geographically challenged Ohioans who think the locals would be so audacious as to coin themselves the Athens, Ohio of the South), but I never expected to see anyone sporting the Euro banana hammock here. Worse than that, it was neon green. Like, construction-worker-neon-green, as if to say, “Slow down while checking out my junk, fines are doubled in this area.”