"The Shit They Carried"... Pennsylvania Hunting Season, Uncle Billy Ray Fuckstick, The Endangered Species Poachers, and Commendations for Anti-Valor

It would appear that I am in fact on a roll with the postings lately. I simply couldn't refrain from writing about this one because it was pissing me off to no end just thinking about it last night and would be today too if I wasn't currently 90% frozen and feeling like I will be a trainwreck of sickness by this time tomorrow morning. As happens every time I get sick, which is usually maybe only twice a year, three times in a bad year, I woke up this morning in what is not by any means a cold room wrapped in a massively thick comforter in addition to a thermal shirt and sweat pants and yet still shivering like a fiend. This is day one, day two in the progression is always twice as bad as day one and on top of it I have to teach 1 class at 9 am and a second class at 5 pm which means I'm going to have a really, really fucking long day. If, despite all, I weren't in a rather good mood I would be extremely irritated about the fact that our salesman who doesn't think twice about scheduling the show pony for two ridiculously timed performances in a single day because he'll be sitting in the warm office while I drive around on ice-slicked, snow covered roads at 9.76 miles per hour behind some 90 year old bag who doesn't belong on the roads when they're dry! I actually wrote this one last night but failed to post it so I'll do that now.

Something is pissing me off. Again, yes I know, I'm in a good mood with the way my life in general does not totally suck at the moment, there's sunshine at times but I'm still not Zen. Anyhow, anybody who's read anything that I've written in the past would probably ask the question "what would make this different from everything else that pisses you off?" That would in fact be a valid question and I will answer it now and then further explain. This is in fact different from most of my angry rants because it involves an actual family member even if he's not necessarily of the same species. The name of this individual will be changed not all that subtly to avoid family fallout if it would happen to turn out that I am mistaken and said family member does not only possess ability to read but the ability to navigate the internet as well. I find this scenario about as likely as waking up tomorrow and having the middle east all of the sudden populated by useful citizens who are well groomed, intelligent, and can actually be classified as human beings instead of overgrown, bi-pedal, sewer rats with irritating mannerisms and stockpiles of Kalashnikovs.

On to the antagonist... My uncle (by marriage, not blood), will be the subject of this particular rant for he is a giant douchebag. He might actually possess the highest level of douchebaggery of anybody I've actually spoken to in the 29 years I've been alive. Now I do in fact like my aunt which makes it that much more perplexing that she married this gigantic fucktard. She's very nice and would probably do just about anything for my family if it weren't for uncle Billy Ray which I call him for his once pristine specimen of a mullet that he wore like the feathers of a proud peacock. Since I don't associate with him unless absolutely necessary I don't really know if he still has that mullet or if he's actually moved a step closer to a style more fitting of the current decade.

This is a man who's well being I truly value less than a steaming pile of fresh fecal matter and that is probably being nicer than I would prefer. In order to effectively paint a picture I must explain further this man and his family. On his side I'm quite sure the tree has few branches and is very likely the kind of thing inspiring urban legends among travelers of the backwoods, mountainous regions of someplace like Alabama or West Virginia. This is a man who looks like Billy Ray Cyrus when he first came out with the Achy Breaky Heart song. Aside from the mullet he's also a gun toting hillbilly from somewhere in Western Pennsylvania. He is the redneck equivalent of a wigger with a tilted hat complete with store tags, popped collar, fake diamond earrings, and Caesar bowl cut combo . The baggery associated with this man and his arrogance makes flowers wilt in his presence like he's Dracula and drunken barroom heroes stop and wonder how many beers he'll need before he'll try to fight them just to prove his mulletudial superiority over them. The answer is likely none because he has something to prove and lacks the funds to do it with a giant shiny Ford Model 19,050, 40 ton, environment desecrating pickup truck that he would drive it they made one and he could afford it.

He will still manage to spend every last cent the family might otherwise have to send this 3 kids to college one day, on things like a new bass boat or enough hunting rifles to form his own militia and he'll do so without even a trace of second thought about it. He is one of those people about whom most people would look at and then look at his kids and think "they don't stand a chance" and this would be true. At least two of his kids still sport mullets or rat tails... actually sort of a redneckdified hybrid of the two that defies logic and would confuse the best analysts. He puts them in sports like wrestling because it's a manly man's sport. Who would argue with the manliness of two sweaty guys rolling around on a ringworm infested mat in front of a crowd of eager onlookers while angrily fondling each other's naughty bits in a bid to subdue and thus assert domination over the opponent... Certainly not I. This is the type of man who on top of this, will force extra "practice/training" onto his kids if they fail to live up to the standards which he himself once failed to accomplish in his lost youth. What other path is there? His father is every bit as baggerific and it is guaranteed that he did the same thing to his son and his father did the same to him. It is a never ending circle of retardation set in motion generations ago and continuing in a downward spiral until Armageddon or a good eugenics program is implemented.

Moving on... I shall first begin with Easter two or three years ago which is the last Easter dinner I will ever spend with that side of the family because of him. My family planned a nice Easter brunch at the country club. No we're not really country club people, far from the image conjured in the minds of many people when they think of such a place with the Mr. Howe's of the world talking about the market in a teeth clenched, tight-assed manner. The fact of the matter is that no matter what type of people you are there are certain rules of etiquette which should be attempted when attending such an event. Not that I give a shit about Easter and all that Jesus crap but that's beside the point. People dress up and attempt to be on good behavior in such a place. Not Billy Ray and his family of inbred goons. We were the first ones there as always. They can't show up on time, ever, for anything. It's not as though they're even just slightly late. When they show up it's at least 45 minutes behind schedule and it always escapes me as to why. It's not like they put any extra effort into appearing to be civilized in any of the possible definitions of that term.

As we waited, dressed decently. I am personally almost always dressed so that I might fit in at a casual business meeting in a worst case scenario. I don't say that in an attempt to appear above or even better than another, it just happens to be my style. I keep long hair on the converse and wearing button up shirts and dress shoes helps throw people off any assumptions they might want to make. In Western Pennsylvania it also happens to confuse and bewilder, even anger much of the redneck population who are not big fans of "city folk with that galldern book learning thinkin they's all better n us!" This happens to be precisely why I do dress this way. I take great delight in causing hostile feelings among Neanderthal types. The remainder of my family has also done their best and would be unlikely to fall short of the standards set by the rest of the guests approaching numbers in the 100's.

So, we stand waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Slowly Billy Ray's family starts to show up. I had never met them before but they were impossible to miss. These people are not exactly inconspicuous unless maybe you're attending an event that would be classified as a hoe down. Looking like they're only a generation short of Amish, Menonite at best. These people are dressed like refugees from the set of Little House on The Prairie. Laura Engles Wilder would be proud to call them kin-folk. Plaid dresses and and shoddily done hairstyles on the little girls. Wife in a matching dress, hair done up in a bun that looks like it was done weeks ago and slept upon without additional though since that day. Husband wearing gray flood pants from the late 1960's held up with a severely worn brown belt complete with buckle the size of a small child's face as well as a worn out pair of cowboy boots that could only be classified as "my best shit kickers." This man actually acted just and kinda looked (other than the clothes) like cousin Eddie from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. To my horror they picked us out as their brunching companions and ambled over as if the fatigue from a hard morning of plowing the fields and milking the livestock was still fresh in their muscles. They began conversation with something equivalent to a "howdy." At which point I retreated into conversation with my brother about politics or something I was sure would prevent them from joining in or even recognizing it as the same language they speak.

In a short matter of minutes in walked Billy Ray Sr. looking like a Salvation Army version of J.R. Ewing (some of you may have to look up that reference due to lack of age to recall). I half wondered if I might be able to walk out to the parking lot and spot his a 20 foot long convertible Cadillac complete with tell-tale steer horns mounted on the front but thought better of the effort. Though his pants as well were in obvious preparation for an impending rise of waters which must have been ambiguously present despite my having missed them, they looked otherwise fairly crisp and new. It was as though he traveled to 1971 just that morning to purchase them. Matched nicely with his pants was a horrifying example of a western style shirt and matching Texas used car salesman sport coat. Topping it all off was a gargantuan cowboy hat (40 gallon or so by my reckoning), and a bola tie with a huge, glaring turquoise stone set in the center of it. This man stuck out like a Klan member at a Black Panther rally, effectively drawing the less than hospitable gaze of every person in the facility before he even opened his obnoxious mouth that was louder than his fashion statement.

I, attempting to hide my discomfort, simply tried to ignore him, them, all of it but to no avail. We took our seats and the typical conversation amongst such people ensued. Eventually a waiter brought water and daintily poured it into our sparkling crystal glasses and stated that he would return with our soft drinks momentarily. Billy Ray Sr. proceeded to down his water as though until this very moment in time he had been staggering through a desolate desert wasteland completely devoid of sustenance for several days and was minutes from death due to dehydration. Upon completion of his mannerless chugging he pulled out a tin of Copenhagen and threw in a dip that would make the most hardened of truckers, loggers, or steel mill workers look on in wonder, easily half to three quarters of a can. He then proceeded to use that crystal glass as a spitter while he made himself at home by angrily throwing his cowboy boots up onto the nicely bleached and starched table cloth with a grunt and a sigh. It was at this point that my manners were nearly lost to my Irish temper. I am to this day unsure how I didn't clear the table in a single bound and proceed to annihilate him right then and there. I sincerely doubt that the remainder of the people in the room would have disapproved.

I have no idea how I maintained civility through such a catastrophic family public affairs disaster. I cannot believe there are not actual laws against animals such as these being permitted to dine in any public place obtaining a higher star rating than a McDonald's strategically in a nameless town in Georgia that is still managing to elude cartographers. This is the type of demon spawn from which this man was shat upon the earth in a bid for the position of anti-christ.

Now I have told you that story so that I may tell you this one. The reason for which I am so angry this night. Today was a most delightful day in Western Pennsylvania known as the first day of deer season. Every jackass with the ability to pull the trigger on a firearm and at least one eye with which to scope out a victim was out in force today. Awakening at the ass-crack of dawn and emerging from their shacks and mobile homes into the darkened morning. Each man attempting to outdo his adversaries and bag the largest and least helpless of the helpless victims. Clad in their very best blaze orange robin hood or yooper style cap, hunting vest adorned with several thousand pockets designed to hold a Marine Corps armory's worth of various types of ammunition and explosive charges. Disposable hand warming packets, Gortex hunting boots, high powered death bringing rifle with 9 billion power scope to shoot the anus out of a flee at 7.5 miles, 7 Cans of Copenhagen to last through the morning, and a 24 pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon for a lunch time snack. Topping this all off will all 3 teeth with which to grin when they finally slay the vile beast which they will stalk mercilessly through the forest like primative man stalking a wildebeest through ancient Mesopotamia.

Each individual is carrying hundreds of pounds of battle rattle, clanking through the forest like a demented orange coal stove from 1812 hell bent on removing an evil force from amongst the population. More thoroughly armed than our nation's most tricked out special forces operators. They'll set up camp high in a tree in some sort of hastily erected wooden or homemade metal platform where they will teeter precariously amongst the branches attempting to aim and not fall to a painful and bone shattering death at the same time. Unfortunately this wouldn't matter for the rest of us because they've alright spawned 63 kids by the time they're 25. All of these hunters falling in simultaneous death would just mean Obama would take more money from us to support their welfare asses. All day long the roar of gunfire can be heard permeating the silence while the smell of cordite hangs in the air over little shithole towns and nearby patches of forests all around Pennsylvania. 697 rifle shots can be heard within very close proximity of a patch of forest probably no more than 3 square acres.

You'll see two, four, and 6 different colored pickup trucks, cars with 3 different rims and lacking mufflers, and even the occasional up to date SUV driven by some suburbanite with unresolved issues and a need to kill something that can't fight back (eventually he'll move on to the Cub Scout Pack he volunteers with instead). These are hastily driven into pull-offs and left in the middle of snowy fields and even half in the roadway as though the end of the world has just recently passed by in a panic. The hunters will pull in and find that perfect spot, unload their shit with stealthy precision and then begin to crackle, bumble, clank, trip and stumble their way through the darkened forest to a secret spot about which they've told nobody else. Nobody is aware of this spot except the 354 other hunters within site at the time. This spot will also have a nickname like the old farmhouse, Cousin Spunko's fishing hole, Old Glowing Kidneys Nuclear Waste Dump, or Mafia Body Drop Hollow. Taking his place in the tree after only dropping his rifle 3 times on the way up and only shooting himself once (only a flesh wound), our intrepid hunter will begin to wait for daylight.

He will wait quietly and patiently and eventually the sun will come over the horizon revealing to the world a lone, trembling brown creature with fear in his big, shiny eyes that have yet to experience much of the world. A small mother not much larger in stature is also cowering in the underbrush. Oh shit, fuck, dang, ooooh weee, GIT ER DONE will scream one of the Billy Bob's, Jethro's, Dick's, or Jeremiah's as they spot Bambi and his mother and proceed open fire like it's an animal kingdom version of My Lai. The forest will be ablaze with the with the hellish muzzle flashes from the thousands of rifles trained on the same 2 foot area and crack, crack, cracking mercilessly. Most of these proud Americans are just shooting in the excitement of thinking they might hit "it" whatever "it" happens to be, "it" must be important because somebody else shot at " it." For 63 minutes the warfare will continue until only a lone rifleman is standing, bleeding profusely, utterly deaf, and gratefully victorious.

Lumps of orange will lie lifeless on the ground in ever widening pools of blood and barely recognizable piles of gore. A lone toddler will cry from a tree where his father once stood with him, feeding him Pabst Blue Ribbon out of a sippy cup to keep him quiet so he can "git 'er done" while mom is out turning tricks. When the smoke clears there will be visible for all to see, in the center of the chaos, one speck of brown fur and a single eyeball laying at the bottom of a smoking 90 foot deep pit of chaos and despair left by millions of high powered rounds striking the same spot time and again. Our intrepid hunter will then collect his eye and fur chunk and drive it to the butcher who will turn it into a deer steak for our man to enjoy (should he live through his wounds).

This particular day, in that 1 square mile plot of 916 hunters, stand a triumphant Uncle Billy Ray and his three little redneck abominations, flush with ambitions and hopes for the upcoming slaughter. In their eyes is the need to bring death to the creatures they have been baiting with corn and goodies for months. Of course this is illegal but when asked Billy Ray will say that he was hoping the corn would bring turkeys so that my brother could see them. (That's a true story) As if my fucking brother is a retard who will drop a deuce in his pants at the sight of an all elusive turkey that he has never seen hundreds of times outside of my parents home in the woods were turkey hang out nearly daily.

Uncle Billy Ray is such a good guy, always looking out for my brother who doesn't even live within one hundred miles, he lives in Ohio. I think it is important to say three things before I continue. Numero uno would be that the hunting age Pennsylvania is 12, numero dos would be that the deer bagged this week must have at least 6 points on their antlers to be legal, and numero tres would be that baiting deer is illegal. Laws, Uncle Billy Fucking Ray don't need no stinkin' laws! Laws are for pussies ain't no pussies and ain't got no time for that shit! Uncle Billy Ray will bring his underage children hunting if he damn well pleases.

Uncle Billy Ray will kill any fucking creature with the audacity to take up residence within the range of his high powered boom stick. Not allowed to hunt at night! Not allowed to... fuck that shit! Uncle Billy Ray is out past midnight poaching diligently like a writer on deadline for the New York Times. All the while he's using his stealth, cunning, and wile to avoid those goddamn commie ass Pennsylvania Game Commission fuckers with their crazy ideas that shooting endangered animals isn't a great way to bag a taste-E-treat! All four set out into the woods, or maybe onto the roads to shoot at shit from the rolled down window of Billy Ray's moving vehicle at anything appearing to have four legs. It's all the same when the lot of them has a combined IQ that would not approach the level of a bag of hammers and is being used to formulate a plan for ambushing the beasts.

At the end of the day it was a good day for Billy Ray because Billy Ray got to use his fabled AK. Though it's probably more likely that there was a nine year old child standing on a milk crate in the back of an old Nissan pickup truck hanging and swinging on the trigger mechanism of a second hand ma deuce and firing wildly in the general direction of a culdesac someplace in suburbia because he though rover was a deer. Cease fire! cease fire soldier! Cease fucking fire Barks Billy Ray at his 9 year old son. By the time hell fires stop raining down death on the unsuspecting pets in the neighborhood it looks not unlike the opening scene of the newer version of Dawn of The Dead. Panic, grief, death, destruction, and despair, are all around. The horsemen ride, well, the horseman and horsechildren and it be in a Somali style technical.

This doesn't discourage our manly hunters for mistakes must be made and collateral damage must be expected in war... or hunting. It will not be long indeed before our antagonistic protagonists find some deer to kill. None of the deer will be legal, one will be a female and the other only have 4 small points instead if the required six, but these are pointless little discrepancies and should be disregarded. Both illegal deer were capped at the urging of Uncle Failure to abide by Pennsylvania hunting laws and his head full of brilliant ideas. Both deer were killed by children who are too goddamn young to be playing with firearms in this sort of setting. It's great to know that there are winners out there like my uncle, Captain Poachy McCocksucker.

It is never too early to begin teaching your children to recklessly and purposefully break laws simply because you are douchetastic. These kids will surely grow up to be fine citizens, in prison for getting into a knife fight with their wives, or cleaning the toilets at the Kwik-Fill and it's all because they have a loving father. I'm a big fan of guns and think that people should be allowed to have them. I have them, but I just think that some people, like Uncle Wanky O'Nutsack should not have them. I would like though to present this man with the "I'm The Most Massive Case of Human Herpes Around" award! I hope soon the world manages to find a cure for you and your kind you massive anal wart because I am ashamed to breathe the same air that you do my wonderful uncle. Until next time I bid you good day or good evening sir or madam. Please continue to tune in to receive updates on shit that pisses me off!