200th post!!! 3661 visitors. 18 visits to a post. Gotta figure repeats and multi-views cancel out. It means I have about eighteen readers on average. Not bad.

An eventful Saturday. Of course New Year’s Eve was Saturday, so you might imagine much partying occurred that night, and you would be right in doing so. Cody hosted once again this year and the makings were there for everyone to have a great time. It wasn’t too cold for people to stand on the porch, and there were untapped beer, wine, and liquor bottles in abundance. There were some good tunes and there were some fun-loving people. Still, everyone seemed to be in a rotten mood. I’m not sure what was going on to cause everyone to be a little touchy and a little grouchy as the rolled up, but I remember even I was just a little bit irritable, and since my tolerance for people not treating me with respect at how nice and wonderful and funny I am is small, I decided on a change of venue just after midnight. I declared my hatred for everyone there, making exceptions for everyone who actually heard the declaration, and took off down the road to Robert’s bottle of rum in one hand and diet coke in the other. I thought of hitching a ride, but the only occupied vehicle on closer inspection turned out the be the video shoot for the X-rated version of Paradise by the Dashboard Light, or at least it could have been. I had walked to the crossroads before I met the first car, and luckily it wasn’t any John Q. Law, because in my state I was rather vulnerable to arrest for alcohol intoxication. At the very least, I’ll bet they’d have made me pour out the rum. As I neared Woody Ware, I saw a couple fellow pedestrian revelers headed in the opposite direction. Turns out they were two of my favorite people, Janice and Larry, and they’d had the exact same idea I’d had, only in reverse. I promptly decided to turn around and return to Cody’s as a hero, having found a couple nice people to hang with. Sure enough, the infusion of these two and then the rest of their kith and kin a bit later (also on foot) really picked things up. It made me feel worlds better. Unfortunately, there was more drama, of a rather sensitive nature, not far ahead. The social group I mostly associate with is a pretty white-washed bunch of faces. It’s not a result of racism, it’s just geography. We just don’t really know very many black people, which is why I feel a little bad for what happened that night. We were joined, fairly early on, by three girls who happened to be African-American. I knew two of them from previous parties, and liked both of them fairly well, and the third was introduced to me, and she was very nice as well. Unfortunately, as one of the ones who I already knew started to get drunker, she started to become more and more vocal about the superiority of her ethnicity. She started criticizing the music selection, trying to start arguments with anyone who appeared to be a “redneck,” and even bragging how much affirmative action had paid off for her. One of our true rednecks retorted by showing his nice big confederate flag belt buckle. From her reaction, you’d have thought he showed her a rope with a hangman’s knot tied in it. After that she just got more and more argumentative. I don’t remember why someone got the shotgun out. I’m fairly sure it involved her. I was drunk enough that I didn’t fully understand that it was unloaded so it really bothered me, but I was also drunk enough that a 12 gauge shotgun being flashed around didn’t seem like that big of a deal either. Okay, I’ve been some rough places, I guess. Seeing this girl and some white guy (and if I am told right it wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed that night) arguing over this gun eventually stressed me out to the point that I was moved to action. Keeping low to the ground, I crept up on them, and then grabbed the barrel and pointed it off into space while ripping arms and hands off the other end of the gun. I put it in the back of a truck. I felt bad the next morning at the thought of the shotgun laying out all night in the back of a truck, but probably not so bad as if someone (me, for instance) had gotten shot. I should point out that all this occurred on the porch, so our gracious host had no idea. It’s not my place to say, but I think that is one chick that should not be invited to any future events.
Of course, Saturday was also the day WBC came to town. It’s my understanding, though I didn’t get to see it, the headline on WTVQ that night was “They Picked the Wrong Town.” The Christians were there to turn them away. I kinda wanted to rumble myself. The opening prayer for the Christians included God being against homosexuality, “just not in the way these people are.” It seems weird to crouch your crusades with disclaimers, but that isn’t for me to question.