A quality rant should either start with words misguided parents find offensive and tell their children to not use, or it should start with a list. This rant will start with a short list of several things I have always found….boring and uncomfortable.

1. Fireworks
2. Parades
3. A dry heat
4. Grillin’!
5. “Visiting” with folk

I’m assuming the point of fireworks is to celebrate the US of A independence from Britain. Fine. I just do not understand the joy of standing in the middle of some street while the guy with the fewest DUI’s on his record (women folk shouldn’t light crackers…too dangerous) lights cheap, loud, and smelly fireworks of various sizes. BOOM! CRACK! SIZZLE! Boy howdy, that there made me proud to be a “Murican! Really? Why? At some point George, let’s call him George, has one too many Keystone Lights and sets the tip of his finger on fire and has to take a powder. The lighting of things is now in the capable hands of Barbara Sue who is the next most responsible at the age of 13. While lighting the second one, baby brother Jason (you know his fucking name is Jason) gets in the way and Tessa (child #4) yells at him that she is going to tell Ma. Well Ma is sitting five fucking feet away doing a structural integrity test on a Wal-Mart summer sittin’ chair. The plastic straps of the seat just a diggin into those meaty meaty thighs. She gives a firm “go on now Jason!” and the festivities continue. Large rollin’ coal trucks pull up and it is now 1135p and the whole mess of kin across the way is shitfaced, methed out, angry, and burping up the seven burgers they threw down their pie hole 5 hours earlier. The decent folk across the street are trying to enjoy NETFLIX or a biography on Bertrand Russell. GO…THE FUCK…..TO BED. ‘Murica will be here tomorrow.

That same day or the day after, this same group and many others just like it will be lined up on the Main Street waiting for the annual Patriotic small town clusterfuck to roll from Pythian (that’s the McDonald’s to all you big city folk) through downtown where the mess will disband somewhere on Rio Grande. Highlights for the 4th of July aficionados will be the 72 customized 4×4 vehicles and the one lonely stock black Rubicon that someone bought and is now so far in debt they can’t see straight. But “boy ain’t she purty and my girlfriend just gets to tingling when she rides in it!” Giddy up. Other highlights for the die-hard fans of the red, white, and blue will be some tractors (my guess is about 11 of them), any flatbed with hay on the back, and of course the cop car with its lights on (Police Lives Matter!) A few things will not get any waves and will not get the crowd excited. This will include members of the local Democratic Party (commies!), and anybody carrying a musical instrument that is not a fiddle, wash bucket bass, or a 2-string banjo that “used to belong to muh Daddy!) The entire thing lasts an unmerciful 12 minutes and if I never seen one again in my life I will be thrilled.

All of this takes place in the dry heat of Western Colorado. Think of an oven filled with dirt. People will be sporting sweat stains that are crimes in 11 European countries. On every corner there will be a lady with a special sleeveless item from the Wal-Marts with sweat stains mooning down to her draws (pants). This stain will look like an eclipse and right next to it, cuddled up real tight like, will be grandchild #5 that she has had to raise. Mmmm mmmmm….grammy sweets smells  the kitchen floor at Starvin’ Arvins! Fuck dry heat.

The menu for grillin’ time…there will be no exceptions: Pre-formed hamburgers from…you guessed it….the Wal-Marts, as many Bar-S hot dogs as you can eat (made out of  lips and assholes), tater salad…that real special kind with about 4lbs of yellow mustard thrown in and little bits of hard-boiled eggs….the beans….just call them the beans….a big fat juicy nasty ass fucking piece of watermelon. Junior is tucked behind the trailer going to town on a piece that would joke Godzilla. Drinks will be Country Time lemonade, mixed with luke warm water or you can just snort the crystals off the fold ’em up table. For the adults Dr. Pepper and the ever-present Keystone Light. If you aren’t wearing a trucker hat you are not welcome. If you have your GED you get an extra scoop of the yellow potato salad. Them’s the rules.

These fine folk belly up to the feed trough and commence to visit with each other. Visiting really goes down when you are only talking to family and maybe one select neighbor who was invited because he has the biggest truck. Acceptable topics are weather, baseball, love of Donald Trump, the terrible economy, and how people with brown skin are going to lead to the downfall of all that is sweet and holy. No…other…topics.

Fuck the 4th.