|
I don't know who did it, but if I find out, I'm gonna go Hate Crime all over that person.
It may be there is no person at fault, but I refuse to believe that. I need someone to blame anyway. Someone. Anyone. Doesn't matter if I know who it is. Just believing that some individual is responsible is entirely enough, for right now. If I catch that person, well, I've already said that.
I suspect it's someone down in Mitchell County. Camilla is home to Gnat Days, a festival which draws its name from the summertime outdoors scourge of South Georgia, the gnat. Anyone who points out that I am the person who named the Fire Ant Festival in Ashburn is asking to be designated the person I'm looking for.
Someone, somewhere, somehow has turned the summer of 2009 into, and I have to use strong language here in order to offend people I've not managed to offend in other ways, GNATS FROM HECK.
This summer has had the worst gnat infestation I have ever seen. That's saying a lot since I've am a native Georgian and have lived all but about 6 years of my life south of the Fall Line.
It's been bad. So bad I've seen real Southerners swatting at the hordes of gnats that have surrounded their faces. We real South Georgians know this is a mistake. If you swat at gnats, they think you are waving at them to come over and join the party around your mouth, nose and ears. They call all their friends, grab a few gnat-sized coolers of cold beverages and sandwiches, call in a Southern Rock gnat band and get on the gnat-net to invite other gnats to come to the bash.
It's been so bad, I've seen people run past my house. Other times of year, these people walk. Not this summer. They pound the sidewalk so hard it's cracked in some places. Meanwhile as they sprint past my house they are followed by a what looks like a miniature storm cloud, except there are no lightning streaks and rain, just a low buzz that announces the cloud is 1.2 gajillion gnats in search of an ear and nostril to fly into and set up a recording studio.
This summer gnats are responsible for more weight loss in my neighborhood than all the diet fads in the past 20 years.
When I tell you the gnats are bad, I'm lying. They are horrible this year. They are flying into homes, churches and cars with such frequency I think they hijacked the Federal Stimulus package money and are using the money to genetically adapt themselves to live in places where they previously couldn't go. Gnats are so bad in church, there are so many swatting hands in the air Sunday morning at First Baptist that it looks like a Pentecostal revival service .
This may be part of the problem - swatting at gnats.
Real Southerners, prior to this summer, know you blow the gnats away from the corner of your mouth with a quick puff of air. This confuses the gnats and they go bother someone else.
I say it confuses them. Gnats may be especially susceptible to bad breath.
"Whoa! You get a load of that guy, George?" one gnat says to another as he zooms off from a cloud of halitosis.
"Man, what's he been eating? Compost?" George says to Fred as he too makes a gnat-line for the next person.
If I catch the person responsible for this Plague of Gnats, the likes of which have only been previously seen in the Old Testament, I may have to wait in line to exact retribution. A few thousand people will probably be ahead of me going Hate Crime on him first.
Copyright 2009 Ben Baker
* * * * *
 I
n addition to being an award-winning
journalist, Ben is a very funny guy who calls himself the world's official
redneck genius. You can get his columns emailed to you at doseodrivel-subscribe@yahoogroups
or ask him for advice, solicit money, issue threats or whatever else might
strike your fancy at GodOfHumor@southernhumorists.com
* * * * *
|
