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Some days I've almost had it with mountain towns.
Whether it’s brain-fried trust-funders complaining of not enough free publicity for the "charity" events they stage to consume their idle time and salve their souls, all the while suspecting some part of them should feel guilty for their lifestyles; or supercilious retirees, obliquely staring down death by meddling in the lives of younger, often even stupider people, criticizing anyone who works an actual job for not volunteering more time; or coked-up ex-ranchers who gradually sell off daddy's parcels and water rights for millions and can't keep their own wretched families out of rehab long enough to put together money to bail them out of jail, again; or the alcoholic aging "extreme" athletes, who consider themselves clever for offering middle-age the middle finger, wondering why their heads have no teeth and they can't get approved for a sixth mortgage -- this time, really, for child support, and maybe a few late payments on the ski-doo …
How about the wife-beating drunk driver, who gets himself off on a technicality then wants the newspaper to print a retraction for the court page? The toothless 30 year-old meth enthusiast who demands more attention be paid to her new children's program? The grinding, sagging, blind-drunk cowboy who revels in waving firearms at neighbors, and buying lawyers with the money his land is somehow worth these days?
There's the developer who wants to bring civilization to the desert, and the urban refugee who sees him as Satan himself. They're both idiots.
There's the business owner who complains taxes are too high, yet demands everyone else's taxes pay to promote his business -- to say nothing of not bothering to consider whether his dwindling sales might have more to do with no one actually needing his goods or services in a town this size.
There's the wild-eyed, wine-addled mom, misquoting scripture and (to paraphrase Berke Breathed) substituting narrow, suffocating zealotry at an annual appearance at some meeting for actual parenting, demanding "something be done" while heading off to get her eldest from juvenile diversions.
And Lord help me, I hear it’s worse in the city.
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