First Place Tumbleweed

During Labor Day Weekend, the fair comes to town, with the same shitty meth fueled carnies installed rides and crap games that I know I could call Shenanigans on and probably get a stupid cheaply made stuffed animal that those same carnies would try to talk me into spending a hundred dollars on to play some rigged game. Those carny barkers are the most annoying pieces of human shit I've ever seen, first don't call me “Tubby” if you want to run your confidence game on me. What few teeth you have there carny, might not remain in your face much longer should you decide to insult the wrong person. I just walked by, saying hello to the few people I knew that had returned to town just for this silly shindig. And of course, this being a rural county fair, there's the standard judging on various farm products. Couple of pigs, some goats, a few hundred horses, and one not so lonely llama. This llama had an entourage of at least ten sheep, and it towered over those fluffy animals, and was a part of the petting zoo, with some very talented escaping goats. There's the judging on baked goods, my boss entered alongside my sister in a grudge match from the previous year, my sister beat out the priest with her gluten free pie, and I fully believe that reflected in the amount I got for my end of the year bonus and raise. I tried to sabotage her stuff this year but she baked that damn pie while I was at work and I never got the change to add a little bit too much salt by “accident.” My sabotaging attempts being thwarted did not matter as neither of them made it to the final judging. I still might not get a good enough raise again this year, out of spite for that outcome as well.

One of the stranger things that are judged, is the 4H stuff, at least to me, I was never in 4H, and since they are mostly children they have various entrees like, best chicken eggs, some kind of sewing projects, a model made from Lego, and the biggest weed. Look, this town is pretty much in a desert and we have huge tumbleweeds just growing everywhere around the city limits. These things are common as hell here, and at work I'm constantly pulling these things out of the park behind the church. The fair gave out blue and red ribbons for a goddamn tumbleweed because some kid conned their mom or dad into going out into the desert and pulling one out of the ground and then hauled it to the fairgrounds. I do not see the point of this, the other plants that are judged are grown in a garden, and tended to, with pulling weeds and turning soil and trimmings to get the best product they can grow.

That first place ribbon is trying to get away!

That makes sense at a county fair where the town was built on the premise of growing food for people a hundred and fifty years ago. But a fucking tumbleweed? Who the hell is farming just tumbleweeds? Can I do this, can I get money for not growing them like other farmers get for not growing wheat to keep prices down or up? Because I can totally farm tumbleweeds, it's easy, just spray water on the ground and wait two or three days and tada, there's a tumbleweed. Also who is buying these things other than a movie studio that is shooting a western movie? I want to know if there's a huge call for these things, because I don't see how I would need a lot of start up capitol for this kind of venture.

The food vendors sell crappy food that is way too over priced. I used to get a corn dog, or five, from the Lions Club, along with four or five beers, because who the hell needs a paycheck through a holiday weekend? I didn't get one this year, a corndog, I got a paycheck. I found out I'm  highly allergic to mustard. Have you ever had a hot dog without mustard? Ever see a commercial for hot dogs without mustard spread on that thing? No, and the reason is because they are horrible tasting and the mustard is there to cover up that godawful taste. I miss mustard, it's the best of the condiments. But I pass on it, because I like breathing and not being stabbed in the leg with an EpiPen more than covering the taste of a hot dog with that sweet golden yellow sauce. Damn that sounds dirty when I read that back to myself.

The only reason to even go to the fair is to see people that haven't been here since Mule Days or the previous fair the year before. I'm not into rodeos, or country music, or a destruction derby. The prices for those are unbelievably high for those, plus the cost of food and booze, the tickets for the frighteningly poorly put together carnival rides, more booze, and some stupid souvenir. I do like seeing people I haven't seen in a long time, because it's about the only time I have social interaction anymore, that doesn't involve family or coworkers.

Filters

I know I swear a lot. People have pointed this out to me for decades now. I'm sure most people are offended when I start speaking. I learned many swear words when I was a kid, shit my grandpa cussed around me all the time, but nothing really on the list of The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television by George Carlin. His favorite was “goddamn” and because he said it all the time, I use it all the goddamn time now too. When we had his memorial, I told a memory of him and the crowd was not ready at all for some unshaven, long haired thirty some year old saying saying the words, “goddamn vacuum cleaner,” at what is basically a funeral I think I've promised to post that story on here too, and I'll get to it eventually. My mom and grandma told me to stop taking the “lord's name in vain” and then my grandpa would get yelled at as well for cursing around the grand kid again, both of us ended up rubbing our heads from where we got smacked. But when I got into high school, I had learned syntax is everything with swearing. I have turned it into a fucking art form. I put them into other words, I know other people know this as well. Thank you Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor for adding to my fanfuckingtastic vocabulary. The vulgarity that comes out of my mouth at times sometimes shocks even me, and like the Hulk, the madder I get, the worse the swearing.

There are a few times that I never utter swears. I have never used the worst ones in front of my family, saying words that are fowl even to the British just don't come out of my mouth around my uncles and aunts. Hell, I didn't even let them know about this blog, just because I'm trying to spare them from my potty mouth. I also would not swear around the old people at the old folks home. That one shocked my coworkers because I was pretty bad in the break room, the laundry room, storerooms, the kitchen, pretty much anytime there wasn't an old person hanging about. And kids, because... Do I really have to put a reason for this, their kids damn it, they don't need to hear an adult say those filthy things and it pisses me off when they use them. First they don't know how, and sometimes a three year old repeating what dad says is pretty funny because it was either really wrong or just too correct. When my sister was four or five she told my dad he was a “fucking athhole” because she had a lisp and she was pissed at my dad for telling her she couldn't have something. My dad said he just stood there not knowing what to do, because how can you punish a kid for using a phrase correctly, and I think that lisp threw him and he just froze. We all get a laugh about it even now.

There are places I don't swear at as well. I won't swear on holy ground, and I work for the local Catholic church, but I don't cuss at the cemeteries, or other church grounds either. I will when I'm outside by myself, because I'm alone, and usually have a loud machine running that drowns me out. There are some exceptions to my self imposed rule, ever hit your finger with a hammer and not yell out a swear word? If not, you sir, or ma'am, are a fucking liar. I'm not Catholic, hell I'm pretty close to being an atheist, and the priest knows, and doesn't care. If the priest respects me enough to not preach his faith to me and try to force me to convert, I should have the respect to not befoul his place of worship with my swearing. I also never swear at Disneyland, I have and I felt dirty afterward. It's just wrong to go cussing up a storm in that place. I've heard many adults there swear just because, and I look at them like some sinner defiling my holy sanctuary. Disneyland is my happy place. I frown at people that swear at Disneyland, and just pity them.

I see nothing wrong with my swearing, I have my filters, and I stick by them. After all, they're just fucking words. 

Hmm, Okay.

I'm the maintenance guy for the Catholic Church here. Fixing shit around the place isn't too hard, and if its something I can't do, like electrical work, or something I refuse to do, like plumbing, I get to call someone to take care of that crap. I have had various jobs that have led me into this way of life, I was a construction worker out of high school. That's most of my building shit experience. Mowing lawns was easy to begin with, and with four acres to take care of we have a huge riding mower that is a blast to drive around at a good 20 mph. It is built chariot style, no seat, and I fell off the back of the damn thing a few times, high speed, zero point turns can knock anyone's ass off this mower, and the damn thing would just slam itself to a dead stop in two or three feet. It's a beast of a machine. And I also do yard, perimeter checks to look for the various shit people tend to do to churches through their hatred of the place. So far in the seven years I've worked there, I've had to deal with busted rock work on the bell tower, scratched “666” into the paint in various places around the property. Once someone decided to use sidewalk chalk to do an entire scene on the sidewalk of several demons ransacking the church with everyone burning. It was pretty nice artwork too, and I only slightly felt bad pressure washing the crap off before the funeral started.

That's the view I have to deal with every day.

Quite the bitch but someone's got to.

I was hired at the church to help put in a security fence around the back part of the property, a new lawn had just been installed with a nice path and one hell of a view of the mountains here. There is a nice statue of the Virgin Mary sitting out there with a mound, and roses, and some awesome flowers around it. The reason for the fence was because someone decided to decapitate the previous one. It was a plaster cast for the statue and wasn't too hard to remove the head but the person thought, “I'm taking this.” Just like the episode of the Simpsons, where Bart cuts off the head of Jebidiah Springfield. So nine hundred feet of fence attached to poles with some barb wire has pretty much kept all the hooligans away, also the new Mary statue has a nice cage for her own protection.

The past couple years, I haven't had to deal with any vandalism, some odd scratching into the paint in a bathroom is pretty much it. Lately though we've had a lot of homeless people. I knew we had a slight homelessness problem in Bishop for a long time but it seems to be getting worse. The thing I learned is that not all homeless people are homeless because of shit just happening to them, or drug use. Sure those are for most cases, but there are two people that have chosen homelessness as a lifestyle choice. One guy drives with a van, stocked to the hilt with fucking trash, and bike parts attached to the roof. The guy is a know it all type of person and felt the need to preach to people coming to the church to pray, or you know, listen to the fucking priest preach. The guy has always been an ass, and he's been asked so many goddamn times that he's not welcome on the grounds. He didn't think a restraining order was a good enough hint, that he should find a new hangout. Until I caught him bathing in the restroom. By the time I get to work, church services for the morning have long ended but the problem wasn't that he was using the bathroom, we leave it open to the public. The problem was that he propped the door open and had stripped to his not so tighty-whities. When he got hauled off by the cops, I felt that it was a good day. And he has only come back once, and when a six foot two inch tall, two hundred-mmmmm pound guy tells you to fuck off, you tend to comply. Of course holding a pitch fork was just for the show. He hasn't been back. I used to be a bouncer at the local dive bar, which describes them all in town, and if you think it's a nice kind of job, good for you, that is the most boring job I ever had. After the first night I would have quit, but I really needed the money. And because of that, I'm now the bouncer for the church grounds. Church bouncer, check that off the bucket list.

These deer skulls sure do fancy up the place.

But yesterday has been the weirdest I've seen so far. Two well sun bleached deer skulls, and a rusty ore car wheel. Just sitting there, I go into the office ask about what I found. I was guessing someone was either getting ready to perform some mystic demon ritual, or someone camping on the grounds again and thought they needed something to make the place feel like home. No one in the office knew anything about it, and told me to just toss the stuff into the dumpster. That took no more than five minutes, two minutes solid just for laughter, and I go back outside to the park and the fucking stuff is gone. Like it had never been there. I looked at my phone to make sure I wasn't just having a dream, and no the pictures were there. And now one of them is here. And if that fucking picture is just blank to everyone else, I'm having one hell of a hallucination.