By CHRIS PACKHAM
You might look at me now, with my very expensive pleated Dockers pants and my collection of Bass Pro Shops baseball caps, and think I've got a pretty good thing going. But it wasn't too long ago that I was still pulling anthracite out of Appalachian mine shafts and repenting for my sins every Sunday in a one-room church ministered by an old blind man who preached little other than the book of Revelations.
I came to Kansas City with a headful of biblical prophecy and a detailed mental geography of hell. These days, as I'm full-squat lifting 800 pounds, flaunting my detailed knowledge of Half-Life 2 in a loud, pompous voice or just casually tossing back a six-pack of Pat Robertson's Age Defying Shakes, I might look like a fully assimilated urban sophisticate. But all it takes is one motherhuge storm accompanied by golf ball-sized hail for me to revert back to the Bible-based tribal superstitions I was raised with. "Frogs!" I shriek in a high-pitched voice, looking through the window of the car. "Frogs raining from the sky!"
"No, it's just hail," my girlfriend always tells me. Then she adds, "Dummy." She's a snob and hates it when my accent slips, but then she is a vile sinner who will boil for all eternity in hell's infinite lake of hog entrails. After the jump, more evidence that the end of the world is nigh. Click here, or on this terrifying, speculative post-rapture photograph:
McCain to Rove: ...---...---...---...--- Barack Obama is up five points on John McCain in the liberal, Eastern gay mecca of Montana. No surprises there. Meanwhile, yesterday, John McCain scrapped his entire campaign operation and is now starting from scratch with a new staff of Karl Rove trainees.
Pathogenic bacteria warning: The Lake of the Ozarks has high levels of E. coli, so wealthy, boat-owning aristocrats on holiday this weekend should think twice before swallowing any of the green, algae-rich and also pathogenic lake water. I'm not sure why they have to actually be warned not to drink the water. Maybe they believe that disgusting, cloudy lake water has magical healing properties, or something — I know exactly nothing about the rich people, except that they can get away with anything, and no sexual act is considered too depraved or vile, up to and including impregnating your own daughter like John Huston's character in Chinatown. SPOILER! Also, Verbal Kint is Kaiser Soze.
Unfortunately, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources decided to issue a report about it instead of letting it be a funny gastroenterological surprise for the rich folks, who probably caused the problem in the first place by taking an entitled, patrician dump in the water. See above, re: disgusting practices of rich people. I know I didn't do it, because instead of taking frolicsome lakeside vacations, I've been working at my many jobs, some of which require hardhats and other forms of protective gear.
That you did not know you stole from him is the only reason you are still alive, but he feels you owe him. You will repay your debt.
Posted at: July 9, 2008 6:23 PM