My spell checker says it’s “namby-pamby”

Our Local Rag got a new editor about a year ago. With him came fewer typos and fewer items in the “Corrections” column. So sad. Yes, it’s now appearing to be a more professional paper but it was starting to lose some of its down-home hokeyness. Until last week.

The Letters to the Editor is always the section I look forward to most. You never know what issue will inspire a neighbor to sit a spell and type out an opinion to share with y’all. While I could insert commentary about the missive below, I really think it best stands on its own. All I’ll say is, I love it here!! I may not always agree with my neighbors but they sure do keep it lively around these parts.

The Safety Nazis – By Tom R. of my hoot-n-a-half little town, punctuation oopses and typos included

Would you believe that when I left a fireworks stand recently with enough stuff to start a war, the clerk actually said, “Have a safe day.” If I wanted to have a safe day, I wouldn’t be at his store to start with. My gripe is that I’m sick and tired of these mamby-pamby, panty-waisted, bicycle-helmeted boneheads who have nothing better to do than stick their nose in my business. Do you know that I am actually urged by Washington to tell my employees that when it gets hot outside, they need to drink water. Where is Mr. Darwin when you need him? If you are too stupid to not drink water on a hot day, the law of survival of the fittest should kick in. The next well meaning do-gooder who tells me to “be careful you might get hurt” is going to get his green tea and tofu stomped on by my size 12 OSHA approved steel-toed boot.

You should see some of the little kids on my block. They look like they just got off a spaceship from Mars with their helmets, chin guards, shin guards, elbow pads, ID bracelets and 911 predialed on their cell phones while their helicopter parents stand by just in case. Just in case what? That they might experience life and skin their knees? How can a ten year old boy impress the chicks if he doesn’t have a little blood on his knee?

I’m an adult and I didn’t get this far in life only to be told “stay alive at 55”, click it or ticket” or “cross in the green and not between”. Where is the common sense? How did the pioneers in 1840 survive the Oregon Trail without signing waivers of liability, reading warning labels, listening to public service announcements, “Caution: Indian attacks can be hazardous to your health.” As for some of these phony diseases that half of America seems compelled to acquire and moan about like “chronic fatigue syndrome,” heck, I’ve been chronically fatigued for 40 years, it’s called work. Get over it. Lord, save me from fibromyalgia. I would rather die from a knife fight in a telephone booth with Al Quaeda than to suffer the ignominy of my tombstone chiseled with the inscription “He was done in by Fibromyalgia.”

I’m an American male, for goodness sake. I don’t eat yogurt; I eat steak. I don’t drink blueberry tea for the health benefits; I drink beer. I don’t have “feelings” nor do I want to talk to you on a deeper level about our relationship, and I sure as heck don’t watch Oprah. And if your Toyota Prius with the smiley face on the bumper has the misfortune of cutting in front of my American made 4-wheel drive SUV, it’s going to get run over. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to wake up and have not two, but three high cholesterol eggs fried in bacon grease along with gobs of butter on white bread, drink black coffee all day long, smoke a cigar on the way to work, and drive 75 mph with no seat belt. Then I’m going to run through the office with scissors in my hands, work too hard, invest in real estate and commodities and when I come home, I’m going to have a little unprotected you know what with my wife. Wish me luck on that last part, she doesn’t know I wrote this letter. She’s out visiting the doctor for her fibromialgia.