Signs You're at a Small Town Bar

Recently, I made the twenty five minute trek home to Dawson to spend time with my family in what has now apparently become the only way we can socialize-- drinking at one of the many taverns in the tri-village area. Every time I do this I ask my self how I once again ended up in this situation... and yet, I return time and time again for the sake of the happiness of my clinically depressed grandmother who I love more than life itself, and cannot bare to disappoint.

I digress...

In no particular order--

Sign #1-- Suddenly without realizing it happened, it's like a high school reunion where the only people invited are of all the kids that you avoided in high school.

There are two types of people who go to the small town bar:

1) People who for the grace of some benevolent force in the universe escaped, and have returned merely for the entertainment.
2) The entertainment, or better known as "the regulars"

I went to college for many reasons. One reason was so I did not have to live in Dawson. So, when I return home, and we go out, and suddenly I am inundated by a flood of rejects who during my high school experience were drug dealers, homophobes, rednecks, illiterates, alcoholics, baby-daddies, baby-mommas, drop outs, criminals, and/or any combination there of or unmentioned, I am astonished that these people attempt to converse with me. Once I show up, in comes the parade of derelict people whose lives suck so much that the ONLY thing they have to look forward too is getting shitfaced on Bud Light bucket specials or Crown and Cokes.

AND THEY INSIST ON TALKING TO ME!

I have a college education. You have a certification in cosmetology from CACC.

I am married and have a job. You have a baby daddy and a drug addiction.

I went to Europe to witness the ruins of the ancients, and it changed my life. You went to the river bottoms to get drunk on a raft for your bachelorette party.

WHAT THE FUCK DO WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT!? We didn't talk in high school when I was ignorant and uneducated about the world. What makes you think we could possible have a conversation now?

Now, I'm not insinuating I am better than these people....

I am flat out telling you incontestable facts that prove I am better than these people.

Sign #2-- Any of the following dress code violations:

A memorial T-shirt that reads "Loved but not forgotten", with the picture of the deceased loved one holding any type of dead animal, that has been haphazardly sheared of its sleeves with a pocket knife. Because this is how uncle J.R. wanted to be immortalized by his remaining family...

A forty year old woman wearing a Harley-Davidson shirt that is at least one size too small, worn so tightly it gives her a muffin top over the low-rider, bedazzled jeans she wears to look like a teenager, AND to complete the look, is tucked in to further emphasize the beer gut she is trying to grow to hide her c-section scar under the flap.

A camouflage hat with a fake fishing hook on the brim... because when I think fashion icons to be emulated, I think Larry the Cable Guy.

A white kid wearing a flat billed hat, sagging jeans, pristine white tennis shoes, and a wife beater accompanying his underage girlfriend, who's is herself wearing a dress that would make a hooker exclaim "Damn girl!", with a pair of cowboy boots to "dress it down", or perhaps even to "class it up" in their fucked up world view.

Any man wearing over-alls.

Sign #3-- A single toilet bathroom with a broken lock.

Who decides to build a bar with single toilet bathrooms? I do not enjoy playing the game where I have to attempt to twist the handle ever so gently as not to actually open the door, because the music is so fucking loud you couldn't possibly hear a knock from inside. Either one of two things will happen: there is no one inside and you'll stand outside like a damn idiot waiting because you could not get the handle to turn, and assume it must be locked, or you'll barge in on the bitchiest woman in the bar.

Last but not least...

Sign #4-- A karaoke night that some white trash girl thinks is the birth of her country music career.

Have I been known to drunkenly sing country music on karaoke night in Dawson... unforunately, yes.

Have I ever advertised this event as the fucking social event of the season this side of Uncle J.R.'s memorial poker run? Fuck no.

And, furthermore, as a moment of side-bitching, why is it that every girl who sings country songs during karaoke suddenly develops a Tennessee accent? Look chick, I know that Dawson and the surrounding area has a certain level of redneck drawl, but unless you make moonshine in the hills because the black lung took yo' daddy, you should not sound like a Appalachian.

Then again, I'm not sure which is more tragic-- the barely drinking age legal bimbo, or the twice divorced if at all married mother of three who may or may not still have a drug habit who uses karaoke to fill the void in her life that was created as a result of a landslide of bad decisions. While it may not be possible to answer this question of who is more tragic, I know one thing about each of these women-- they both think they are the next Carrie Underwood.