i don't make this stuff up...

the other day, my friend's brothers were at the mud races. yes, that's an actual sport here, where trucks race each other through a field of mud. i'm not sure what the prize is, but some other prizes you could win here could be the "t-shirt with the stupidest slogan" award, "worst mullet" award, and "drunken idiot" award.

which brings me to my story.

their friend, steve, kept coming back with beer, and they asked him where he was getting all the beer. apparently he was drinking alot of it.

he told them it was free, just sitting there for the taking.

are you thinking what i'm thinking?

well, after helping himself several times, steve met the owner of the "free" beer source, who, needless to say, was not happy about some stranger taking beer from his pick-up truck.

so he did what every reasonable (drunk) person would do; he attacked steve with a tire iron until he had knocked him unconscious.

the policemen, who we will call earl and bubba, were of course very helpful. they showed up promply on the scene, and said, "nothing to see folks," and sent everyone packing and refused to take statements from any witnesses.

steve's wife was going to take him home, but someone thought it might be a good idea to take him to the hospital since his head had just been hit repeatedly by a tire iron.

apparently, while this was being decided, earl and bubba were apparently being chewed out by their supervising officer, because they showed up at the hospital looking for steve, much more attentive now, and wanting to take down any and all statements.

of course, steve wanted to press charges. on someone that no doubt looked like half the other guys there...

so you can imagine how that interview went:
"sir, can you describe your attacker?"

"um, he had a t-shirt on.... some kind of writing on it..."

the officer starts to write down, "...t-shirt with writing..." and then rememberes that EVERYONE there had a t-shirt with writing on it. he sighs. "do you remember what it said?" he asks, without too much hope.

"yeah, i always take time to read someone's shirt when they are attacking me with a tire iron."

"right. okay... er... do you remember what he was driving?"

"a pickup."

yeah, and so was everyone else, the cop thinks to himself. "do you remember what color the truck was?"

"um, it might have been red, but then again, that could have been the blood running into my eyes from having my head bashed in..."

"how about a plate number?"

"didn't see it (although the witness you refused to take a statement from did)"

no, i don't suppose you did, buddy. if you had been sober enough to get a plate number, you might have been sober enough to realize that the beer was not free, and that it was definately not a good idea to take it from a complete stranger's truck. at a mudrace. full of rednecks.

a redneck's most prized possessions are his truck and his beer. in that order. in fact, if you gave some of them the choice between their wives and their trucks, they'd choose the trucks. ("sorry baby, but i had the truck first.")

so if you take something from a redneck's truck, even if you are so ridiculously plastered that you think its free, it's going to cause the redneck owner to see red.

and lets face it. you have to be really plastered (or really stupid) to walk up to a complete stranger's truck and assume that the refreshments there are for the taking. however, you have to be equally plastered (and stupid) to think its okay to attack someone with a tire iron because they took a few cans of beer.

i don't know, maybe its the alcohol, but i could be crazy. maybe, since the probability of people realizing they do stupid stuff when they get drunk and deciding not to get drunk anymore, is not likely to happen in the near future; then there should just be a law against being stupid.

*******

um, does stuff like this happen anywhere else (besides to the Duke boys in Hazard county?)