From Mexia to nowhere and back

Browsing small-town Central Texas I found truth in headlines from The Mexia Daily News:

“Gas prices soaring for no apparent reason”

Editors always want a story when gas prices get really high. They want you to ask the local gas distributor, convenience store chain owner or Joe Blow Chamber President why gas prices are high. Hell, they don’t know. If they knew what was going on they would be somewhere else, smoking a big ol’ cigar and fishing the Gulf for reds. Mexia is an interesting small town just east of Waco. It is the hometown of the late great Anna Nicole Smith. It is also home of the following joke:

“Outtatowner asks the guy at the counter “How do you pronounce the name of this place? Is it Mex-e-uh? Or Me-x-ia? Or Mex-ya?”

“It’s pronounced “Day-re-queen,” retorts the counter help.

I once rode a train from Longview, Texas, to Pittsfield, Mass., changing trains in Chicago. Man, that was a great trip. I got to Western Massachusetts to see my friend Sally on my 40th birthday. I spent a good time on the train in the club car when I wasn’t asleep. I saw this guy in the club car on the way up and on the way back who wore a “Mexia — it’s pronounced ‘Muh-hay-a’ — Blackcats” cap. He seemed to appreciate that I could pronounce the name of his hometown. He suffered through my telling the Dairy Queen joke. But being an ex-DQ Dick, I feel required to tell that story. By DQ Dick, I mean that I once was a mystery shopper that would visit a number of Dairy Queens throughout East Texas. I’d eat the store’s Belt Busters or a Dude. I felt I got the good end of the deal, no matter what one might think of DQ. After all, the mystery shopping company also evaluated Super Cuts, and really now, how many bad haircuts can you suffer?

In a day where people seem to freak out over writers stealing other writers’ work, some even think it a crime for one to plagiarize oneself. Imagine that. Well, I admit, I am probably stealing from myself. I am probably even stealing from my own blog. That’s what happens sometimes when you get old and tell the same story over and over. What I have on other writers is that I say, is that I say. What I have on other writers is … that I say.  Over and over. And over. What are you going to do, fire me?

“Blogger fires himself”

“I was trying for unemployment. Ooops.”

You see why I am stealing from myself. Long day, Main.