E-Dribble

Having moved years ago to an area rich with rednecks, I’ve had plenty of time to grow used to most of the odd regional customs. Some of them are even quite amusing(for instance, you can say anything about anyone as long as you append “God bless them” at the end; i.e. “That boy’s one stupid son of a bitch, God bless him.”).  Others make you glad that you managed to climb further up the evolution ladder than the spot they are occupying (“I once overheard a man at a building supply store state “I’m going to go crazy if I don’t get out in the woods and kill something soon.”).

Some local customs still leave me wondering what in the Hell drives these people though.  Case in point: Sharing the death of people close to you with whoever happens to be in the car behind yours.  With the recent leaps in vinyl cutting technology, anyone can make stickers for their car now.  This is great for those of us that would like to advertise our business.   It’s not so great, however, if you spend a lot of your time in the south behind cars of people who have had a loved one die.  I can appreciate that you mourn the loss of Bubba.  This however doesn’t change the fact that I don’t have a fucking clue who he is. If I did know who he was, I wouldn’t need a vinyl tombstone on the car in front of me to trigger the mourning process. It’s almost like that game people play on forums; “ban the person above your post”, but with a lot less of a happy-factor.  “Share the death of a person with the car behind you.”

While traveling to see our family in Ohio, I came across the vinyl sticker commemorating the death of a person that tops every other I’ve seen to date and will probably top all I shall see until the day I die.  I present to you, the mobile memorial commemorating the life of “Uncle Bobby”:

This is fantastic on so many levels.  First, the creator of this knew the problems I have with being able to mourn anonymous people so they included a picture of Uncle Bobby for me.  As soon as I was able to put a face to the name, I felt the pang of loss where usually there is none.  I began to wish that Uncle Bobby had been my family member.  I even began to get a little angry that I hadn’t been invited to the funeral.

Secondly, I’d like to make note of the epitaph that they decided to run with: “Only God can judge me.”

Ok, how much of a piece of shit were you in life that the family member driving around with this on the back of their truck feels the need to justify the life of Uncle Bobby with this sentence?  For those of us that didn’t know Uncle Bobby, the only thing we know now is that he did some amazingly shitty things that would qualify him for an eternity of fire and brimstone.  For those of us that did know Uncle Bobby, we are being told that although Uncle Bobby was convicted and sentenced, only God gets the final say in whether he was actually guilty of the crimes or not.

We have to assume with the information provided to us that Uncle Bobby was one serious loser.

God bless him.