Carney Construction Corp.

Happy Bastille Day!

In honor of the great French holiday, I would ask that you join me today in lighting up your torches, dusting off your old rioting clubs, and storming the ramparts of whatever prison may be situated closest to you.

Speaking of national holidays, did everyone have a good 4th of July? I was supposed to fly down to my grandparents with Andrew, but about 45 minutes after lift off our engine began to sound like a lawn mower with whooping cough. I offered to grab the wrench and climb out front to bang on the hood a few times, but Andrew didn't think that was a good idea.

So, we ended up driving the parents minivan down to Ohio the next morning. We could have taken one of our cars, but we know that there is nothing sexier than a couple of single guys riding together in a minivan (am I right, girls?). While we were passing through the small towns I would roll down my window and yell "HEY LADIES! WE'RE AVAILABLE.... AND WE COME WITH FAMILY FRIENDLY TRANSPORTATION!". I don't know how they kept from throwing themselves at us... but somehow they all did.

Well, the industrial revolution once again arrived in Oregon recently as the carnival moved into town, bringing with it clouds of acrid smoke and the opportunity to risk life and limb on giant mechanical contraptions bearing insipidly harmless names like "The Zipper", "The Spider", and "The Technicolor Yawn". Okay, so I made that last one up.

Watching the carneys put together their mecca of entertainment in the preceding days, I could not help but admire their construction skills.

This all got me thinking; why are we paying Halliburton 80 billion dollars to rebuild Iraq when we could have gotten 5,000 carnies to do it for beer and cigarettes? I mean, let's say we bought them 1000 kegs of Old Milwaukee and 5,000 cartons of Lucky Strikes. What would that have cost us? 50,000 dollars, tops?

Besides that, we could have had the carneys build a giant midway to distract the insurgents. I mean, what young men want to spend time propagating an uprising when they could be winning pictures of half naked women by throwing darts at balloons? Insurgency? What insurgency? Contact your legislators and let them know that we have to start exploiting this great untapped resource.

There was one great disappointment at the carnival this year; no FFA dairy stand. Clearly, this is a sign that there are no Future Farmers of America left, and the time when we will sit around the dinner table eating purple stuff called synthetically homogenized food paste #5 cannot be far off.

Anyway, back to the FFA stand; I couldn't buy my strawberry shake because there was no stand! No strawberry shake! I ALWAYS buy a strawberry shake!

What's that? I should just go to McDonald's and get a strawberry shake? Well, pardon me, but I do not count myself as part of the masses who contribute to the further gentrification of American society by supporting faceless corporations intent on replacing the small businesses that make up the cultural fabric of America's towns.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go buy some things at Walmart.

Peter