Crafts, Vacations, and the New World Order

I blame it on macramé.  I was looking for a little craft to keep the kids busy on vacation while the men golfed.  I was thinking of ever so clever crafts like macramé, modge podge, and stringing plastic beads onto plastic string.  Art is just not my strong suit.  But that's how I ended up in the craft store and face to face with Jeb.  Yup.  Jeb was in the craft store.  

Or maybe it was Jesse Duke.  At any rate, he was a nice plump elderly gentleman sitting in his jazzy wheelchair while a sales clerk named Ashli (with a star on the "i") cut out vinyl lettering for a pitcher (not picture) he brought in.

I didn't mean to make eye contact.  I really didn't.

"Hey!" he wheezed through his portable oxygen, "Do you know this pitcher?"

I squinted at the decoupage tile picture and said, "It's a Greg Olsen painting."

He waved his hand impatiently. "Do you know which one?"  I told him it was "O, Jerusalem."

"No! It's 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!'" The decibel level had risen considerably at the end of his rant.

He gave me a long, meaningful look.  I gave him a half hearted smile and tried to walk around his jazzy.  "Want to hear my version?" he asked.  As if I had a choice.

"Oh, United States of America.  How often have I warned you of the New World Order, of the evils you were embarking upon.  Your forefathers came up with the most perfect document in the entire history of man, the United States Constitution (enunciated carefully) and you trampled all over it and now (another long, meaningful pause) you will all DIE!"

While he talked, I took baby steps around him.  I'd made it a quarter of the way around before he finished his diatribe, his jazzy making the turn with me all the way. Who knew those things could be so sharp and accurate?

Speaking of sharp and accurate, I wasn't so sure he was as much as his chair, but I had no doubt his rifle shootin' was.  Again, I tried in vain to politely end the monologue conversation.

Alas, it was in vain.

"You know that George Bush is a member of the Skull and Bones, don'cha?" I noticed that one eye was the size of a small baseball and looked quite mad. "They make human sacrifices in New York!"

"How interesting," I said, still inching toward the back of the store, his jazzy following me.

"These kids here," he motioned toward Ashli (with a star) and Whitney, who had joined her, "They don't have a snowball's chance." Beat. "What's going to change?!" he yelled. Clearly, it was a rhetorical question.  

That's when I did it.  It's unforgivable but I was feeling desperate.

I threw a child in the way of the grizzly bear so I could escape.

"Ashli (with a star) voted for Obama and believes the second amendment should be ripped out of the heart of the constitution!" Then I turned and ran.

With that, Uncle Jesse turned his wrath on the 17 year old giggling girl who had been trying to separate the vinyl from the backing.

I could hear his rants back in the framing department.