Las Vegas X-mas

Each summer for the last few years I have vacationed in the American west. Many of the western states, Arizona, Utah, et. al. are notable for their national parks and monuments, in addition to their generally beautiful though often desolate scenery. I typically pick a city as a “base of operations” then rent a car and drive to sites of interest in the vicinity. The thousands of miles of trails available provide the opportunity to intimately experience the region's natural beauty.

One additional advantage of this location as a vacation spot is that it contains some of the most sparsely populated regions in the United States. The value of this is that, although the waterhead coefficient of the U.S. population is fairly uniform, with less population there are simply fewer waterheads to avoid. The decrease in energy spent deflecting the mind numbing sound waves emanating from their infectious gobs makes for a happier me.

Perhaps more on this later. . .

Now as anyone knows, a common topic of conversation between casual acquaintances is “What I did last summer.” It is important to note that almost no one actually wants to know what YOU did last summer the just want to burble about what THEY did last summer. I theorize that it is a waterhead version of “my dad can beat up your dad” - my vacation can beat up your vacation. They can't just be honest and just say “Wanna hear about my vacation” because that opens the door to refusal. While intellectually unable to engage in genuine subterfuge, they appear to do so and feign interest in your life so they can run roughshod over you to get to their real agenda.

“So, where did you go on vacation?”

“Well, I went. . .”

“Really, WELL I WENT. . .”

Then they ramble on about how great a time they had, and how it was so good for them to have some quality time with their grubs, and how they found cheap tickets to the boogers-of-the-stars museum on the web. “Oh, and you can actually see a nose hair in Angelina Jolie's. . . Blather, blather, blather.”

Here's a recent personal example.

“So, where did you go on vacation?”

“Well, I went out west. Northern Arizona.”

“Really, did you go to Vegas. You really need to see it. It's incredible.”

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! Why in Gods Navel would I EVER do that. That's a fucking nightmare. I shudder when I think about it. That place is corpulent with with the brain dead; the stench of it reaches high unto the heavens. I'd rather sit in the middle of my bed and hit myself in the head with a 3-pound sledge until I shit myself.

Besides I've already seen it. I've seen Christmas in Amurica.

I'll explain later. . .