Dayton, Ohio - Birthplace of Flight, Home of Hive of Temptation

Went to Dayton over the weekend to visit the National Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB. Full trip report/travelogue forthcoming, with pics, but in the meantime, wanted to share this tale:

I was sitting by myself outside on the patio at a bar in Dayton when my redneck shitkickin' hard-partyin' brother-in-law came back outside to rejoin me. He had gone inside to continue hitting on a girl who had sat and talked to him earlier. Girl #1 had come and gone (and I love women – I admire and respect them and put them on a pedestal whenever I can, and I don't think you ought to beat on them, ever, but if there were ever a girl who needed a punch in the nose, it was her), but girl #2 – who was a friend of girl #1 - was still on the premises, and my redneck shitkickin' hard-partyin' brother-in-law started working it with her. It was quite a sight.

So he sat back down after an absence of about 10 minutes while I sat and watched the one-man band on the stage play a Jimmy Buffett cover and then a Lynyrd Skynyrd cover. Diverse, that guy was.

"Where the hell were *you* at?"

"Hmmm?" I asked.

"I needed you in there to back me up."

(pause)

"Hmmmm?"

"I found Brittany in there and asked her to come back out. She had a guy with her who said, 'That's my girl you're talking to.'"

"Hmmmm. How'd that go?"

"How the *fuck* do you think it went?" (He looked unscathed, actually, but I imagine he was hurting inside, as much as a redneck, shitkickin' hard partyer can hurt inside.)

"I bought you another beer while you were inside," I replied. I can never tell if he's kidding or not, so I'm not certain there was really a fight or a disagreement, but I like buying beer for people. Better still, I like it when people buy beer for me, which he did many times over the course of the night.

"You must have been in pretty sad shape for *me* to come back you up," I added.

***

Which leads me to my bigger point, the ultimate point of this post:

When I recounted the above the following morning at breakfast, my other brother-in-law said, "I'm glad I didn't go out with you guys. That hive of temptation is something I prefer to avoid." (He's a bit of a Jesus freak.)

I looked down at my bacon and thought, "'Hive of temptation?' What the fucking fuck, man? I mean, we're at a friggin' buffet – isn't gluttony one of your seven deadlies? 'Hive of temptation.' Fuck. That bar I was at has nothing on the Golden Corral. Look around you!

"'Hive of temptation.' Christ."

***

In the car on the way back home, this conversation happened:

Wife: "Hey, I saw that you and my brother-in-law were wearing the same shorts today!"

Me: "Yeah, they were selling them 2-for-1 at the Hive of Temptation, so I picked him up a pair."

Wife: "… …"

(Because she doesn't like it when I make fun. Especially of people, regardless of whether they are not related by blood, as my Jesus freak brother-in-law isn't.)

Me: "'Hive of temptation.' Pfffft. What the fuck was *that*? It was just 15 beers. The Bible doesn't say anything about beer or peeing in a public parking lot at 1 in the morning."

Wife: "… …"

Me: "Is that next to the Den of Iniquity?"

Wife: "… …"

(Because I'm still poking fun, and she doesn't like it when I poke fun at anything God-related, not understanding that I'm not poking fun at God - because wouldn't that be pretty fucking retarded?

(I mean, she got pissed when I poked fun at that Josh Turner song about "Me and God." ["Like two peas in a pod, me and God – cause He's the omnipotent creator of the universe and all that inhabit it, and I'm a country and western singer with kind of a bitchin' baritone but no songs to back it up."] And she got even more pissed when I made fun of Josh Turner's follow-up to "Me and God," a song about a girl called "Firecracker" or something like that. ["Me and God, we like to throw firecrackers at girls."]

(Anyway, the ellipses above represent the steam pouring out of her ears.)

Listen. I believe. And this post is the only time you'll ever hear me reference my faith in this or any other forum, but I've never been accused of being a man of faith. And it's just as well; once you start proclaiming your Jesus love, then you open yourself up to derision from small-minded individuals who think there's no way that there is something bigger than us out there, debate from the same folks who are insistent that a God of love would never send someone to hell, and I just don’t the time or energy or, frankly, the interest to put up with any of it.

And not only that, but once you tip your hand, you open yourself up to being called a hypocrite. And who the fuck needs that? It all makes me tired, so I keep quiet about it anymore. Does that make me wrong? Yeah, probably.

Really - faith is a very personal private thing, between you and your chosen Savior, who is the only one who knows if you believe or not. All of the shouting from the rooftops doesn't make it so! And whether you do or you don't believe, that's fine with me; I'm not going to judge, but that semicolon back there is the end of the conversation as far as that is concerned. I don't want to discuss it or debate it or defend it.

(In fact, I don't want to discuss, debate or defend much of *anything* anymore, which is sad, I guess – is it that the passion is gone at 32, or is that I've finally become convinced that you're not going to change my mind any easier than I'm going to change yours and it's ultimately a bunch of wasted breath? I dunno.)

Anyway, my wife said, "Be nice."

"Fuck," I said.

(And then as if on cue, we drove past the 62-foot Jesus.)

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