Shoot some more cheerleaders! America isn’t free yet!
Yeah. That isn’t funny.
It’s just that I don’t take shooting seriously. Not anymore.
Marc Dion
In case you missed the start of the joke, some guy in Texas shot two cheerleaders when one of them tried to get in his car because she thought it was her car. He shot the second cheerleader because he still had bullets left.
In Kansas City, some kid took one in the head when he knocked on the wrong door. A nice lady got shot in New York because she pulled into the wrong driveway, you know, like you do in a strange neighborhood when you think you’ve driven past the house you’re trying to find.
I should be scared, but I’m not.
This is because I practice “bullets of separation,” which is the art of soothing yourself by listing the differences between yourself and any shooting victim.
I’m not a cheerleader. Why worry? I don’t knock on strange doors, like a CRIMINAL. I can’t tell you the last time I turned around in someone else’s driveway.
It helps me. Was the victim Black? I’m not. Was she young? I’m not. Chicago? I don’t live in Chicago. Poor? I’m not poor. Gay nightclub shooting? I’m not gay. School shooting? I’m not in the third grade, and I don’t have children. Shooting in a store? I buy everything online. I try not to leave the house. If you leave the house, you’re asking to get shot.
Hell, I’m immortal, at least as far as taking an AR-15 round in the melon.
NOTE TO MY READERS: I said “round” in the last paragraph because no real American man says “bullets.” Women say “bullets.” Men say “rounds” because we heard it in a movie about bullets.
If a guy gets shot while drinking in a bar in the midsize city where I live, I ask which bar. If it’s not a bar I go to, I’m fine. If it is a bar I go to, I ask how late it was, and did the guy have any tattoos or an arrest record. What was he drinking? Bourbon? Yeah? I drink Irish whisky. I have nothing in common with that guy. I’m safe.
Like the Uvalde, Texas, Police Department, I try to stay out of trouble and, if trouble comes my way, I run like hell.
Oh, it’s a lonely, pipsqueaking way to live, but I’m alive, and likely to stay that way if I don’t go to the grocery store with my wife. She’s asking to get shot.
Once cheerleaders get shot, you’re tempted to feel that almost everyone is at risk.
This is not true. The cheerleaders traveled from their smaller towns to some sort of cheerleading event.
Who does that? Leaving your town to go to a big city? A place where you have to leave your car in a parking lot, and not parked in your own garage? Nothing good ever happens to you when you leave the town where you live and go to a big city. And why didn’t the cheerleaders have their own guns? I guess they thought they were too perky to carry machine guns. It’s that kind of thinking that gets you killed.
I’m safe. I live in the town where I live. It’s dark, and I’m home, not out looking for trouble at the movies or in a grocery store or at a Wednesday night prayer meeting like some kind of risk-taker.
If you want more tips on how to stay safe, email me. Just don’t expect me to meet you in person. That’s asking for it.
To find out more about Marc Munroe Dion, and read features by Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com. Dion’s latest book, a collection of his best columns, is called “Devil’s Elbow: Dancing in the Ashes of America.” It is available in paperback from Amazon.com, and for Nook, Kindle, and iBooks.
