Wyoming: The Doomsday State

I don’t know if they have gotten around to printing up new license plates with mushroom clouds on them or anything, but that does seem like the way they are headed.  As you can probably imagine, Wyoming is the most likely state to survive an all-out apocalyptic scenario in the U.S., because so many people keep forgetting it’s there.

Like did you know Wyoming just now, a few years ago decided to outlaw open containers in moving vehicles?  Yes, really, here’s an article from January 2007 (Panel OK’s Ban On Open Containers) announcing that the controversial No Road Pop Bill passed, and I couldn’t find the Time Magazine editorial where I first read about it, but it was written by a Wyoming cowboy writer guy, who said pretty much, “When we weren’t looking all of the sudden a bunch of liberals got a hold of the Statehouse and rammed this crazy bullshit through.  Does anybody have any idea how big Wyoming is and how boring it is to drive across it?”

And all that time MADD was on the rest of our asses, no one seemed to notice all the cowboys with beers between their legs, rocking around Wyoming like it was 1975.  And in fairness, cowboys are like bears – you know how you can fatally shoot a bear and it will still keep trying to rip your head off and eat it for a few more minutes?

No?  Well, they can.  Then they drop dead next to your headless body, and when Forest Police show up, they’re like “What in the Sam Hill do you reckon happened here?”

That’s how cowboys are when they’re cowboying around.  According to a recent MIT study, it is in fact physically impossible for a real, true cowboy to have an accident at all, regardless of his blood alcohol content as long as the vehicle he is driving is a truck or a golf cart.  And even if they are killed, they can – like bears – continue to cowboy for astonishing lengths of time.

Take the case of Jesse Blake, a Cheyenne rodeo cowboy who was decapitated in a freak accident while assisting the National Guard with an old-fashioned Billy Goat Roundup.  It was some kind of train accident, and the train was full of billy goats and it was moving slowly enough that they weren’t all mashed-up or on fire, they were just hanging around eating stuff like the one on M*A*S*H. 

Witnesses attested that Mr. Blake continued rounding up billy goats for a solid three hours after his head hit the ground, then he dumped a beer down his own neck stump, dug a grave for himself, and then went to sleep playing Johnny Cash on his guitar horizontally. 

You can’t argue with science, blogosphere.  You can’t argue with HISTORY.

So anyway don’t tell me cowboys can’t drive around drinking beer, and don’t tell me there is anyone else in Wyoming but cowboys, cause that’s bullshit.  What’s their football team called again?  All right then, so pipe down and soak up the cultural information.

But more to the point, that’s the first thing I thought of when Alert Facebook Friend Sonnin Dahl sent me this article, entitled Wyoming House Advances Doomsday Bill.  Wyoming probably figured, well, if the liberals got to our Road Pops, then the end is probably right around the corner.  We’d better hammer out a plan for when that Aztec God wakes up and starts kicking over buildings and breathing fire and whatnot.

Now.  Bear in mind that once the shit hits the fan, Wyoming is not likely to be like, “Oh, everybody come on up to Wyoming, we’d be happy to share our cowboy resources with you.”  So if you’re planning to get in on their doomsday plan, you’d better get out a map, locate Wyoming, buy yourself a cowboy hat and get over there, start knocking out some taxes.  Post apocalyptic freedom isn’t free.

Right from the article, with helpful translations added in parenthesis so you don’t get confused:

“The task force would look at the feasibility of Wyoming issuing its own alternative currency (Cowboy bucks), if needed. And House members approved an amendment Friday by state Rep. Kermit Brown, R-Laramie, to have the task force also examine conditions under which Wyoming would need to implement its own military draft (a large church bell), raise a standing army (posse), and acquire strike aircraft (Ducks-n-firecrackers) and an aircraft carrier (WHAT?)”

I’m trying to stay as open-minded as I can, here, fellas, but unlike the rest of the world, I know where Wyoming is.  If you are looking for an aircraft carrier to park in your landlocked state, just commandeer a Walmart and rename it The Texas or something. 

Actually, the whole thing’s not that big of a deal.  The budget laid out for the plan was $32,000 and now it’s been cut in half, so that’s like six teacher salaries – easy, Chicken Little. 

And the bill’s sponsor, suspiciously normal-named David Miller says that “he doesn’t anticipate any major crises hitting America anytime soon,” but that it’s just a generally good idea to prepare.  Which is what I always think when people start stacking up sandbags along the river – they’re not worried about anything, stacking is as stacking does.  Who knows what’s going to happen, Tommy C, we’re just stackin’ up sand bags.  It’s our way.

I guess really I’m just picking on Wyoming for dumb, blogger reasons:  (1) Alert Reader Sonnin Dahl told me to, (2) I don’t actually do stuff so it makes me feel better to criticize other people who do, and (3) Wyoming is WAY over there and they don’t have the Internet to my knowledge, so they’ll never hear about my wacky antics. 

And even if they do, did you see me kissing all that cowboy ass earlier?  Plus I got a case of beer in the garage if any cowboys show up and I know the recipe for steak and if I have to I can grow a moustache.  I got it covered.