Blue With Jealousy

This past Saturday night, my wife and I were treated to a glimpse into the soul of Red State America via the wonders of reality television. I'm not sure if we were watching A&E's Flip This House or TLC's Flip That House, since the channels are next door neighbors on our cable system. I am confident that it wasn't MTV's new show, "Pimp Dat 'Ho."

Anyway, it was one of the house flippin' shows and the particular episode was set in Charleston, South Carolina. A professional company was managing the flip and the house was located in a neighborhood that was apparently a little questionable, based on the problems they were having with theft of job materials and tools.

Eventually, the owner of the company had enough and enlisted one of his managers to help take matters into their own hands. They decided to stake out the job site at night to send a message to the criminals. On the way to the job site in a pick-up (of course), the manager--who was riding shotgun--explained, "'Round here we don't call it vigilante, we call it common sense," between pulls on his beer which he made no effort to hide from the camera. Not sure what the laws are in South Carolina, but 'round here that's an open bottle violation.

The owner was cradling a shotgun in his lap and he explained that since he wasn't a very good shot, he brought his scatter gun. They parked the pickup across the street and began the stakeout. And the beer drinking, with the driver putting 'em away along with his passenger. They ended up tossing several empties into the pickup bed in the course of the night. Two armed middle-aged men, sitting in a pickup truck, drinking beer at 2am in order to protect their property rights. On camera. Now THAT'S Red State America for ya.

Sometime before daybreak, the thief showed himself inside the house and our boys swung into action. No pussy-footing around. No, should we call the police? The both charged at the house, developing a plan on the way. which essentially was "you go this way and I'll go that way." While they did catch sight of the culprit, they were not able to prevent his escape, which was unfortunate since they both seemed eager for a little old fashioned two-fisted justice. They were quite certain however that he would not return. And they were correct.

The next day at work, they regaled their coworkers with tales of their escapade. A female staffer was a little shocked and said, "But you could have gotten hurt." To which the manager replied, "Hey, it we would have caught that guy, he's the one who would have gotten hurt." You gotta love that attitude. An attitude that just screams Red State America. An attitude that we would do well to have more of 'round here.