The bare-chested guy in fur coat and Viking helmet (or whatever it was) summed it all up pretty well, I thought, especially since he was holding a spear.
This country’s gone nuts.
Oh, not all of us, of course. Maybe not even most of us. But at least one of us was running around Congress with horns and a spear last week trying to find the Vice President.
It wasn’t me. It was a 33-year-old man who lives with his mom and requires an organic diet, according to news reports that also say he’s widely known as the QAnon Shaman and spends at least some of his time demonstrating and stuff . And if you don’t know what QAnon is, well, it’s another sign of our times. And if you don’t know what Bigfoot is, ask my brother-in-law Knot. He met one over in Liberty County a couple decades ago.
Anyway, I am happy to say no one invaded the Bryan County News office and tried to give the editor a so-called “journalist wedgie,” which I hear is a new thing among those who think the mainstream media has inflicted more damage on this country than congressmen, lawyers and liberals ever dreamed of.
But be warned.
While I might chuckle at the notion of a gang of pudgy angry white guys in cammo invading CNN or Fox, I won’t think it funny and am fully prepared to defend myself should they show up here. Disclaimer: It just occurred to me some of you might not know what a wedgie is. Here’s the official definition from the internet: “A prank in which a person’s underpants are pulled up sharply from behind in order to wedge the clothing uncomfortably between the person’s buttocks.”
It is mostly a man thing, or a kid thing, and while most of us regular guys may appreciate well into our golden years the notion of a good, well applied wedgie to someone else, somewhere around grad school most of us also tend to grow out of the desire to actually administer them to people who get on our nerves. And we certainly never enjoy being on the receiving end.
There are variations on the wedgie theme, by the way, including such painful offshoots as melvins (a frontal wedgie), and propeller wedgies (self-explanatory, one hopes), as well as self-inflicted wedgies and the dreaded Bulgarian nuclear program, which is a continuation of the dreaded Bulgarian headlock and better left to the imagination.
There’s also what happens after you get a wedgie – it’s known as “the Elvis Walk” and is defined as a “lunge-type walk, often with sudden leg movements, in order to shake out a wedgie ....” The name, it seems, comes from a dance Elvis did on stage.
Which brings me to the Atomic wedgie, which in the arms race of wedgiedom has since given way to megatron wedgies, but I digress.
Back in 2014 the New York Daily News ran a story headlined: Oklahoma man dies from atomic wedgie.”
It went on: “Oklahoma police say a man killed his stepfather after performing the maneuver usually reserved for high school locker rooms.
The man was arrested after they found the victim “dead in his home Dec. 21 with the waistband of his underwear around his neck, according to NewsOK.com.
The New York Daily News then explains: “An atomic wedgie occurs when the bully grabs the underwear of his usually unsuspecting victim and pulls it over his head — usually causing the underwear to snap along with some major discomfort for the victim.”
The story said the accused, a former Marine, administered the atomic wedgie in self defense after his stepfather attacked him.
It also quotes the sheriff.
“‘I’d never seen this before,” he said.
Finally, lest someone think I am making light of the news of the day and our divided politics, which speaks to a need we all have to try to be kinder to and more understanding of one another, I am not. Well, I am, because the times we live in are just that ridiculous, at times. Just like propeller wedgies.
Some say these are fraught times, full of fraught people. I do not doubt that, though I have to admit most people I’m around seem to be taking all this political nuttiness in stride.
Besides, if the guy in the horns can’t make you shake your head and wonder where it all went sideways, nothing can.
I’d say somebody might need to give him a good wedgie, but the QAnon Shaman probably ain’t wearing drawers.
Whitten is editor of the Bryan County News. He’s tired of politics and politicians.