OKLAHOMA!

I have a skit to perform tomorrow in front of my entire 108-person class (divided into four houses, of course), so I'm not in a fantastic mood. I once again play a mad German scientist, so yes, I'm being typecast in the 9th grade. However, my friend Calvin plays a mentally deficient apple-human-fish hybrid with a speech impediment. It's the role he was born to play.

But there's some big f**kin' news right now. And it's turning the world upside-down. Cats are chasing dogs. My Isuzu Trooper is getting good gas milage. People are remembering their PIN numbers without looking them up. Rush Limbaugh is making intelligent arguments. CONGRESS IS GETTING THINGS DONE!!! And it's all because this week... and I can't believe the words are coming out of my mouth... SOMETHING HAPPENED IN OKLAHOMA.

You see, for nearly 100 years, the sleepy little state has been a very model of boredom. In 1982, a tumbleweed rolled through the town of Tulsa, prompting locals to exit their saloons, stop their cattle roundups, and postpone their daily gunfights in order to stare at the miraculous occurrence. This is what passes for news in Oklahoma.

But this week, the pointless and dreary state was struck by a series of tornadoes, destroying homes and laying waste to fields. It took Oklahomans a whole 24 hours to notice the difference. Anyway, this means that Oklahoma has now put an end to its 77-year run of having absolutely nothing happen. So instead of focus on the chaos and misery that is Oklahoma today, I will devote this blog to the chaos and misery that was Oklahoma for the past 200 years.

In the 1800s, settlers drove Native Americans from their ancestral homes and confined them to a fate worse than death: LIVING IN OKLAHOMA. There, they lived for decades in peace until the US finally said "Actually, we want the whole thing" and took Oklahoma over as well. This was regarded one of the most massive blunders the US has ever perpetrated.



^^ The lush and varied landscape of Oklahoma.

Since then, the state has lived through the three D's of Oklahoma: Droughts, Dustbowls, and Depressions. By 1935, every resident of the battered state had either died of starvation or moved to California. To cover up this fact, the government tried to let the state proceed normally despite not having a single person living in it. In 1936, Oklahoma was represented in Congress by a broken stool and a rusty tractor frame. 1938 saw the unanimous election of Governor Clothesline.

Fortunately, the government was able to slowly rehabilitate Oklahoma by forcing even more unfortunate people to live in it. Although the state remains one of the driest in the union, idealistic young Oklahomans dream of one day constructing the state's first puddle, and then... who knows? A whole lake? The sky's the limit.

But all kidding aside (okay, maybe not ALL kidding), I sometimes wonder why people choose to live in places that actively try to kill them. How could you live in a place when you know that at any minute, an enormous whirlwind might suck up everything you've ever held dear? It's probably just my ignorant Californian attitude, seeing as I live in a place where an earthquake could kill you at any minute.

I suppose that the only way to keep these things from happening is to live in giant metal hamster balls that just roll around during a natural disaster. Woah... that's actually a great idea. All I have to do is build the prototype. Also, if I want to sell any in America, it had better have WiFi.

Bye!