Joe Sixpack Responds

Hey there, America. Joe here.

Imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to find that Governor Palin mentioned me in that debate last night. I didn't catch it myself. After supper, I headed out to the garage to work on Bobbie Jean (my F-150), and I didn't come back in 'til around eleven-thirty or so. Don't tell my wife, Amy, but I wasn't working on the truck that whole time … I dozed off at one point. That creeper of mine can be surprisingly comfortable.

I don't have a TV out there in the garage and the radio reception is pretty bad, so I usually just wind up listening to some of the old tapes I have lying around. (Steve Miller got a lot of play last night.) But even if I could have watched the debate out there, I wouldn't have, because anyone who knows Joe Sixpack knows that by nine o'clock I'm on beer five, and Joe Sixpack doesn't give a rat's-backside about politics after beer three.

The only reason I know about the shout-out at all is because Eddie Punchclock and Charlie Lunchpail brought it up this morning when we were standing around the Roach Coach – that's what we call the canteen truck that sets up in the parking lot during break.

Eddie got a big ol' kick out of the whole thing. "I'll tell you what, when that Alaska lady said Joe Sixpack, I nearly fell out of the well-worn Lay-Z-Boy recliner that holds a hallowed place in my Man Cave," said Eddie. "I had no idea Mrs. Palin even knowed you, Joe." (He has that way of talking ... folksy yet still sort of calculated ... kind of like Governor herself.)

Anyway, the thing of it is, she doesn't know me. Neither does that Biden fella. In fact, none of these politicians know Joe Sixpack. To be blunt, I find the manner in which they evoke my name a rather hollow, cynical gesture. (There I go, revealing that I'm not the backwards, ignorant slob these politicos assume me to be.)

Governor, let's try this from here on out: you don't mention me on the stump, and I won't mention how I never would have heard of you at all had Hillary whupped Obama or had McCain been allowed to pick Lieberman like he wanted. Sound like a plan?

That Lieberman's an odd duck, isn't he? His voice reminds of the father from Alf. 'Member that guy? Max Wright I think his name is. Friggin' Alf … Classic.

Sorry 'bout the tangent, folks … Joe Sixpack just hit beer four … I'm done with politics.
EM