Canadian TV sucks.

I love a lot of Canadian music, but our locally-produced television shows are just lame. There is one exception to this, and that is Trailer Park Boys.

While the show is entertaining, I find that I can only watch it in small doses. The reason is that I don’t have a high tolerance for sheer idiocy. This is why I could never watch Seinfeld. I found George to be so blatantly moronic that I just couldn’t stand him. In TPB there is no shortage of stupid people, but for these characters it’s somehow more endearing.

While on TV retarded antics can be entertaining, in real life it’s harder to stomach. Case in point: my new neighbor’s BBQ a little while ago. While it’s a fact that these people still live next to me, and I suppose it’s possible they could learn of this blog post while still residing in close proximity to me, I feel duty-bound to tell this tale so that my readers can understand that people like those in Trailer Park Boys actually exist in real life.

Unlike the old white trash neighbors, these guys are actually quite considerate. They’re largely quiet, park the majority of their numerous vehicles out back, don’t leave cigarette butts on the sidewalk, don’t have too many late night parties, and don’t blast music.

They have a couple of dogs though, and the dogs do bark, but they don’t allow them to howl endlessly in the yard. One of those dogs is a pit bull, which doesn’t thrill me. The pit bull certainly seems nice, but it’s an axiom of the breed that people always say, “I can’t believe he would do that. He’s always been such a nice dog…” right after the dog had chewed someone’s face off.

It was my daughter’s birthday and we had a bunch of family over and I made my awesome burgers. Because I’d been doing a lot of cooking and preparing I’d also been doing a bit of drinking. The weather was great and we were all outside drinking and feasting and having a good time. The neighbors were doing the same, but with cheaper beer.

However, where our party guests included a large number of university graduates, full sets of teeth, and few tattoos, their guests were polar opposites. I don’t have anything against tattoos per se, but ones that cover the neck area and look like they were done in prison give me pause.

I mumbled to my wife, “Never trust anyone with a neck tattoo,” and she gave me a dirty look. She doesn’t like it when I act elitist.

My father-in-law overheard and replied, “I’ll agree with you on that one.” See I’m not the only person who thinks this way.

Our party was more of a late-afternoon dinner affair so it wrapped up by about 8:00 and everyone went home except for my friend Craig who lives in Banff and would be staying the night. The evening was still nice so we stayed in the back yard and drank some more and I tossed the football with my son while my daughter and best friend played with her new tetherball.

Then things started to get weird next door.

The guy with the neck tattoo removed his shirt, revealing a number of other tattoos of equally dubious origin, meaning they looked like they had been penned by a meth head with Parkinson’s disease. The reason why he took his shirt off was because he and his friends had decided it was time to perform some impromptu surgery.

One of his friends pulled out a pocket knife and started to dig into his friend’s upper arm. What the holy mother of fuck?

The story, we learned, was that this guy had a couple of BBs that had been lodged in his body for the last two years. Apparently the lodging of said BBs had been his idea; he had requested that a friend shoot him. Being that there were actually two BBs currently residing inside his body I can only assume that after being shot the first time he decided that this was such a brilliant undertaking that it required being done a second time.

A Rhodes Scholar, he is not.

The events of the next thirty minutes made me realize that a number of these party guests were about a stupid as you can possibly be and not qualify to participate in the Special Olympics. In reality, people who are mentally challenged know much better than to do what these people were. It’s a strange truth that people who are in the “normal range” of intelligence yet at the lower end of the bell curve engage in the majority of ridiculous behaviors, whereas those with a legitimate mental challenge are far more likely to behave like mature adults.

That was my attempt at being politically correct. I think I failed.

I’m rambling. Here’s what happened: The first BB was lodged in the back of his upper arm. His friend pulled out his pocket knife and dug it out. There were no gloves, no antiseptic, and no brains involved in this medical procedure. There was a shitload of blood though.

Just like you can’t turn away from a car wreck, we couldn’t stop watching from over fence. With ample slicing and dicing the BB was finally removed. The resident redneck surgeon held up the toxic sludge coated brass ball (again, not wearing gloves) and said to me, “You want it?”

Yes, he asked me if I wanted the BB.

“What? No! Put it on a necklace for him or something.”

Then my daughter, being only nine, thought it might be a good idea to tell the hillbillies that her mommy is a doctor. Fuck.

“Really?” Said one of the hosers, looking at the pouring blood out of his friend’s arm. “Do you think maybe you could bring over some gauze or something?”

Let me tell you how much my wife did not want to get involved in this debacle. Nevertheless, she had been identified as a doctor and they had requested aid, so she felt it was her duty to at least try and staunch the bleeding.

Being that my wife just achieved her internationally-recognized black belt in karate, Craig and I weren’t exactly concerned about her safety, but we did stay on the deck and casually observe as she went next door sporting gloves and carrying antiseptic and gauze. She proceeded to clean and dress the wound and her patient requested that, since she was there, my wife remove the second BB, lodged in the middle of his chest.

“I don’t operate on drunk people,” she said.

“I’ll do it!” piped in the original surgeon, holding up his blood-encrusted blade.

“Put that thing away,” my wife admonished. Then, “This cut is in serious danger of infection. You need to go to the hospital and have it properly cleaned out and stitched.”

“Hospital?” the patient said. “Nah! I don’t need to go to no fuckin’ hospital.”

“If you don’t you could get a nasty infection and possibly lose the arm, or even die.” She was using her serious voice and everything. Then she added, “Make sure you take a cab. Don’t drive.”

Then she came home and went inside and I joined her while Craig stayed outside a little longer because he’d not yet had his fill of hillbilly entertainment. He came in a little while later and I asked, “So, is that guy going to the hospital?”

“What do you think?”

“Right. Anything else exciting happen out there?”

“Well I got the story about the surgeon’s mangled lower lip. Apparently he passed out drunk and woke up to his dog trying to eat him.”

“Sounds like a party,” I said. “Anything else?”

He got a pensive look. “One of the guys was wondering where you got all the muscles. He asked if you were an MMA fighter.”

“And you told him I was, right?”

“No. Why would I do that?”

“What? Listen, when a bunch of drunken in-breds ask if your friend is some ass-kicking martial artist, you tell them ‘yes’, okay?”

“Whatever. They’re all to busy drinking themselves into a collective coma to care right now anyway.”

I don’t wish to disrespect my neighbors too much, as it was the actions of their guests I write about. Also, this was a couple of months ago and I haven’t seen this group of friends since, but if they come back, I’ll have to break out the video camera.