Sis-boom-BLAM

 Gray Monday morning in November — is there any other kind of Monday morning in November? — and the Blob is feeling a bit nostalgic. Remember when your college won a big football game, and your first reaction was this?

Woo-hoo! My college just won a big football game! Let’s tear down the goalposts, parade them through campus and then drink until we barf!

Ah, the memories …

Now?

Now, apparently, the reaction is somewhat different.

Woo-hoo! My college just won a big college football game! Let’s grab our Glocks and go shoot somebody!

Which is what happened down on Kirkwood in Bloomington  Saturday night, after Indiana escaped unranked Minnesota in overtime to win its Homecoming game. Everyone spilled into the night to celebrate, and then, because this is now America the Insane, some lint brain pulled out his piece and started shooting.

Seven people were wounded. Thankfully no one died.

That wasn’t the case outside Legion Field in Birmingham, Ala., where, also last weekend, HBCU schools Alabama State and Alabama A&M  played the Magic City Classic, a tradition that goes back over a century.

Afterward, in the adjacent bar district, some other lint brain pulled out his piece and opened fire. One person died and eight more were wounded.

And here is where I want to shout, for the umpteen-hundredth time, “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE??”

I want to shout that. But I’ve found it does no good, and, besides, I already know what’s wrong.

What’s wrong is this country lost its mind over guns decades ago, and the butcher’s bill just keeps coming due. Columbine. Sandy Hook. Uvalde. Virginia Tech. A McDonald’s in California … a cafeteria in Texas … a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. … a synagogue in Pittsburgh … 

On and on. And on. And on.

Used to be people owned firearms to hunt and sport shoot and, yes, as personal protection, but it was considered bad form to parade around with them in the local Piggly Wiggly. But that was when we still had the sense God gave a goose.

Now, though, we’ve got politicians wearing AR-15 pins on their lapels next to their American flag pins. We’ve got them sending out Christmas cards — Christmas cards!  — in which the whole family is posing with military-grade ordinance, like some loony mashup of “Leave It To Beaver” and “Full Metal Jacket.” 

We’ve got open carry laws and concealed carry laws and police geared up like Seal Team Six, and masked federales disappearing people to God knows where with the full authority of the government.

The other day, instead of arresting her like a real law enforcement officer would, one of these goons sent a woman armed only with an umbrella flying six feet through the air because she was blocking a government vehicle. And half the country thought it was greatest thing they’d ever seen.

When did we become that kind of country?

When did we become a country that cheered for the bully, scooped up its Sig Sauer as casually as the car keys for a trip to the supermarket, thought it was just part of the fun to shoot people after the big game?

 When did sis-boom-bah become sis-boom-BLAM?

I don’t know. And at this point, I’m too tired and  disgusted to care much anymore.

You do you, America the Insane. Me?

Excuse the language, but I’ll just try to stay out of your crazy goddamned way.