Ladies and gentlemen, after all of these years of reading the voluminous dispatches of verbal brilliance delivered to you from a self-proclaimed stubby fingered vulgarian via a worldwide network of machinery designed to deliver the highest quality digital content ranging from small animals doing cute things to cute things doing small animals, you should know at least one specific thing about me.

I shit thee  not.

If I’ve taken the time to enter my blue walled StudyTorium in order to fire up my Dell 2 In 1 which is hooked up to a docking station that might be diminishing the performance of said laptop, you know right here and now that I’m not here to feed you some glorious line of bull in order to elevate my station in life.

I’m going to shoot straight with you and give you the facts.

Granted, I may play fast and loose with the details, but that’s a right I claim as the owner, operator, and chief purveyor of content (be it Macedonian in nature or not) here on TharpSter.Org.

Frankly, I find the thought of prefacing today’s correspondence to you with an admonishment that I ain’t lyin’ to be beneath me.  At the same time, if anyone were to tell me what I’m about to tell you, I would have called “bullshit”.

That’s just how I roll.

You should know that I’m currently lunching on a cup of sausage, cheese cubes, and pretzel sticks from Buc-ee’s.  That establishment and it’s chopped beef sandwiches (hold the effin’ pickle), it’s beaver nuggets, and it’s clean restrooms is the only saving grace about driving up and down the I-35 corridor here in the great state of Texas.  I found myself on that particular stretch of colonic hell last night, and found it only necessary to stop in to facillitize the clean urinals and pick up a little something to consume later on.

Specifically, now.

Stand by, I have to go move the laundry.

Ok, I’m back.

So before I can tell you about the latest development in the life of the internet’s most prolific blogger who sees no real benefit Google Ads, I’ll need to give you some background first.

Flash back to August 8, 2000.

The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley was raised to the surface after being on the ocean floor for 136 years.  One can only wonder what they would have done with the thing had it been considered for re-raising today.

As for me, I was at the Joe & Harry here in San Antonio.  This was the fifth time for me to see Def Leppard live.  Given that I had young children at the time and no sufficient disposable income to speak of, I had been in a dry spell where attending concerts was concerned.  Prior to seeing Def Leppard a year before for free in a Walmart parking lot, I hadn’t been to a concert in about 8 years.

First world problems.  I know.

None the less, during the course of the show, one of the people I was with was able to use his connections within the auditorium we were at.  That gave us the opportunity to go stand at the stage and watch the show from about the second row.

A rocking time was had by all.

At one point towards the end of the show, Irish guitar god Vivian Campbell threw a pick in my direction.  The pick hit my chest and fell to the floor.  At the time, I wasn’t aware what was going on.  A young lady standing in the vicinity saw the whole thing and managed to grab the pick up off the ground before I could even put together what opportunity I was missing.

Sadly, things got worse.

At the location on my chest where the pick had hit, I developed a sebaceous cyst.  Granted, it took 8 or 9 years to form.  That thing hurt like a mother when I had to have it removed.  I still have a bump there today in which I channel my phlegmatic apathy.

Things weren’t any better for Viv either.  Dude developed lymphoma.

Twice.

Again, the onset of the guitarist’s malady didn’t appear until 12 or 13 years after the incident of throwing stuff at yours truly.

Please note that all of these years later, both of us seem to be fine.

So I told you that so that I can tell you this.

You may recall from several paragraphs back, my dear reader, that I was in a Buc-ee’s last night.  Reason being is that I went to a concert in New Braunfels.  When all was said and done and my beloved wife of 24 years intimated her desire to relieve herself at a locale which possessed clean facilities, I opted to turn north on I-35.  This was regardless of the fact that home was south.

Gotta move some more laundry.  Stand by.

Ok, I’m back.

This time, the concert we attended featured Night Ranger.  As you recall, I saw them for the first time just a mere 6 years ago when they opened for Foreigner (or some semblance thereof) and Journey.

Night Ranger is currently touring behind their 35th anniversary as a headlining act.  Strange enough, the venue we caught them at was the River Road Ice House, one of which I would have never expected to find myself at when it comes to seeing bands of such caliber.

Well ladies and gentlemen, the stars lined up last night and I found myself donned in my Captain America t-shirt and my urban camouflage hat with the US flag on it, stationed in the pit right in front of the stage.  If we were standing in straight lines, there were only four people between me and the stage.

Spittin’ distance, y’all.

A rocking time was had by all.

At the end of the show, when we had been sufficiently reminded in the highest of decibels that we could still rock in America, the band reciprocated it’s love for the audience in a post coital glow as they posed for pics, autographed a street sign in which the street name was ‘Sentimental’, and divested itself of various pieces of peripheral hardware used to perpetrate the rockin’ and rollin’.

Allow me to admonish you as I did before.

I shit thee not.

I’m 49 years old and have no real reason to lie to you.

During the phase of the show where guitar picks and drum sticks (used for beatin’ not for eatin’) were being jettisoned from the stage and into the audience, I made every attempt to catch a pick or a stick.  This time, I knew they were coming.

Being 5’7″ and built like a fire plug, I never really achieved the necessary altitude to grab one of those bad boys out of the air.

No big deal.  I’m 49.  What am I going to do with something like that anyway?  I have an autograph from Berke Breathed in a book.  That’s the only real thing I have from anyone of any celebrity that I possess.  I have no need for stuff like that, and when it comes down to it, seeking that stuff out ranks up there with practicing idolatry in my book.

So why in tarnation was I grabbing for picks and sticks last night?  I imagine I was caught up in the moment more than anything.

But then it happened.

Kelly Keagy, the drummer, shucked his gloves and threw them one at a time to the audience.

Ole lefty came in my direction.

There was a toss-up among us that resembled the junior league at the YMCA.  The glove disappeared.  I had missed it.

Again, no big deal.

But then, I sensed something.  Some dude standing behind me was looking at something on the ground right in front of me.  It was dark, and the item couldn’t be made out.

Or could it?

I reached down and grabbed it.  It was exactly what I thought it would be.

No one had caught the glove.  It got lost in the toss-up and had fallen to the ground in front of me.

The guy behind me knew it as well, and I addressed him.  “Sorry dude, it’s safer with me.”

Last time I let something like this go, a sebaceous cyst and lymphoma ensued.

Knowing that Keagy just recently had to leave the tour for a while for a procedure on his heart, it just doesn’t make sense to let that glove go until we all know that all is well.

I’ve learned my lesson.