The Fourth of July Weekend has come and gone.  I, for one, worked over this weekend, mainly because nobody else wanted to.  Everyone else had to go get mega-drunk for some reason I’ll never understand.  However, this isn’t the part that bothers me.  What bothers me is that most of these people got conned into going to the lakes. 

That’s right.  I said it.  The lakes are nothing but one big con. 

I suppose I’ll have to elaborate that point.  Let’s start off with cost.  A lake place is not cheap.  For the price you pay for a lake place, you get nothing that you can’t do at home anyway (For most places, anyway.  I’ll be using Fargo as my example.).

For the most part, all people who go to the lakes do at the lakes is sit around and drink beer, because they can’t do that at home or at a bar.  OH WAIT!  THAT’S RIGHT, THEY CAN!  I don’t get it, I really don’t.  I’m going to pay lots of money so I can sit and drink at a different place?  I guess if you want to get conned, be my guest. 

What about swimming?  That’s right, you can’t swim anywhere in town either, you have to go to the lakes to do that.  There are absolutely no pools in town anywhere that you can swim in.  None.  I checked.  I guess I lose that point.  (If I have to point out the sarcasm in this paragraph, never come back to this site again.)

Now, I’ve had this talk with a few different people.  They found my reasoning flawed, and so tried to defend going to the lakes.  One statement made, after I pointed out the "sitting around drinking" and the "swimming" cons, was "But you can’t drink while at any of the pools in town.  The only way to swim and drink is to be at the lakes."

Wow.  I couldn’t possibly fight back against such a logical and well-thought-out point.  When I heard this, I thought I might have an aneurism much as Lewis Black once described ("If it weren’t for my horse. . .").  Anyone who says such a thing is someone you should never get into a car with.  I say this because this person is one of the many who have the thought process of "Man, that was fun, but it would have been better if I was drunk."  It’s only a matter of time before this extends to driving. 

Another thing that was said to me by a few people was that the lakes were "peaceful" or "quiet."  I found this to be quite bullshitish, especially when compared to Fargo.  Allow me to point out all the things that make lots of noise at the lakes:  jet skis, boats, small children, drunk people, stereos, firecrackers, and dogs.  All of those things also disrupt your so-called “peace and quiet.”  In addition, the insects are in much greater numbers at the lakes.  You have way more ants, mosquitoes, bees, and dragonflies than in town.

What about fishing?  Well, actually, you can do that in town, dumbass.  The Red River offers you the chance to catch carp, catfish, and giant snapping turtles.  Now, if you are fishing for something else, then ok, fine, go somewhere else.  However, I do not see how wanting to fish for something else constitutes the need to pay for a lake place.  It’s probably just one of those things I’ll never understand, like alcohol.  Whatever.

"You can’t go tubing or jet skiing in town."  That’s very true.  I agree with you, for once.  These are the few things you can’t do in town that you can do at the lakes.  No doubt, even if you could do them in town, the argument would be that you can’t do them while drinking.  Anyway, if you want to pay money for a lake place so you can then also pay money for a boat or jet ski, hey, it’s your investment.  I’m not going to stop them from conning you out of more money.

I won’t pay as much money as they ask just so I can either do what I could do at home, or be forced to pay even more money to do something "fun."  Now, that just sounds like a con, doesn’t it?  Seriously.  Ban the lakes.

StretPharmacist is a lot like the Undertaker:  A gimmick that should have never gotten over, but was taken to unbelievable heights.  Also, he is constantly injured.