Hometown of spine damage

Our sleepy little town has made headlines as the town with the most spine damage in the United States. Congratulations! All of us deserve a warm round of applause and slap on the back (though not too hard a slap!) for this "monumental" achievement!

In a recent study, out of every city, town, village, and municipality in the country, none was found to have more injured, warped, or shattered spines than us! So next time you meet someone new and they ask where you're from, you can tell them, "We're Number One!" (When it comes to the probability that a resident of that place has spine damage!)

As quoted in Spinal Demographic Analysis Magazine: "the concentration of spine damage [in our town!] was far outside the expected range of normal distribution, at a staggering rate that cannot be explained by mere statistical anomaly." Wow!

Make no mistake -- we would not be here today if it weren't for each and every one of you! Every time you carelessly lifted a piano, or landed back-first on an icy driveway, or drove drunk into an overpass and survived what you continue to insist to your skeptical family was not a suicide attempt, the wreckage that was made of your spine was contributing to a greater cause -- the cause of having your town recognized as the "World Capital" for spine damage! I personally hope that it gives you comfort as you lie in bed stricken for hours, staring at the ceiling, praying for the thunderbolts of pain shooting up and down your spine to subside so you can sleep, reaching for another painkiller even though you're afraid of how much you've come to depend on them. You'll think, hey! "Way to go!"

Of course, credit must also go to our beloved local spine surgeon, Dr. Paulson. Sure, some say he's "over the hill" or "severally visually impaired" or "a dangerous hack," and others may complain that his "hands are constantly shaking" and that he is "well past retirement age; at least 90 years old." But it's safe to say that we would not be recognized for our incredible deformed and bent spines were it not for Dr. Paulson and all his hard work and the equally hard work of his staff, whom he hires from the local unaccredited massage therapy school that has been shut down several times for being a drug front.

Obviously this will be the top story on all the national news broadcasts, I have no doubt. The name of our town will be on the tongues of all the world's most beautiful and powerful people as they flock from around the world to see the hometown of spine damage with their own two eyes. Perhaps some of our favorite celebrities like Taylor Swift will visit and damage their spines here! Maybe the Princess Meghan herself will swing by and wrench her back so badly she cannot take an airplane home as a tribute to the spinal irregularities of those living in her former home country. "One can only dream!"

Indeed, this kind of notoriety is not just a gift, but an opportunity. We can let this moment pass quietly (stupid), or we can capitalize on it, and we are planning to capitalize on it as quickly and extravagantly as possible, beginning with a massive statue of a huge crooked spine to be erected in the middle of the town. It will stand thirty feet tall and there will be a sign that reads "SPINE DAMAGE!" next to it. We will have to knock down the library to build it, but no one goes in there anyway. And as entertainment, my cover band will perform underneath the spine each night, which will require nothing more than a state-of-the-art sound system and heavy klieg lights (and perhaps, in the coming years, a video board).

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What does it mean to be proud, not of the things you've done, but of the place you were born? For many years this town was just a smudge on a map, and we were smudges within a smudge. We were told our opinions didn't matter and our clothes and poor haircuts and hideous visages were an embarrassment to others. To be a smudge is to carry a burden that shrinks one's ambitions and weighs downs on one's spine, leaving one hobbled and bent and able to look only at the ground beneath one's feet. So if we cannot escape this burden, and we can't, we can at least demand that the rest of the world be forced to reckon with it, and with the responsibility they bear for heaping it on our shoulders. And when they break down and begin to weep and grovel for forgiveness, and they will, this is when we boot them out of our town and tell them never to come back, and we will not even let them stay to listen to our cover bands, even as we practice and practice and practice so much that we become more skilled than any of their so-called big city musicians, and our countrified takes on "Sweet Child O' Mine" that we play at two-thirds speed so we can really nail the guitar parts ring like the heavenly peal of trumpets that will mark the start of the end of days, when after much suffering our spines will finally be straightened by Christ Himself.