Dammit. Why can’t we ever get in the news with a nice, regular looking, non-hoosier for once?! Just once. That’s all we want. Just once to say to the rest of the nation “Hey look. I know you think we are back water hicks that live in a place where you make movies about fancy California getting sent here as some sort of punishment that ends of setting them straight, and by and large, that’s pretty close for the large majority of us, but I think it’s good for you to know that we aren’t all like this. Some of us have all our teeth and don’t just make our summer clothes by cutting off the sleeves and legs of our winter clothes.”
Chris Shaw — a 29-year-old tattooed father of three who was raised by his grandparents in rural southern Missouri — came forward Thursday as the winner of the 10th-largest Powerball jackpot ever.
Shaw said he had just $28.96 in his bank account and recently bought a 1998 Ford Ranger from a friend who agreed to let him pay off the $1,000 price $100 at a time. Now, he said, he no longer has to worry about how he’ll pay his friend — or his utility bills.
If you were wondering why they felt the need to point out the he was “tattooed” we should say that the quote was from Fox News.
Shaw said he bought the $5 ticket Wednesday at the Break Time convenience store where he works in Marshall, a central Missouri town about 80 miles east of Kansas City. He accepted his ceremonial check at the Missouri Lottery headquarters in Jefferson City wearing a tan and red plaid shirt, a red hat and a huge grin — minus two front teeth he says he lost because he didn’t take care of them but can now afford to have replaced.
“I’m just a regular guy working paycheck to paycheck … well not any more,” he said.
See right there. That’s the crap we’re talking about. You’re getting a check for gobs of money, you know you are going to be photographed and you show up rocking the stereotypical hoosier uniform! As if that’s not enough, you have to drop the old “I’m just like everyone else!” line.
No you aren’t!
Look, we’re sure Billy Ray here is a really nice guy and sounds like he’s had a rough go of it, so good for him. Now he’ll have the opportunity to buy all the rhinestoned leather jackets, gold teeth, triple-wide trailers and some freakishly huge, ungodly truck…but please don’t tell people…the national press at that…that you are just the average guy!
Right now we’re sitting in a climate controlled home, we are rocking a full set of original teeth, we aren’t drunk off Colt 45, and we’re wearing pants. I’d like to believe that we are the “average” Missourian.
Wait…also we’re doing lots and lots of meth right now. There we go! Now we’re average.