Hello, hello, hello, folks! Hope you’re all swell on this brisk winter evening. This is the Amtrak 449 Lake Shore Limited train from Boston, Massachusetts to Chicago, Illinois. My name is Phil, and my wife just left me.

My name is Nick Hilbourn, professional English major and, regrettably, a father.

If you’re like me, then you dearly regret having children. Although they are precious and wonderful when they first claw their way out of a woman’s vaginal cavity – by age one, they are detestable.

The leggy blonde behind the microphone clears her throat one final time. The capacity crowd—already restless in anticipation of the first pitch on Opening Day—struggles to temper themselves. The players line the base paths, hats over hearts, shifting their weight from leg to leg as nerves tighten. Finally, a silky but dynamic voice fills the stadium.

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Help! I’m Up and I Can’t Fall Down: Teaching Yourself the Fine Art of Falling in Order to Guilt Your Over-Privileged Adult Children Into Paying More Attention to You Despite Having Their Own Busy Lives

The hick of today is a stunning sophisticate compared to his counterpart of only one or two generations ago. Often flaunting an Ivy League education and a job in the public eye requiring diplomacy and social nuancing, today’s cracker, compared to yesterday’s in terms of sophistication, is as Rand Paul is to Harry Truman, or as Jeff Daniel is to Oliver Hardy, or as Miley Cyrus is to Minnie Pearl. You would never guess how many influential politicians, trend-setters and opinion-mongers are actually outlanders from benighted states like Ohio and Texas and Kentucky, but grown remarkably adept and refined.