By Isaac Messinger | The Broadside (Contact: [email protected])

I am awakened from my dreams of cattle herding and Daisy Dukes by the luscious tones of Jason Aldean’s voice pounding my eardrums like galloping horses on the prairie. I roll over, tumbling down the pile of straw that I call my bed. The clock reads 9:55: the crack of dawn.

I reach for my back pocket, to start the day in the only way I know how. As the fresh scent of Skoal Wintergreen alights in my nostrils, I shiver and thank the spirit of Blake Shelton that I am alive.

I stumble out of the barn and spot a half-finished Coors from the night before, gulping it down eagerly, a boon to my dusty throat. “A man’s gotta take care of his animals,” I think, as I grab a bag of feed. I get halfway to the fence before I realize that we don’t have horses, only a collection of rusted car frames up on cinder blocks that nobody wants to get rid of.

Dejectedly, I let the feed bag slump onto the brown patchy grass and head inside, towards the smell of hot Copenhagen on the grill. My step mother yells at me to wipe my boots off, but I can’t hear her over the sound of Florida Georgia Line playing on the 40 year old radio that my dad inherited after my uncle died in a fishing accident.

After washing down several dips with some moonshine, I head to to the wash basin to clean the chew spit out of my patchy neck beard, but the rag proves woefully inadequate.

If only we had running water.

The rest of the afternoon is spent hooning around the back 40 in my truck, which I named after my favorite person. After a solid few hours of jumping dirt banks, Brad Paisley (the truck) and I stopped to watch the sunset while listening to some Brad Paisley (the singer).

Sadly, I left Brad Paisley (the truck) idling, and it ran out of diesel. I also forgot to bring the stepladder I use to surmount Brad Paisley (the truck)’s 96 inch lift.

I guess Brad Paisley (the singer) and I are going to have a long night. ■