Parades, Meth Labs, and Gender Identity

Today, on my way home from work, I was sent on a detour because of a parade. Traffic was bad through the detour, and I was hungry, so I stopped and bought a Little Caesar's (cheese) pizza to tide me over. As I sat in the car glutonizing, I began to reflect: Why did they decide to have the parade on the main stretch of road that linked the primary businesses of the community with the primary residential areas? Why did they do this during rush hour? Why couldn't they have had the parade on the fair grounds? What is the primary purpose of roads? How did I manage to get lost? Which direction am I going?

I often seem to be confused. Example: The other day I saw a teenage boy sniffing shampoos at the store and immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was running a meth lab. Upon further reflection, I determined that shampoo is not an ingredient in meth (it's cough syrup, right?), and since he was bothering to smell it, he may just have been simply buying it . . . to wash his hair.

But evidently redneckery IS a real danger here. One doesn't walk off the trail into the woods, I am told, or one is likely to either get shot by a deer hunter or come upon a meth lab. While I was sitting in a waiting room the other day, I heard one office assistant tell another that her husband was in the hospital because a copperhead bit him in the garage. I keep my electric weedeater (which I bought, assembled, and operated yesterday all by myself) in the garage. Now I'm afraid to go get it.

Further questions: Am I now culturally male since I have my own weedeater? Does my fear of snakes negate this? Have you ever seriously considered the concept of male concubinage?