Bottom Dollar

Once Gawlmighty made it to Texas, he started to feel safe.

Now he was back home where people understood little things
like horse- and country-thieving. So confident was he that he
began to whisle, wrongly, the only song he didn't know all the
way through— "Deep in the Heart of Texas."

The man who was giving Gawlmighty a ride—a little orange-haired man
with a big orange beard who wore orange sweats—said, "You're trying
to whistle 'Deep in the Heart of Texas." Does that mean you're from Texas?"

"Yeah, what of it?" Gawlmighty said.

"Well, I thought you might have seen President Gawlmighty! He's run off
from a little old church in Washington with the collection plate and the
choir director. He's a short green thing in a big yellow ten-gallon hat with
a red star on it and big red cowboy boots."

"Aint seen him," Gawlmighty said, cringing in his big yellow ten-gallon
hat with a red star on it and his bright red cowboy boots. "President, huh."

"Yeah," said the man who loved orange.

"How far you goin'?" said Gawlmighty.

"College Station," said the man. "Goin' ta see my boy play ball."

"Great, whatever," Gawlmighty said as he pulled his hat down over his eyes
and lay down in the back seat.

Hours later, when the orange man screeched to a halt in an alley in College
Station, Texas, Gawlmighty slammed into the back of the front seat and
down to the floor of the back seat. In a few seconds, Gawlmighty came up
sputtering and cussing. "Damnit, son! Who taught you to drive, Ray Charles?"

"Get out lizard," snarled the orange man. "This is the end of the line for you."

"Ya dang Aggie! Ya don't have to be so sweet about it! I'm a-gettin'"

Gawlmighty stood glaring at the man's car and never once thought about
the coincidence of orange. Gawlmighty didn't tie things together unless
somebody told him they should be associated. He saved a lot of time that
way and didn't have to think as much.

Gawlmighty could not have known that this was the very alley in which
a miracle had given him and his siblings life. But something seemed
very familiar about the alleyway. It was full of garbage and boxes and
grease like every other alley in the world. Gawlmighty knew at once
that he was in an alley.

He sat down on a wooden box and felt sorry for himself. "Oh, whoa is
me! Oh, whoa is me! I, who rose so high, simply to serve the sheeple
of this great nation, have fallen so low because everybody is out to get
me for some reason. Oh,whoa is me!"

Just then a door across from him in the alley banged open and Gawlmighty's
blood turned to Mountain Dew. He never expected to see, in this alleyway
of all the alleyways in the world, the three people who frightened him more
than anything in the world—the Dixie Chicks.

You could almost here the theme song from "A Fistful of Dollars" as Natalie,
Martie, and Emily stepped out into the alleyway, glaring at Gawlmighty. He,
in horror at the site of his archenemies, raised his hand and tried to back
away. But there was nothing but slimy brick wall behind him. So he instinctively
did what all great cowards before him had done—he begged like a little boy
about to get a spanking.

"Well, well, my, my, the Dixie Chicks!" cringed Gawlmighty. "Isn't that interesting!
Well, I"d love to stay and chat but I've got important president things to do."

The Dixie Chicks had already fanned out, blocking all exit.

"Now, girls," he said. "I don't think you're the kind of young ladies who would hold
a grudge over a little thang like me revokin' your citizenship while you was out of
the country criticizin' me!"

"Oh, we're not mad," Emily said. "Looking back it was kind of funny. We're not
doing this for what you did to us. We're doing this for what you did to all the young
people who have died in your bogus wars. We're gonna whip you like Mama whupped egg whites."

Natalie, stepping just a little closer and said, "Gawlmighty, old friend, some really
powerful people have paid us a lot of money to do what we've been wanting to do
ever since you first showed up."

"Umm, what's that," Gawlmighty winced.

Natalie continued, "We're gonna administer the ancient art of bitchslaps."

"Uh, oh," Gawlmighty said and tried to hide in his hat.

With that, Natalie sprang forward and bitchslapped Gawlmighty so hard that
he was still spinning clockwise when Emily slapped him with her left and sent
him spinning in the opposite direction. Then Martie jumped in and slapped
him with both hands; Gawlmighty couldn't spin in both directions so he only
fell over.

Then Natalie jumped behind him and put a dainty boot in his dooky shoot.
"YeeeOWW!!!" yelled the ex-president as he flew into the opposite wall of
the alley. His stop was abrupt.

Before he could struggle to his feet, the three Dixie Chicks were upon him
with a fury that hell never knew. Gawlmighty was slapped spinning in so many
directions that he almost turned to butter. And every few seconds one of the Chicks
would give him a swift kick just to keep the rhythm lively.

Gawlmighty didn't know how much more a man could take. But he knew that
an overgrown piece of Gila monster doo-doo was reaching its limit.

Finally Natalie stopped her girlfriends and said, "This is for all the boys who
really believed they were dying for their country." And then she jumped up in
the air like a Ninja and delivered a fierce kick that sent Gawlmighty's head
and hat rolling down the alley as his body and boots toppled over.

Then the Dixie Chicks came together like three angels in Sunday school on
Christmas morning and sang, in perfect three-part harmony:

You can bet your bottom dollar,
And you're money's safe and sound,
Whichever way he said it was,
It's the other way around.

You can take it to Las Vegas,
And lay your money down,
Whichever way he said it was,
It's the other way around.