Before clicking the link below, please prepare yourself properly--remove all beverages from your computer area, use the restroom (even if you don't think you need to), make sure your fanny is properly secured to your posterior, and for heavens sake, if you're at work, close your office door!
iowahawk: Blue State Blues as Coastal Parents Battle Invasion of Dollywood Values

Here's a few excerpts:

"I'm not sure where we went wrong," says Ellen McCormack, nervously fondling the recycled paper cup holding her organic Kona soy latte. "It seems like only yesterday Rain was a carefree little boy at the Montessori school, playing non-competitive musical chairs with the other children and his care facilitators."

"But now..." she pauses, staring out the window of her postmodern Palo Alto home. The words are hesitant, measured, bearing a tale of family heartbreak almost too painful for her to recount. "But now, Rain insists that I call him Bobby Ray."

Even as her voice is choked with emotion, she summons an inner courage -- a mother's courage -- and leads me down the hall to "Bobby Ray's" bedroom, for a firsthand glimpse at the psychic devastation that claimed her son.

She opens the door to a reveal a riot of George Jones CDs, reflective 'mudflap mama' stickers, empty foil packs of Red Man, and U.S. Marine recruiting posters. In the middle of the room: a makeshift table made from a utility cable spool, bearing a the remains of a gutted catfish.

"This used to be all Ikea," she says, rocking on heels between heaved sobs. "It's too late for us. Maybe it's not to late for me to warn others."

"It was one day last spring," says Ellen McCormack. "My life partner Carol and I were in the garage, working on a giant Donald Rumsfeld papier mache head for the Bay Area March Against the War, when Rain walked by. I thought he looked kind of strange, so I stopped him and looked closely into his eyes. Then I realized the truth -- he was wearing a mullet. I was shocked, but he swore to me that it was only ironic."

McCormack tried an intervention with friends from the Anti-war community, but to no avail. In October, Bobby Ray packed up his Monte Carlo and left for basic training at Camp Pendleton.

"I have no son," she says in a barely audible whisper.

Go read, and hold tight to your fanny, lest you LMAO...

Once again, via SondraK