The South Needs Savin', Too

Why is that most superheroes come from the north? I mean, Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Hulk - they all practice their superherodom in big cities that resemble the Big Apple or Chicago. While I understand that there is probably more crime in big cities (and, let's face it - them Yankees are just a rowdy bunch a' people), why isn't the South more represented in the superhero realm? Don't we deserve saving too?

As a good transplanted Southern girl (I lived in Africa my whole life, but my momma was and forever will be a Southern gal, and she brought me up right) I've come up with a few Southern superheroes, just to make it even. I can't draw a straight line (so you can imagine how pitiful my stick-figures look), so if you are of the artistic bent and wanna borrow these guys for your next comic book, you have my permission. Just send me a cut of the millions you'll make...

First, there is "ChiggerBoy," able to leap into your clothes in a single bound and burrow into your skin faster than a speeding Monster Truck. This hero has the maddening ability to implant himself on you where itching in public is most embarrassing - like right around your panty-line. Cops are able to identify criminals struck down by ChiggerBoy when they spot said miscreants with their hands stuffed into their shorts:

"Freeze, boy. Nice and easy... now move your hands s-l-o-w-l-y out of your pants, where we can see them..."

"Damn. Okay, officer, you got me. But just for the record, I wasn't scratching DOWN THERE, I swear - I got chiggers."

"Ha! Sure you weren't. Well, that's it then - all the proof we need. Bring him in - and make sure he washes his hands. And thanks, ChiggerBoy!"

Next is Redneck Sue. She lives in the dark shadowy underworld of the local pool hall/honky-tonk bar, and is deadly indeed. She saunters around the bar, looking for drunk and disorderly men just a'beggin' for a paternity suit, then snares them with a well-placed wiggle of her rear in her skin tight camel-toe blue jeans. Men become helpless as baby 'possums at the sight of her fifteen-inch-high bangs and Fuchsia lipstick. And when she goes out on the dance floor to do the "Boot-Scoot Boogie?" It's all over - they fall right down at her high-heeled feet in drooling subservience. She surveys the mass of white, beer-stained muscle t-shirts littering the floor, then picks the worst guy of the lot - the one with twenty unclaimed kids ("They ain't mine, and I won't take no blood test, neither, 'lessin you get a court-order"), and takes him back to her trailer. There she seduces him with a few cold longnecks and a real waterbed until he throws caution to the wind and confesses his true love for her. The next morning, when he wakes up and sees Sue next to him in the hard, cold light of day, her make-up a smudged mess, her bangs still high and dry, he immediately and forever loses all carnal desire for females. He becomes a monk, and spends the rest of his life trying to atone for his past sins by running a mentor program for kids without dads.

Thank you, Redneck Sue!

Last, how about a superhero who takes on the evil, expensive department stores and slashes prices, offering low cost items to everyone? Necessary stuff - like lawn chairs and ice chests and big packs of cola and chips and cigarettes and fashionable culottes and light sticks and hairspray and dog food and rubber boots and tea trays and yarn and hair nets and aspirin and dish soap and baby bottles and - and - and -

Oh wait. We've already GOT that superhero.

Thank you, Super ___ Mart. You know you own me, right?