Hope everyone had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend. I also hope you took time on Monday to attend a Memorial Day service to honor our veterans and those currently serving in the military. Past and present military personnel and their families deserve our praise and support for the sacrifices they have made in their lives.

I’m pretty sure that when Memorial Day was put in the books they didn’t intend it to be a day of sales opportunities for furniture stores and car dealerships. Is there ever a day that there isn’t some HUGE sale going on at one of these places? I’ve never driven by a furniture store and seen the sign read, “No Sales Today, Everything Full Price” or “Payment Due In Full At Time Of Purchase.”

It seems to me that car dealerships have performed some sort of study that suggests that all consumers in the market for a new car suddenly develop a hearing problem. Their commercials, whether it be radio or television, surely rank just below 101 yipping Chihuahuas on the dangerous and annoying decibel scale. Disclaimer: No Chihuahuas were harmed during the research and development of this scale.

A terrier in Saskatchewan perks up his ears and says to his springer spaniel friend, “Is that those Chihuahuas again or is New Mexico Earl having another all cars must go blowout sale?” Or, “Well Edna I was going to buy a new Chevy but the Ford dealer is much louder so they must have a better sale going on.” More than likely an “Extreme Sale” of some sort.

Everything is ‘extreme’ nowadays. I believe it all started with the X-Games, which did a wonderful job of making those types of sports commonplace. It’s hard to impress or shock anyone anymore no matter how many flips you can do on a skateboard. I’ve found that I can do a lot more tricks on a skateboard if I remove the wheels.

A few months ago I saw a advertisement for an ‘X-Treme Rodeo’ that was coming to town. I enjoy ‘regular’ rodeos so I thought I’d go and see what ‘X-Treme’ rodeo had to offer. I have been to a lot of rodeos and this rodeo seemed to be no different, nothing extreme here. No extremely big bulls with extremely big horns, just you normal run of the mill snot faced feisty bulls. No ill-tempered rocket propelled horses. No landmines in the arena, the barrels didn’t blow up during the barrel racing.

What made this rodeo X-Treme? Apparently a few fireworks during the opening ceremony and a hot tub full of drunks. I read up on the rules of labeling an event extreme and there it was in section 3 paragraph 5: An X-Treme event must have one or more of the following: Really loud announcer (off duty car salesman), fireworks, and a hot tub full of drunks.

I have nothing against a hot tub full of drunks enjoying a ringside seat to a rodeo, they were pretty entertaining. The only question I had was how were they able to sit in there enjoying their beverages for 2 hours and never have to get up and go to the bathroom. Now that’s X-Treme.