I, BITTER

Billy Manes, you godless heathen. While you and your gilded brethren are building hydrogen-lofted space palaces, we in the pro-America parts of America are struggling. We're losing our jobs, while you're lighting illegally imported, hand-rolled Cuban cigars with $100 bills just because you can. We're stuffing our kids with Hamburger Helper while you're feeding your miniature pinschers sirloin.

Listen up, snobs. This Christmas is about those of us who get by on spunk and fifth-grade educations. Here in the Real America™, we've maxed out our credit cards and have foreclosure signs on the lawn, next to that couch we tossed out last week.

Damn right we're bitter. And as President-elect Hopey reminded us awhile back, we need something to cling to so that life is bearable these days. We need our guns and our God.

Here are my suggestions for venting pent-up angst this holiday season. And you should heed my advice — you've got the money, and we have just enough free time, post-layoff, to make your lives a living hell.

The New King James Version Bible on audiotape; $34.95 from www.biblebible.com, if you get the Internets: Listen, actually reading the Good Book can prove … problematic, if you don't like to read. And we don't. Since they cut the cable we need to find some way to entertain the kids, and nothing soothes like a passage from Deuteronomy. And yes, we still have tape players.

Remington Model R-15 VTR™ Modular Repeating Predator Rifle; MSRP $1,199 at www.remington.com: In theory, we'd use this high-powered rifle, which is custom-designed for hunters and features fast follow-up shots, to kill dinner. (It's deer season, you know. Actually, you wouldn't know that.) But sometimes we want simpler pleasures — like sitting on our front porch, cleaning our gun, letting miscreants know better than to mess with us. This trailer ain't much, but it's home.