Hippies Are People, Too

Of course, I don’t really believe that, but under the terms of my parole I’m required to at least say it once a day. I no longer hunt hippies for sport. Lord knows they aren’t an endangered species or anything, the entire west coast is infested with them, but these days the fines are too high. I know that $25 isn’t a lot of money for having that much fun but it starts to add up.

In the old days you could go on a hippie shooting spree and a simple “I’m sorry” was enough to get you off the hook and on your merry way again. Now they are likely to really throw the book at you. I was actually charged with manslaughter. That’s so ridiculous. First of all, manslaughter is such an ugly word, especially when all I did was drop a big clay flower pot on a hippie from my second story apartment window. Secondly, they didn’t take into account when I was arrested that the hippie was talking about stoner conspiracy theory stuff while he was playing hackey sack. I mean, what was I supposed to do?

The charges were dropped but I have to go to sensitivity training classes. We sit around in a circle and everyone has to say something good about hippies. At least that’s the way the meetings started out but we just sat around staring at each other in silence. The counselor changed the exercise so that we merely had to say something about hippies that we don’t find completely revolting.

After class we all revert back to our old ways and start hippie bashing. Like why do hippies always wear those really baggy belly dancer pants? And you just know they aren’t wearing underwear. Yeah, I know, just the thought of it is enough to make you sick. The idea of underwear is as repugnant to a hippie as the idea of government is to an anarchist. If you think about it, those two things, undies and government, perform a similar function.

Long hair doesn’t necessarily make a dude a hippie. It’s a lot more complicated these days. You can even be a short-haired hippie. Once a specific species, the hippie has evolved into a creature of immense diversity. Tie dye clothing is pretty hippie but not a 100% effective method of identification. If you want a fool-proof id, a veritable finger print, a smoking gun, a signed confession, then look for sandals with socks.

I have this theory that women foster much deeper prejudices than men. Here’s why: no matter how much hate a man professes for a group of people he will always sleep with a hot woman from that group--women won’t. I’ll bet $100 that Maynard T. Credler, supreme grand dragon and leader of the KKK, had his fair share of sexual fantasies about the gal who played Jimmy Walker’s sister on Good Times.

Hippie girls aren’t so bad. There isn’t anything about them that a new hairstyle and a good scrubbing can’t fix.