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You know the song I'm talking about. You've heard it somewhere, I'm sure. It's the Randy Travis country/gospel crossover song that came out around 8 years ago. It's about a farmer, a teacher, a hooker, and a preacher riding on a midnight bus that was bound for Mexico.

It's one of those songs that mentions God just enough to make people who like the song think they are good Christians, kind of like those damned Facebook posts that say "copy & paste this if you love Jesus." Well guess what, a**holes? I love Jesus. I don't show it at all, but I do. And I'll be darned if I forward that stupid post just to keep from feeling guilty. I'll feel guilty out of spite, thank you very much. Uhh, where was I?

Oh yeah, that song. Here are the lyrics:

A farmer and a teacher, a hooker and a preacher,
Ridin' on a midnight bus bound for Mexico.
One's headed for vacation, one for higher education,
And two of them were searchin' for lost souls.
That driver never ever saw the stop sign.
And eighteen wheelers can't stop on a dime.

CHORUS:
There are three wooden crosses on the right side of the highway,
Why there's not four of them, Heaven only knows.
I guess it's not what you take when you leave this world behind you,
It's what you leave behind you when you go.

That farmer left a harvest, a home and eighty acres,
The faith and love for growing things in his young son's heart.
And that teacher left her wisdom in the minds of lots of children:
Did her best to give 'em all a better start.
And that preacher whispered: "Can't you see the Promised Land?"
As he laid his blood-stained Bible in that hooker's hand.

CHORUS

That's the story that our preacher told last Sunday.
As he held that blood-stained bible up,
For all of us to see.
He said: "Bless the farmer, and the teacher, and the preacher"
"Who gave this Bible to my mama,
"Who read it to me."

CHORUS

Sweet story, isn't it? The strumpet survives the wreck and goes on to bear a child who would eventually become a man of the cloth. Yay, ironic justice!

I heard it on the radio today, and I got reminded of how annoying the story is. Not the overall story, it's actually quite touching. I mean the details. Mainly, what kind of egg-sucking farmer goes on vacation with a harvest due? Farmers don't tend to vacate anyway, due to the neverending nature of, you know, FARMING. And if a farmer was going on vacation, it wouldn't be to Mexico. It would be to a pumpkin farm or Niagara Falls or something stupid like that. And for that matter, why wasn't the farmer's son with him? Don't farmers pride themselves on being family men? I think he had a thing going on with the hooker. I bet she was a Mexican hooker, too. They are probably cheaper. That would explain why they were going to Mexico.

But then, something else occurred to me: what the hell happened to the BUS DRIVER?

Remember, the chorus says there are three wooden crosses, then wonders why there aren't four. This is talking about the farmer, the teacher, the hooker, and the preacher. So why does the bus driver not warrant a roadside mention? Or for that matter, the driver of the semi-truck? Why can't there be five wooden crosses? Or six?

I guess the songwriters couldn't be bothered with a verse about how the bus driver left a case of genital warts with the Burger King cashier at the last pickup stop. Or how the truck driver probably had a load consisting of four hundred cases of Coors beer. Although, if the bus was bound for Mexico, they weren't likely east of Texas, so the Coors wouldn't have been a big deal.

Maybe there were no drivers. Maybe it was like that movie Maximum Overdrive, where a bunch of unmanned semi-trucks drove in a circle around a gas station, while Emilio Estevez pumped gas until he neared the point of exhaustion.

Personally, I think the Second Coming occurred during the story, and the bus driver and truck driver were the only two worthy of going on to Heaven. The farmer, teacher, hooker, and preacher were left to suffer an eternity without conviction, and no further chance at salvation.

Because they didn't copy the Facebook status about Jesus.

Updated January 28th, 2012 at 12:17 AM by Chris Minton

Tags: facebook, jesus, randy travis, rant, religion, stupid people, three wooden crosses

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