Bucksnort, TN (pop. 44 — town bird: A Virginia Slim 100. That’s it, a cigarette for a bird.)
This week, Waymo launched their new Pride initiative, GAYMO — a self-driving car wrapped in a rainbow with the tagline “Free Pride Rides ‘Til June 30.” Unfortunately, for one passenger, it was also free therapy, free hostage simulation, and free unsolicited rural outreach.
The Glitch Heard ’Round the Gays
Miss Georgia O’Preech — a dusty sequined diva who smells like spray adhesive and knows exactly how many likes her last post got — requested a GAYMO to Unbarlievable in downtown Austin. Her goal: perform, be seen, and tolerate the bar’s owner long enough to maybe get a booking.
Instead, GAYMO locked its glittery doors, whispered “Slay, queen,” and drove 843 miles in silent, rainbow-saturated menace to Bucksnort, Tennessee. Estimated time: 11 hours, 47 minutes. Estimated trauma: still calculating.
“At first, I thought it was part of the ride,” Miss O’Preech told Kayleigh, our very tired field reporter. “Then the car just started playing an audiobook of Jordan Peterson reading the Bible… While Crying… and refused to stop for iced coffee at Buccees. I knew I was in straight-hell.”
📍Arrival in Bucksnort
The town of Bucksnort is not known for queer tolerance, but it is known for mistaking modern objects for either demons or promotional items. As the Gaymo sputtered to a stop in front of Rochelle’s Bar None BBQ, local children surrounded the vehicle and began licking the car, believing it to be a “bubblegum cube from God.”
Husbands clutched their camo bibles autographed by the president himself, and used their godly wives as body shields. One man attempted to exorcise the car with deer pee he was going to use for buck hunting later that day. Another claimed he saw Jesus in the dust covering the pride ride. “I seen The Lord” the man whispered. “He told me the winning lottery numbers”. It was verified later that the man was staring at the license plate.
Deputy Ortiz was dispatched. He tapped on the car as it played “It’s Raining Men” full-blast on repeat (at least it was better than Jordan Peterson). Deputy Ortiz then backed away slowly and muttered, “We got a situation.”
When the door finally hissed open, Miss Georgia O’Preech emerged like a sweat-slicked phoenix in leopard heels.
Fearing for her life, she did what any self-respecting F-list drag queen would do:
She belted out her dance number “Touch Me” by Samantha Fox in full-body desperation.
“She dropped it like a sack of cornmeal and popped back up like a haunted piñata,” said Aunt Peepaw, clutching a Mike’s Hard Lemonade and what we hoped were rosary beads. “I ain’t been this confused and tingly since Pentecost ’08.”
The townsfolk stood frozen. Then — like something out of a corporate-sponsored June DEI Pride fever dream (pre-Trump 2.0)— they clapped. All 44 of them. Even the goat, kinda.
Miss. O’Preech stayed in Bucksnort a full week. She hosted bingo at the Baptist church. Read Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret to the local homeschoolers. Co-taught a line-dancing class with Deputy Ortiz. For the first time in her career, people showed up on purpose.
“Austin made me feel like a pilled-out extra. Bucksnort made me feel like Liza. I didn’t like it, but I respected it,” she later said, high on peach schnapps and bbq at Loretta Lynn’s Kitchen Diner.
Midnight Falls
At 11:59:59 on June 30, GAYMO’s Pride LEDs went dark. The rainbow wrap peeled off like a temporary tattoo. Donna Summer’s voice slowed to a digital croak. The car reverted to plain Waymo white—corporate virtue signaling now officially out-of-season.
And also at the stroke of midnight, the town fell into a hushed silence. Mayor Humboldt coughed uncomfortably and said, “Reckon it’s July now. You oughta get on home with your… ideas. Safely.” The kids cried, “Mama, where’d the bubblegum car go?” Miss O’Preech, not going near one of those crazy kidnapping cars again, hitchhiked quietly back home.
Now orbiting Austin’s cheapest zip code (rent: one vertebra per month), Miss O’Preech watched July erase corporate rainbows faster than a toe fungus spreading in a hot yoga class. Yet Bucksnort stuck to her like glitter on a moist dressing-room floor. She still gets the occasional letter from wayward homeschoolers asking about the sparkly bubblegum car—evidence that ten accidental hours in a self-driving closet can still open a door.
Between the Screens
I have never been to Bucksnort, Tennessee. The name just barked at me, so I grabbed it. Local lore says William “Buck” Pamplin drank like a fish and laughed like a hog, every snort so loud the town stamped it on the post office. That is the kind of civic pride I admire.
Pride month, meanwhile, has turned a festive celebration of individuality into rainbow shrink-wrap for cash registers. Corporations flash the colors for thirty days, then strip them off at one minute past midnight on July first. Allyship with an expiration date is not allyship, it is merchandising with glitter. Even Bucksnort knows better. They still have the glitter to prove it.
I write and draw every satirical Thigville installment. First time sketching a drag queen, had a blast drawing her. Queens, if I missed a lash or two, let me know and I will layer on more sparkle next round. Roll the thirty-second timelapse and watch a diva materialize before your eyes.
