The continuation of The Life of Jason, an autobiographical account. If you missed The Early Years, they can be found here.

How does a growth spurt ruin a budding acting career? When it is all at one and all wrong.

I didn't so much as grow up as I was pulled, pulled like taffy. Taffy, that is, if it was pulled by a blind, thumbless child. You see, not only was I stretched far too thin, but one leg ended up a bit longer than the other. The end result was an unfortunate cross between a newborn deer and a drunken clubfoot.

Suffice to say, hollywood had little interest in a gangly, awkward teen who couldn't walk.

And so I was adrift...paddleless in a canoe on a river of filth (metaphorically speaking) with no rescue in sight. That is, until I found Darvocet.

Don't ever let anyone try and tell you drugs are bad. Drugs were the only friend I had. Reality's a bitch and, let me tell you, it's best viewed through a haze. If possible, a drug induced haze.

Things were finally looking up in my little life. I had my happy pills, the pink elephants were dancing, and I was content to sit in a pool of my own feces and vomit. That is, until fate interveaned...cruel, cruel fate. Yes, she is a harsh mistress.

The bugle rang out! The call to arms was raised!

The Commies had landed. Secretly conspiring for years, Canada and Russia had joined forces and built up an army consisting of fiercely loyal Mounties and slightly drunk Bolsheviks. The first wave consisted of a highly trained Yak army that stampeeded across the boarder and trampled the farms of upper Montana, slaughtering the women and raping the cattle (which makes sense, I think, given that they were yaks). With America's first line of defense down (sidenote: Montana's official slogan should be "the first line of defense against those damned Canadians), the Mounties galloped across the borders.

Many an American knew terror that day, and terror wore a pointy, red hat.

But despise this devasting blow, America was resilient as ever. With air raid sirens a' blazin', Americans everywhere took up arms. Just as in the Civil War, when the North was attacked by a nasty case of moral outrage and the south was attacked by a strong desire to keep on enslavin', every man, woman, and child took to fighting.

editor's note: We'd like to point out that the above is clearly just silly fiction. The War Between the States was about state's rights and nothing more. We apologize for the confusion. Remember: State's rights...and that's it.

Back in my home town, I was unceremoniously yanked from my drug-induced stupor by the sound of yaks bleating in the distance (or mooing...whatever yaks do) and quickly rushed to the window to see what the matter was. After an hour or so of watching my fellow townsmen attacked by the mounting (and mounted) hordes of evil, it finally dawned on me that there were some fairly serious happenings a' transpirin'. I gave out a little yelp (yelp) and lept to action.

Breaking the "In Case of Emergency" glass in my building's stairwell, I hefted a big ol' axe, the kind of axe that is just made for bashing in Commie skull. I threw on a belt (you tend to lose a bit of weight when you spend a couple years just pooping and vomitting) and charged out into the melee.

"To me! To me!" I cried, attempting to rally the good people of the lower 48 to, um, me. Unfortuantely, the only people that rallied were the pointy-hatted legions of doom, and I was quickly surrounded. But instinct took over, and I brandished my axe with a fervor I usual reserved for PlayStation 2 (as we all know, Grand Theft Auto 3 requires an above-average level of viscious intensity). Yak and Canadian head alike filled the sky as I separated them frofrom their corporal host and Ruskie blood ran in thick rivers through our quiet town. The day of reckoning had come. Bitch.

Slowly the other townspeople began to gather round, peering over the pile of headless corpses that littered the ground. When it finally dawned on them what had happened, a great cheer went up and I was hailed as savior. It was a small victory, yes, but I had saved our little town. And now I was their leader. And, in many ways, I was their god. Except I didn't have a beard. And I wasn't omnipotent. And no son of mine was going to die for anyone's sins. My son was going to play baseball. Shortstop, if possible.

But I digress.

In the battle against the great, red manace, the people had found their Jon Connor (see: Terminator). I taught them how to fight...how to survive...how to destroy those damned robots Canadians.

I was a hero, and victory was virtually guaranteed (unless somebody sent a moose or a yak or something back in time to kill my mother before I was born...that could cause problems). And the war waged on for years on end, a war we would eventually win (barring, again, the intervention of a time traveling quadruped).

Once again, life was good.

Next: Victory for America, marriage for Jason.