You’re probably thinking I’m about the brag about how great SEC football is, aren’t you. Well, it is, but I’m not gonna do that right now. Wait until a little closer to football season.

But, I am gonna brag about our SEC. Our state execution chambers. You know. Where they take folks on death row when it’s time to execute their sentence. The one in Georgia works quite well.

I bring this up because Arizona took 117 minutes to put one Joseph Rudolph Wood to death yesterday. I’m not crying over the length of time it took for Wood to die for the murders of his ex-girlfriend and her father back in 1989. No, he’s had nearly 25 years on the state dime. If it took him a little long to pay the piper, that’s too bad. But I do have a problem with his execution. An hour and 57 minutes is just way too long. There’s overtime involved, for one thing. And at the most basic level, it’s inefficient.

And Arizona isn’t the only state running an inefficient death chamber. Back in January, it took Ohio 26 minutes to put down Dennis B. McGuire for raping, sodomizing, and killing a pregnant woman in 1989. The 25 years that Ohio kept him around more than makes up for the 26 minutes it took him to die. But, still, 26 minutes is not very efficient.

Then there’s Oklahoma and the trouble they had with Clayton Derrell Lockett back in April. They actually didn’t execute him, not really, but he died anyway. That’s the one where they stopped the execution when it didn’t go exactly as planned, but the convict had a heart attack on the gurney and died anyway. So it worked out. He died at the hands of the state for burying a girl alive back in 1999.

I have a solution for these states that have trouble executing convicted killers. Come to Georgia. We do it right.

Remember when everybody got their panties in a wad over the Oklahoma execution by heart attack? Well, about seven weeks later, Georgia marched Marcus A. Wellons to the little room at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in Jackson, and put him to sleep for raping and strangling a 15-year-old girl back in 1989. Georgia simply strapped him down and ended his life. Quick, simple, efficient.

So, for the states that have trouble, contact the state of Georgia about contracting out the executions. Chain your convict up real good, give him some escorts, and y’all come on over. Drop the intended off at Jackson, then … go play tourist.

You can head over to Hampton if there’s a NASCAR race that weekend.

Or, if the Braves are in town, catch a game at The Ted (it’ll be gone soon).

There’s Six Flags just west of Atlanta.

Stone Mountain on the east side of the capital city might have a fireworks show, if you don’t want to see a bunch of 90-foot-tall Confederate generals.

Grab a meal at Chick-Fil-A (they’re all over the place in Georgia) and a Coca-Cola (the formula was invented in Columbus, not Atlanta).

Drive down to the Golden Isles and put your feet in the water on Jekyll or Saint Simons.

Savannah is a nice place to visit, particularly if you want to get drunk on St. Patrick’s Day, so try to schedule your execution for mid-March.

If there’s the chance of a last-minute delay, and you don’t mind paying the state for the prison overtime, you can spend a few days in a cabin up in the north Georgia mountains.

Of course, you can go to Lookout Mountain just south of the state line at Chattanooga, TN, and, like the old signs on the barns used to say, “See Rock City.”

Go get yourself a real Vidalia onion.

Or, just sit on the banks of the Altamaha, relax, and catch some fish. Or, at the very least, drown some worms or crickets.

There’s lots to do. And, for you, as well as for your convict, there’ll be memories to last the rest of your life.