WHAT? ME A REDNECK
Every few years I get to wondering why making fun of Southerners is such an enduring and successful endeavor. Jeff Foxworthy continues to make a fortune doing it and he’s more popular in the South than anywhere. Some may say it is because we do such funny things. I’m not really sure that is true and I choose to believe it is mainly because we don’t take ourselves too seriously.
The sad truth is that I received another in a long, long,
list of redneck jokes the other day and couldn’t help but note how many of them
applied to me. For example: You
can entertain yourself for more than 15 minutes with a fly swatter. Boy that one sure hit home with me.
I once spray painted the logo of my alma mater on fly swatters, then wrote
a story about how the fly swatter was invented by an undergraduate of that
university while he was milking a cow.
The story was reproduced in pamphlet form and attached to the fly
swatters which I handed out.
You have a complete set of salad bowls and
they all say 'Cool Whip' on the side.
Here’s the truth
about that one. This is not a Southern
thing as much as it is a man thing. Most
men care a lot more about what they eat than what they eat it on. If I wasn’t married Cool Whip salad bowls
would be the standard on my table.
Your
working TV sits on top of your non-working TV. Back in the day I’ve had as many as three TVs sitting on top of or next
to each other. Each one resting on the
scrap board and concrete block entertainment center that I was darn proud of
having. In those days it was possible to
have a TV fixed and it was barely possible that I would someday have the money
to have one of those sets put in working order.
Not likely mind you, but possible.
You know how many bales of hay your car will
hold. Well in the first place most Southerners own or at least have an uncle or
cousin or neighbor who owns a pickup truck.
But in all honesty there have been times in my life when it was easier
to throw a few bales of hay in the car.
The answer is six.
Your boat has not left the driveway in 15
years. This is just wrong on so many levels. If the boat floats it would be in the pond so
that it is actually possible to go fishing on your lunch break. If the boat doesn’t float it would have been
sold on e-bay or borrowed and never returned by a cousin with four kids, six
dogs and no job. While there may indeed
be a gravel road or at least a couple of worn ruts leading up to the house or
mobile home, calling it a driveway is just way overstating the case.
You've used your ironing board as a buffet
table. With an appropriate covering I see nothing
wrong with actually using the ironing board for something since it surely never
gets used for ironing. Unless it is outside
for a back yard pig roast do not cover with a tarp or anything plastic and
never use old clothes even if they are clean.
Beach towels or an old bed spread will suffice assuming the dogs haven’t
slept on either one.
Can you imagine Larry
The Cable Guy with a Boston accent? Me
neither. Let’s just laugh, enjoy life,
and be glad we live in the South.
