Yes Ma'am I am!

I posted recently about the 'coffee cup incident' that confirmed I 'R' indeed a redneck....But tonight I just happened to catch the 20 Greatest Redneck Moments on CMT and nearly died from laughter and embarrassment as I realized just how much of a hillbilly I really am. And it occurs to me that there are people living in L.A. and New York City and other metropolises around the world that have truly never met one of us!! LOL! So let me introduce myself to you as I compare some of these redneck moments....(Good Lord some of ya'll will never read my blog again after this!) to my life.

The first that got me was about George Jones riding his lawn mower to town to get booze because his wife hid the car keys. True Story. This is also true, my 71 year old father does not have a driver's license due to several...several, DUI's in his lifetime (a practice I do NOT condone!) The man is a mess, frankly, but he's still my Dad ~ we all have someone like this in the family...mine just happens to be Daddy. So anyhoo, he has a very old (70's) John Deere lawn mower that he rides 'uptown' (3 blocks) to get to the bar. He suffers from COPD and walking this distance, which is mostly uphill is impossible for him. But the stubborn old coot still finds a way to get to the bar. He does it several times a week. One Sunday morning he called me raisin' 9 kinds of hell because "somebody stole ma God Damn lawn mower!!!" I remember thinking to myself well the joke is on them, who would want that hunk of junk? A few days later he mentioned mowing his lawn and I asked him when he got it back....He hem hawed around for a while before he finally admitted he had been drunk and forgotten where he parked it. He had even gone to the police station to report it stolen that night!! Thankfully he lives in a one cop town (picture Mayberry - he is Otis...) and they just gave him a ride home and told him to settle down....Good Lord....I have passed this DNA on to my children...scary thought!

Then they talked about the song "Redneck Woman" by Gretchen Wilson....and I gotta say, while I prefer old country to the new pop sounds, she hit the nail on the head with that one. I have lived in a mobile home a good part of my life, I drink cheap beer, I buy my lingerie at Wal-Mart, we've left our Christmas lights on all year before, you will find me everyday standing outside in my front yard, barefooted with a toddler on my hip, and I don't give a shit what you think about it. It's who I am...pure and simple. You could pull in my driveway right now, find me sitting here at my desk in my 'granny gown' with hair I haven't fixed all day long, no make-up (I haven't worn make-up since I went to church on Sunday) and my bare feet...I'd offer you a beer and chair.... As the song says, "I ain't no high class broad, I'm just a product of my raisin'..."

And speaking of mobile homes....the invention of the double wide was on the list. Technically I live in one! Yes my dream home, that I am so proud of and have busted my ass landscaping and decorating this year....is a manufactured home. All four bedrooms, 2400sq ft, dream kitchen and all.... It came in on wheels...and I have it all on video tape! They had so much trouble getting it up here on the hill that my husband had to pull out the John Deere 4020 and pull part of it himself! Yeee Haw!! I am not ashamed of that. I have made a damn better life for my kids than I had and that's all that matters. The walls you surround yourself mean nothing compared to the love you surround yourself with. And I think that is at the heart of every true country girl.

They mentioned the Dollar Store on this list too...which kind of cracked me up because I don't shop in there much. Most of it is junk, the toys are all made in China and full of lead paint etc...but you can get great deal on some things here and there. But it got me thinking of my insane ability to stretch a dollar. When in comes to cooking....I can make a $5 meal last for days!! Today I made chicken and noodles. My noodles were homemade, so they cost next to nothing, my chicken was $4 and I only used the dark meat and the back and wings. I saved the breasts and chunked them up for a casserole later. My corn and green beans came from the freezer via last years garden...zero cost (unless you count the buckets of sweat I produce cutting off corn each year), and we had mashed potatoes as well. This meal probably cost $5 maybe $6 total....it fed us tonight, it will feed me, my kids and day care kids for lunch, supper tomorrow night and any leftovers will be frozen to eat later or eaten this weekend as we come and go....that's a hell of a lot of food for $6. Can you even by a burger anymore for $6?? I have found that I am anal about 'making do' in the kitchen. It is the one area of the budget that I know I have a knack for pinching so I try to do my best. All the while remembering that my Grandma had to do that same thing to feed 9 kids in her lifetime.......I was thinking that as I looked at my chicken and noodles tonight...in her house, that would have barely been enough to feed all those boys! Good Lord!

But the best on this list, by far is Faith Hill jumpin' all over the lady who grabbed her hubby, Tim McGraw's crotch! That is totally something I would do!! OMG! When that happened I remember telling my husband 'well HELL YEAH! I'd do the same thing!' It's one thing to be checking out my man...you can even ask for his number, I'm confident in my relationship....look all you want, he's quite the hottie really...but keep your damn hands OFF!!! You'll see a sweet little country girl get mean in a hurry! LOL!!

God I really am a Redneck!! LMAO! I get it honest though. You should see some of my kin from down south. My family came from the hills of Kentucky, poor dirt farmers who feared God and loved moonshine. Now when my redneck father makes the comment that the living remnants of this family tree are 'weird' you know they must be off the charts...cause it doesn't get much weirder than my guitar playin, lawn mower riding, whiskey lovin' Daddy.....at least now his only accidents might be with a stray cat on the sidewalk in the middle of the night....

P.S. I was thinking this as I was proof reading...there are some ways that I am very anti-redneck as well. Much of my generation no longer carries the racial prejudice that our parents did, and still do. Not that there aren't some ignorant loud mouths around, but I for one will never tell a racist joke or consider a person of color any less worthy than me. Nor do I feel gay bashing is appropriate, which seems to be more common among the rednecks here in the Bible Belt...this to me seems to be the ultimate contradiction of being Christian. But I suppose I am of the 'hippie' variety of my class in society. My kids may grow up rednecks, but they will never be hate mongers, no matter what the Bible Thumpers have to say about it...