Redneck weight-loss recipe

Noodle Streudle

A bunch of macaroni noodles

This bucket is half empty Environmentalist

I'm proud of my Redneck Mom, she's really doing her part helping the environment. She recycles everything possible and throws only a small paper bag of garbage away at a time, if that. Though she doesn't have a garden for composting, she keeps all her leftover food remnants and feeds them to the chickens and turkeys. Sometimes the food is left in a pile on the counter next to the sink, but usually it's in a bucket on the balcony. Imagine my surprise, however, when I stepped onto the balcony and happened to get a glimps of the contents of the bucket. Mice. Really! On top of some rotting food were about three mice bodies.

You know you're nasty when...

You stay the night at your relative's house and you wipe your biggest boogers on the freshly painted wall several times. When confronted about it, you lie and say, "Oh, I must have sneezed on the wall." You promise to clean the wall the next time you visit.

Instead of cleaning the wall, you avoid the offended wall and visit the bathroom where you then wipe a bloody booger out of reach of everyone else that could have done it.

I think that's what got her in trouble in the first place

My Redneck Cousin Eileen announced in a text today that she is having cunt tractions and should be having the baby soon. Yes, you read that correctly. Cunt tractions.

Redneck Mom's prized frozen possession

Also, I think that's an elk head in the black bag. I'm afraid to ask.

Playing it safe

Redneck Cousin Eileen recently received some words of wisdom from her father.

"You better hope your baby is a boy or Rusty won't be able to change it's diapers. If he changes the diapers of a baby girl, he can go to jail for sexual molestation."

Eileen's husband has taken these words to heart and has already announced he won't be changing any of the upcoming baby girl's diapers.

Baby shower game

While visiting my Redneck Mom last weekend, I attended my Redneck Cousin Eileen's baby shower. I walked in a few minutes after everyone had started a game and was told I needed to fill out a name tag using a word associated with a baby. The object of the game was to call people by their "new" name and if someone used the person's real name, they lost a safety pin to the person that called them on it first. The person with the most safety pins at the end of the shower won a prize.

I chose the name "Spit-up" and looked around the room to see what the others had chosen. My Redneck Aunt Ruby chose "Milk," another relative chose "Diaper," etc. Then I asked my Redneck Cousin what she had chosen.

"Titties." What, I said? "Titties!" The other women in the room rolled their eyes and said, Yes you heard her right. After a few words about the appropriateness of the word, she ended up changing her name to "Baby Mama." I told her that was better, even if it is ghetto.

Also, the baby shower was in a church. "Titties!"

Sweet!

I spent the weekend at my Redneck Mom's, a woman who seemingly goes out of her way to give me something to think about my entire stay. "Watch out for the spider in the sugar," she said.

So we picked up the large bag that was sitting in the cupboard and looked. But no spider. "Well, I know he's in there because I saw his cobweb and then he ran away."

More looking ensued, but still no spider. "I'll just keep using the sugar and if he shows up, I'll throw him away." *giggling*

Needless to say, I had no need for sugar this weekend.

She must have missed that parenting class

Apparently, my Redneck Grandma heard about Redneck Eileen shaking the baby while in utero. She told Eileen to stop being mean to the baby. Eileen sulked.

And now I'm hungry for pumpkin pie

My Redneck Cousin Eileen and her husband Rusty are staying the night. I actually look forward to their visits because they're not here long enough to make me question my sanity and give me a break in my monotonous life.

Eileen is only weeks away from giving birth. She showed me her belly button (which is starting to poke out) and told me that it is going to tell her when the baby is ready, like when a turkey is done. Only, as soon as hers pops out, "the baby will pop out too." She means it literally.

The Wall of Horror

Speaking of missed opportunities, my Redneck Grandpa once decided that he wanted to shoot one of the bears on our property. See, we lived in an old farm house way up in the freakin' middle of nowhere and by nowhere, I mean we had a TV but we couldn't get reception. So yes, there was a lot of Three Amigos, The Princess Bride and Good Morning, Vietnam watching going on. It gets stale after a while. Also, we cried whenever we missed the school bus. It was a sad, sad day when we missed the bus, usually followed by walking down the road until someone picked us up and gave us a ride the rest of the 20+ miles to school. But I digress!

So we had these three (or more) bears that visited us at night and ate blackberries off the bushes that surrounded our large plot of land. We didn't mind the bears, they stayed on their side of the bushes, we stayed on our side. Especially at night. It was a win win situation for all. But when Redneck Grandpa heard about the bears, he decided that one of them would make good bear sausage and steaks.

While we sat in the house waiting for dusk when the bears generally first show up, Grandpa told bear stories from his youth and his trips to Alaska, getting us all worked up by the scary stories of grizzlies. Mom decided it was time for us to put the goats, calves and chickens up so my sister and I headed outside to put away the animals. We were walking the goats to the chicken house when we suddenly heard gunshots. It turned out Grandpa was already outside shooting at the bears! Except, he didn't shoot a bear, he shot one of our pet calves. He had gotten so worked up by the bear stories that he shot the first thing that moved - our calf Dolly who was enjoying a few blackberries before bedtime.

He didn't kill her though, the bullet went through the fat between her jugular and the outside of her neck. Unfortunately, she died a few days later from asphyxiation caused by swelling (or something) after someone tried chasing her down to get her medication. I don't know all the details, I think I put them behind The Wall of Horror. But I do remember seeing her later that day in the back of Grandpa's truck, laying down with her legs sticking out straight and her gut all hollowed out. I don't know how that didn't make it behind The Wall of Horror.

It gets worse. When Dolly came back from the meat packaging plant, my sister and I took felt tip pens and drew pictures of little cows on the packages and wrote things like "Dolly's steak" and "Dolly's hamburger." It was our way of dealing with the pain. Yes, we ate our own pet calf that we hugged, kissed, played with and had bottle fed since age two days. We were poor. And hungry.

Redneck Grandpa never did get one of those bears.

A missed opportunity

As I have already mentioned, my Redneck mom loves to freeze things. And not just normal things like meat, vegetables and fruit. I'm talking about animals. She once had a cougar in her freezer that was waiting for a trip to the taxidermist. I didn't know it was there until I was helping her look for something in the chest freezer and she said, "Here, hold this." Though it was wrapped in plastic, I could tell it was the leg of something. And then I saw whiskers poking out of a hole in the black plastic bag. I try not to ask too many questions but sometimes you don't have to ask, the evidence is right in front of you. Even if you don't want to know.

Anyway, so my Redneck Grandpa wanted strawberry shortcake for dessert and I'll tell you, I saw this as an opportunity. I told Mom, "Let's stick the cougar tail out of the freezer door and then ask Grandpa to go down and get some strawberries for the shortcake." Unfortunately, Mom didn't think it was a good idea. Too bad because Grandpa has since passed on - a missed opportunity for a good laugh for all, even Grandpa (after he recovered). But I still chuckle at the thought of Grandpa's huge eyes and the big stories he would have had for us about the cougar that almost got him.

Freezer burn

Along with her regular refrigerator with freezer on top, my Redneck Mom also has a chest and upright freezer. Needless to say, she likes to freeze things. From weasels to milk, it goes in the freezer.

Yesterday while visiting Mom, I asked if I could bake something for a snack. After going through all the options, we decided on zucchini bread. Thankfully, she had some bags of already grated zucchini ready to go in the batter. I told her, if it's freezer burned, I don't want to cook with it. She was shocked and asked why why why? See, we argue over this all the time. She can't taste the freezer burn (or doesn't see what the big deal is) and I refuse to eat or cook with foods that have been burned. Turns out the zucchini was rattling around in a plastic bag, was visibly freezer burned and covered with what I call "iced freezer crunchies."

I know that freezer burned food technically isn't bad for you but that doesn't mean I want to east that nasty tasting food. Once, she tried to slip some past me by not letting me see the meat before it was cooked and then serving freezer burned bacon with my eggs. I had no idea there was an issue with the meat until I took a big bite and quickly spit it out on my plate.

I just don't get it.

The baby is doomed

A few weeks ago my Redneck Cousin Eileen and her husband Rusty drove into my driveway, parked the car, opened the doors and let out clouds of cigarette smoke.

Eileen is pregnant. She knows cigarette smoke is bad for the baby.

She is also counting down the days until her 21st birthday, which is a couple months after the anticipated birth. She plans on "getting real drunk." She thinks it's OK to breast feed while she's drunk or hungover because technically, the baby isn't drinking the alcohol.

The Trots

My Redneck Mom thinks city slickers get sick a lot because we're weak. She's "healthy" because she eats Airborne every day and drinks echinacea tea when she feels like she might have a cold. However, she does frequently have The Trots.

The Trots are characterized by frequent jogging trips to the bathroom to relieve the bowels after having eaten something bad.

For example, last summer Mom patted hamburger into patties for a family potluck, then reached over and started cutting and tossing lettuce without washing her hands first.

You can also get a good case of The Trots by eating something that has spoiled but is still "good according to the expiration date." On the other hand, if something looks borderline but expired two weeks ago, the best way to consume it is to mix it into food you're cooking for your unsuspecting family and friends.

Another way to get The Trots is by eating freezer-burned food. After all, it was stored in the freezer all that time! It's just fine.

Personally, I don't think any amount of vitamins or herbal tea is going to stop someone from getting diarrhea after they've been poisoned.

You can have her.

With the latest health care reforms our government is in the process of instilling, my Redneck Cousin Eileen and her husband Rusty have decided to move to Canada.

Eileen: "There's lots of jobs in Canada, the timber industry is hiring a lot of people."

I tried to explain that you can't just get a job that easily, especially in a foreign country.

Eileen: "I know four or five people who have moved to Canada and they got jobs right away."

Me: "No, it doesn't work like that. You can't just move to a foreign country and start working."

Eileen: "It's true, you just get a job right away."

Me: "No."

Eileen: "Yeah!"

Me: "No."

Eileen: "Yeah!"

Me: "No. If you do that, you'll be working illegally. You have to have a green card, visa, work permit or something like that. Just like when you get a job here, the HR department asks if you're a citizen and if not, to provide proof you can work in the country."

Eileen: *Silence* "Well, all we need is $20,000 then, and we can become citizens of Canada."

I don't know where this dollar figure came from, but this is coming from the person who can't afford to pay her own health insurance.

That'll learn it!

My Redneck Cousin Eileen is staying the night. Last week she asked if she could stay the night because she has an early doctor appointment. I just learned the appointment is at 2:00PM.

Anyway, Eileen just finished rubbing down her exposed stomach with lotion and then took her stomach and shook it. She gripped her stomach and shook it with all her might. Then she told me she does this to "teach the baby" to stop kicking her.

Sigh.

Something is sour

My Redneck Cousin Eileen is getting close to having her baby and consequently, a lot of people are giving her baby clothes. Yesterday, I helped Eileen sort all the baby clothes into boxes according to size when I noticed stains on a few of the onesies. At first, I thought it was because they were used. I have nothing against used baby clothes, as long as they are clean, disease free and look reasonably nice. But these stains were ridiculous. And then I decided to sniff one of the stains on the front of an outfit. It was sour! The stains were actually old sour spit-up milk!

I asked my Redneck Cousin about it and she said, "Oh, my friend gave them to me. She was pulling clothes out of her dirty clothes pile and giving them to me."

Meanwhile, these dirty clothes had been piled in the broken crib for weeks. They are now organized in boxes - still dirty. Eileen is excited about the baby clothes and sees nothing wrong with their state. Is it just me?

Redneck Vocabulary

Vargina (noun) - I don't like that word, "vargina," instead I say "privates."

Mocsakins (noun) - Indian mocsakins are so comfortable on my feet.

Kinaling (noun) - We need to chop some kinaling for tomorrows fire.

Ahh, cell phones. A blessing and a curse.

Me: Hullo?

Redneck Mom: I sent some pictures to your cell phone!

Me: Yes, I know. I just got them.

Redneck Mom: Are you putting the pictures into your computer?

Me: Um, no. I've been a little busy being unemployed and all. I'm watching TV.

Redneck Mom: Well in case you couldn't tell, they're chipmunk balls! They're the biggest chipmunk balls I have ever seen - you know, in proportion to this size animal body. They're HUUUUUGE. I can't wait until you show them to your friends!

Me: .....



Redneck Mom: Hello? Hello??HELLO?!AREYOUSTILLTHERE???

Me: Mom, calm down! Sometimes there is a slight delay on cell phones. Also, I was just thinking about what you said.

Redneck Mom: Oh OK. Stupid cell phone!

Breaking news!

My Redneck Cousin Eileen and her husband Rusty finally put in their new passenger windows!

About six months ago, she got mad and punched out one window, then he got mad and punched out the other. They taped black garbage bags where the windows should have been but got pulled over for having dark covering over their windows. Their solution was to rip off the black garbage bags and replace them with clear plastic. Fast forward six months and the plastic is full of holes and flapping in the wind. They looked so bad that the last time Eileen visited, one of my neighbors (jokingly) complained that their car brought down the neighborhood property value and scared away potential renters for his near-by rental.

We live in a cold, rainy state and their baby is due in a little over a month, so after much lecturing from family members, they decided to put in "plastic windows that won't break when we punch them." I suggested they buy one of those clown bunching bags instead, but they only laughed and puffed away on their cigarettes in deep thought. Thankfully, someone convinced them to buy glass windows and after talking about it for a month, finally installed them in the doors.

At least now the baby won't get rained on. Well, until someone gets angry.

Redneck games

Bored? I feel your pain. I grew up on an isolated ranch in the mountains without television reception. Thus, my sister and I had to be creative when it came time to entertaining ourselves. Take for instance, a game called Chicken Torture.

First, we would catch and calm down a chicken. Calming a chicken down is easy, just flip it over and there you have it. Calm. Next, tie a piece of hay bale twine to a post and then tie the other end to the chickens leg. Set him down on the ground and watch him run away and then get yanked off his feet! Yee haw! After a few tries, the chicken will give up and just lay there on the ground - even after you untie him. Ooh wee is that a lot of fun for a couple of podunk redneck kids!

Even more fun, get your Redneck Great Grandpa involved (when Grandma isn't looking) and have him make mouth harp noises while the chicken is trying to run away!

Something else you can do is wait until a good wintry day when the pond is frozen over, then call the chickens at feeding time and throw the chicken food on the ice! Chickens will go aflying and skidding everywhere.

Oh yeah, great fun!

....

Redneck Grandma always has something to say.

"Shit or get off the pot."

"It's raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock."

Moving violation

Once, my Redneck Uncle Samuel and Redneck Cousin Jason offered to help my sister (City Sister) move from one town to another. While visiting, they did a cookie in a road construction area, cussed loud enough to make the neighbors stare and generally acted out.

Finally, to her relief, she had everything packed and they left town. My sister decided to follow their truck, which carried her larger items that were covered by a tarp. The tarp kept waving around wildly in the wind but Uncle Samuel kept on driving. Suddenly, my sister saw him lurch off to the side of the road and come to a stop. It was then that she saw Jason in the bed of the truck! Apparently, he had slipped out of the window while Samuel was driving on a narrow, winding coastal highway and was trying to tie down the tarp.

I'm sure moving from a pickup truck cab to the bed is somewhere on the list of Redneck Accomplishments. And possibly may be nominated for the Darwin Awards.

The what?

Me: Good morning, Mom.

Redneck Mom: Good morning, sweetie. Watch out for the mouse blood.

Me: ???

(I'd like to say that I'm not surprised by much anymore, but my Redneck Mom still delivers surprise after surprise.)

Me: Um, mouse blood?

Redneck Mom: *Giggling* Well, it was dark in here this morning and I saw something scurrying towards me. I couldn't tell what it was but I knew it shouldn't be running towards me, so I instinctively stomped on it! (Shows me how she stomped and then stands on one leg with hands flailing in the air.) Then I realized...eww, I stomped on a mouse! I stomped on a mouse!

Me: Mom!

Redneck Mom: *More giggling* I guess the cats brought a mouse in the house.

Me: Er, OK. But why did you leave dried up mouse blood on the floor? And... is that the mouse?? *pointing*

Redneck Mom: Oh, the cats will take care of it.

You can take the girl out the country, but not the country out the girl.

I can't help that I'm related to rednecks. In fact, once in a while I do something rednecky too. Last week after my boyfriend and I arrived at my Redneck Mom's house at 11:30PM at night, we had to pee so bad that we walked down each of the driveways and peed at the end to "send a message to the coyotes."

I'm not sure what that message would be, but hopefully it keeps them at bay a little longer.

It's a disease, really.

Bathing

My Redneck Mom doesn't believe in bathing every day. She says, "it washes away natural minerals and oils that my body needs."

I'm afraid to argue this point with her, lest I learn more than I want to about her bathing habits.

Surgery

My Redneck Mom recently discovered she had a tick on her back. Well, not on it, but buried down under her skin. It all started when she felt something on her back and decided to rub against the door frame to soothe the itch. The next day, her back felt tender and painful to the touch. She had her sister, Redneck Aunt Ruby, come over to take a look and discovered she had rubbed off the body of a tick and the head was buried down in her flesh!

Thankfully, my Redneck Cousin Emalyn has some experience in this field (considering she is the health care provider for her cattle - not that I'm calling Mom a cow), so she and Ruby got together and decided to perform surgery on Mom.

"They used every knife they could find in my kitchen, plus my two pocket knives and some tweezers, but they were all dull. Boy it really hurt when they were digging in!"

(I just remembered how we used Mom's steak knives at dinner last night and I feel sick.)

Anyway, so after a couple hours of performing surgery with dull kitchen knives, my Redneck Cousin Emalyn got the tick out, poured some bleach on the wound and put on a Hello Kitty bandage with some Neosporin. And that is how you perform out-patient redneck surgery.

Also, now I'm excited because I know what I'm getting my Redneck Mom for her birthday - a knife sharpener!!

Redneck Vocabulary

Whipper whapper (noun) - The whipper whapper might be a little rusty, but you can still use it to beat the eggs for our french toast. Rust is a mineral, it's good for you.

Ninoleum (noun) - I bought some ninoleum flooring for the bottom of the chicken house.

Chimley (noun) - We used a garden hose to put out the chimley fire.

How to get fired, redneck style

After your boss asks you to do something, tell him to "Go suck my dick."

This statement makes more impact if you are pregnant and surrounded by elderly customers. Such exclamations may be necessary if you are union and other attempts to get fired have failed.

Drinking but not driving

A group of Redneck People I know recently asked a close friend to be their designated driver. She was driving along when she heard cans opening in the back seat. After some questioning, she learned her passengers were drinking beer. She quickly pulled over and made them all drink up before she drove any further.

This caused quite a bit of confusion because after all, she was their designed driver! Isn't that why they asked her to drive, so they could drink? There were a lot of sad faces and pouty expressions that night as everyone got to the bars a little less drunk than they expected.

Redneck dog training trick

Pesky Cocker Spaniel won't stop killing the chickens? Try this redneck solution:

Simply tie the dead chicken around the dogs neck and chain him up in the yard until he learns his lesson.

You might be in trouble if you have a dog that's a little low on brain cells. In this case, the dog just might eat the rotting chicken and the lesson won't be learned at all. Unfortunately, I think this type of dog might be a little more common than we'd like to believe. Good luck with that.

And let that be a warning to all of you too!

My Redneck Mom really knows her way around a rifle. Well, minus the fact that she told me she wasn't sure how to tell if her guns are on safety or not until she tries to take a shot, but that's a minor detail that I try not to think about. She has developed quite a reputation amongst her friends and family and nobody doubts her "Will shoot to kill" sign on her barn, but that story is for another day.

Being a woman, the men in the area are even more impressed with her abilities to shoot elk, deer, coyotes or anything else that ends up in her cross hairs. (All legal of course. Mom learned her lesson when she trapped a cougar and forgot to report it.)

Since she lives in a rural area, Mom experiences a lot of problems with predators, specifically coyotes. One night she heard coyotes howling in the field near her house, so she crept down to the field and saw one harassing her horses. spotted it at the very far end near the fence and shot it with a light in one hand so she could see his eyes glimmering and the rifle in the other. With one shot! The next day she hung the coyote on the fence "as a warning to all the other coyotes."

Somehow I doubt the coyotes in the area are that smart. In fact, they probably returned to take little bites off their friend.

Now I just need to find someone who can show her what "safety" looks like on a gun.

Rotten, and not just the eggs

Tired of those pesky kids parking their cars on the shoulders of narrow country roads near popular swimming holes? You know what I'm talking about, the ones that force log trucks to cut into your lane while driving around narrow corners? Just do what my Redneck Mom does. Save up all your rotten chicken eggs, then drive by the cars and throw the eggs at them.

You'll take care of two problems in one, your rotten eggs will be disposed of and your enemy will return to their car to find rotten egg bits and shells all over it. It's a win-win.

I wish I was that smart

Our country may be experiencing some tough economic times, but if only everyone had thought ahead like my Redneck Uncle Dale and his wife. After frequent trips to the dentist to treat poor dental hygiene, they decided it would just be easier and cheaper to have all their teeth pulled. Now that they have dentures, they don't have to visit the dentist, therefore cutting down on expenses and putting a few extra dollars in the cigarette fund.

I just wish they knew you're still supposed to clean dentures as if they were actual real teeth. Green, sticky, thick looking scum is not a good thing in your mouth.

Redneck Vocabulary

Hoover (verb) - Stop hoovering over me, you're in my space.

Crick (noun) - Let's go swimming in the crick and catch us some crawdads.

Bob wire (noun) - I ripped my britches on the bob wire fence.

I'm not sure if Advil will help

While visiting Redneck Cousin Eileen yesterday, she told me how she woke up with a headache but didn't know why. Her husband asked her if she hit her head on the wall during the night, to which she said, "No but - AH HA! I know what caused my headache! My cat headbutted me during the night! She has a really hard head!" And then plunked the cat on the head with her finger to prove her point.

Words of Wisdom

"If you keep pouting like that, a rooster is going to sit on your lip and shit in your mouth."

Thank you, Redneck Grandma.

More preparations for baby

My Redneck Cousin Eileen just called and asked if we would be willing to drive over an hour to her trailer to help move furniture so she and her husband could remove tack strips and staples from the floor. Most of our relatives live within a ten mile radius of Eileen, I don't know why she called me.

It hadn't occurred to her to remove the drawers from the dressers to make them lighter or to remove all the stuff and TV from the entertainment center before moving it. When I suggested she do this to make the moving easier for two people (or even her husband by himself, a nightstand is not that heavy), I was met with silence and then "Oh yeah!"

They'll be getting their new plywood flooring in a couple days. Supposedly they're hoping to get hardwood floor on top of it. In a trailer.

A solution

Though I live in a relatively small town, it's still a big city to my Redneck Family. A few months ago, my Redneck Aunt Ruby and Redneck Mom came to visit and were complaining about all the "traffic" driving through my residential neighborhood. A school bus drove by fairly fast but was still probably within the speed limit. My Redneck Aunt yelled out "SLOW DOWN!!!" and scared the crap out of all of us. See, she's just under 5 foot tall and yet has this alarmingly loud voice which is even louder when she's yelling. Of course the bus didn't slow down so she turned to us and said, "I have a solution for that bus! Next time it drives by, throw a life size baby doll in his window. That'll make him slow down!"

And now I want some orange chicken

"I want to learn Oriental."

Talking about foreign languages we want to study.

The Crazy

I'm sure you're up on the hype about how the world is going to end in 2012. Just like it was going to end in 2000 and on 8/08/2008. At least, that's what my crazy Redneck Uncle Ricky told me each time. I try to keep my distance from him, much like I do when I find out someone has the flu. But a few days ago I happened upon him and decided to visit with him, since I heard he's off the meth now and is a changed man.

Shit, the rumors are wrong! He may not be an angry mad man, but he's still a crazy loon!

A couple minutes into the conversation, I started staring at the mountains around us, so I didn't quite memorize everything he said. But for starters, children under age 20 experience deja vu and see spirits. Once they pass 20, they're not so lucky. This is where I started to really lose focus. I came back in time to hear about time travel and how all the UFOs are actually people time traveling. They appear and disappear in the sky because they've studied history books and know exactly when planes are in the sky, so they're able to avoid them and not have any collisions. If they travel to places on earth, they might collide with a tree, building, boulder or animal.

Somewhere around this point, the subject of solar flares came up. It seems that in 2012 there will be such huge solar flares that we will lose electricity for several years and disaster will be under foot! For this reason, he is buying bags of rice, salt, sugar, oats, flour and other staples and storing them in a trailer buried in the side of a mountain. I hear it's several miles into the forest where other people can't get to it.

Also linked to the solar flares, planets are going to line up with a certain star in Orion's belt and cause something to happen...I seriously don't know what he said next, I think I blacked out.

Oh yeah, it seems Nostradamus "prophesied" there was to be several Antichrist's: Napoleon, Hitler, George W. Bush and Saddam. I may have left some out but I think you get the idea. And Obama is the "black messiah" who will try to rescue us but will fail.

I don't know how we were able to tear ourselves away from him but we finally did and started driving away. It was at this point that my Redneck Cousin Norman started telling me how he believes 50% of Uncle Ricky's sentiments and then started reciting a sentence about Einstein and the "relative theory of gravity." I told him that unless he wants everyone else to think he's crazy too, he should make sure he studies up on the subjects so he can sound like he knows what he's talking about. Long story short, after some loud arguing about how he sounds like an ignorant ass that bases all his theories on studying done while stoned in high school, I ended up telling him to shut up five times because he wouldn't stop interrupting me and kept saying that stupid "relative theory of gravity" sentence.

So yeah. We just may have two loons in the family now. I'm not counting myself!

City water

"I can't drink this here city water. It makes me sick. It doesn't taste good because it's missing all that beaver pee and stuff."

Learning an important lesson

I recently visited my Redneck Cousin Eileen who doesn't have hot water. She and her husband have cold water but they turned off the hot water because their pipes were leaking or are broken or something. I try not to ask too many questions so I'm not sure about the specifics. All I know is they've been living in their $500 trailer for about six months now and still haven't fixed the pipe problem.

So we chatted while she boiled some water, poured it into a bucket with some soap and leaned over to ring out the mop. By the way, Eileen is 20-years-old and pregnant.

My boyfriend was watching her and said, "Eileen, you know that water is hot, right? It's steaming! You're going to hurt yourself!"

Eileen, "Yeah, but it's not that hot."

I'm sure you know where this is going. She reached into the water, quickly pulled out her hands and said, "Ow!"

I think it's good she learns just boiled water is hot before the baby is born.

Words of Wisdom

"I don't drink no water, I'll just sweat it out anyway."

Fecal matter is fascinating

Most moms send photos of a cute kitten about to fall off a rope saying "Hang in There" to your inbox. But if your mom is a redneck, you probably receive photos like this one all the time. Or maybe even to your cell phone. At least, that's what my mom does. She doesn't do it to be disgusting or rude, she is genuinely fascinated with the fact that a cougar pooped in the backyard. And because I'm her daughter, I should be as well.

If I don't respond right away, she'll always call to let me know she has sent me a photo of cougar poop with hair in it to my email address, along with a description of how fresh it was, how she discovered it's level of freshness, the size and any other textures it possessed. Because animal feces is fascinating to my Redneck Mom.