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.