Checking Up

A little humor at my expense for y'all, er, you all...

Just as I was getting all excited about going to the Chili Cookoff this coming weekend (even though I have to go all by myself) Terry and I were standing in the store the other night and heard some 20something chick walk by talking to some 20something guy and I caught these words coming out of her mouth "chili cookoff" and "every red neck around will be there" and it didn't sound like she was all enthusiastic about it. Oddly, I felt a tiny bit offended.

There is that one silly Brooks and Dunn song that goes something like "you can take the girl out of the Honky Tonk but you can't take the Honky Tonk out of the girl". Yeah. Well. I would have to say that is kinda sorta true.

I may not live in a trailer in the woods anymore, and I have even tried to curb my y'alls a little bit over the last five years, I admit to being a tad bit of a designer label whore, I also might tend to spend large quantities of money that on things I probably can't afford and talk myself into thinking it was a steal, prefer sexy long cars with pretty silver Jaguars on the hood instead of pick-up trucks, drink Soy Chai Lattes out of a paper cup with a piece of cardboard wrapped around it and somehow justify paying $3.50 for it when I have the same damned thing at home in a carton from Publix and I could make four myself for the price of one. However, none of that stops me from knowing how to do the Electric Slide and drinking the occasional cheap ass beer, smoking cigars with no regard to how unladylike I suppose it is, and knowing every word to every song they play on 99.9 Kiss country. I also own two pairs of cowboy boots, can relate through childhood experience to about half of the You Might Be A Redneck jokes and have been known in the past to fall asleep to the comforting sound of a Nascar race on Sunday and be pissed off when I miss the final lap. It has never deterred me from thinking living in a camper over at the park would be just great. I also build an amazing bon fire and when we were eating cooked I kept asking for grill tools for various holidays.

Who doesn't love a girl who, recently, has been wearing Ralph Lauren nearly exclusively, and doesn't save her real diamonds for special occasions yet knows how to strip tobacco and make Soup Beans and Cornbread or Sausage Gravy and Biscuits from scratch. Yes, we call it soup beans and cornbread not White Bean Soup with Cornbread. That is just how red neck I am, or was. Whatever.

That doesn't mean I don't have an inner Hippie, an inner Punk or an inner Goth (though I personally hate the term Goth). I do. It is a weird thing. I never have been able to commit to just one personality.

Just ask my husband who has to support my spoiled Westonzuelan habits while listening to me pitch moving to a commune and growing an organic garden and composting or maybe moving to Kentucky to raise horses or perhaps building our own log cabin and living off-grid. He channeled my inner South Crackalackian earlier to ask what the Nascar term for braking is because, obviously, one must consult the resident red neck personality about such things.

Posted by gwendolyn on January 25, 2005 at 04:26 PM