Lord Save Me From Rednecks

Now one might assume that since I live in the ass-crack of the United States )and have for several years since my parents abandoned my home state and still favorite football team for a place where they stuck AR on Kansas and called it good), that I am a redneck.  They'd be completely wrong.  Not that I have anything against them, as hello this is Arkansas and if I did I'd basically have to close my eyes every time I wandered outside my home or looked at my son, but still, not a damn redneck.  I totally blame my Yankee transplant turned redneck ex-husband for my son's southern twang and tendency to piss off the porch.  Even in the suburbs, in front of people. *shudders*  But I digress.....My child's bladder release tendencies are another story for another day.

The whole purpose of this post is to inform and entertain... about rednecks.  In Arkansas.  Like it's never been done before.  Duh. Now redneck stories are supposed to be kind of uncommon in my parts.  I mean I'm in the suburbs of the largest city in the state.  Granted, it's Arkansas, but still.  Big city. Multiple interstate systems.  Get the picture?

Either way, I was in redneck heaven (read: Wal-Mart) today picking up wrapping paper for my mom's day gift to the woman who pushed my 9 pound 8 ounce self into this world almost 28 years ago when I came across two dental care impared women blocking the Hallmark aisle and commenting on their new-fangled (yes they used that phrase!) cell-oo-lur phone... and yes the one said it just that way, I couldn't make this shit up.  One redneck says to the other "Look how flat this dern thang is! I swear it's flatter than ma-maw's pancakes!" Redneck two says "That's pretty dern flat, Sue. But that new cell-oo-lur phone you got should work bettern the last un. Just don't drop it in lard again." Oh goodness.

At this point I'm fairly sure my eyes have popped wide at bad grammar and my eyes are watering at the aroma of a combination of beer, BO, and some sort of fried food, but I continue to stand there as these women look over a pair of semi-state-of-the-art cellular phones they picked up in the cellular center there in our super center (say that 5 times fast).  I am on the hunt for wrapping paper! Nothing can deter me! This is my mission! Until redneck number two pops her bottom dentures out, pops them in her pocket, and grabs for a wrapping paper I was looking at before turning to smile at me. She had a few teeth up top and dentures for the bottom... not a problem, I know people with dentures, but holy cripes.  This woman touched the damn wrapping paper with her saliva coated fingers, and then changes her mind and puts it back.  The LAST damn roll of wrapping paper that doesn't have a phrase directed at a birthday, wedding, a kid's cartoon, or a new baby. 

Now what the hell am I supposed to do?  I can't show up with a Barbie wrapped gift... You'd have to know my mother, I'd never live it down.  I can't hand her a "happy birthday" wrapped gift,  not her birthday and she may be old, but I'm not senile and I don't want to hear it.  And then it gets worse.....

Redneck number one or redneck number two I'm not quite sure lets out a gaseous obscenity so foul that my eyebrows wilted and my eyeliner flecked off right after my over-starched shirt wilts and my jeans lose their color.  I'm trying to haul ass out of the Hallmark aisle only to discover that I'm not the only bitch shopping for mom cards and wrapping paper and someone else is blocking the aisle.  I damn near suffocated trying to hold my breath all while hearing the rednecks discuss cell phones and denture adhesive in voices that belong on Hee-Haw and looking like the creatures in the horror film "The Hills Have Eyes".  It scared the holy hell out of me.  I'm traumatized. 

I managed to escape, barely before I passed out from lack of oxygen and drive to another town for wrapping paper.  And I prayed to anything and everything holy that some damn redneck hadn't slobbered all over it.  I'm still shuddering and I'm fairly certain I've got a tic in my left eye that has been there since my ill-fated run in with the inbred in central suburbia. I may just start shopping in another town.