Red is my neck, figuratively and literally (from sunburn). I don’t see “redneck” as a putdown - it’s a sign of hard, outdoor labor - it is my heritage. “Redneck” is uniquely American, the refuse-to-be-gentrified-or-citified hillbilly spirit that loves life, laughter and a good bottle of hootch. LOL

White is the color of the skin that was covered up whilst (borrowed that from my Aussie friends LOL) I slaughtered the weeds and any varmits living in them. If you’re too dumb to get out of the way of a giant, noisy weed whacker you don’t deserve to live, you ignorant insect! (I hate bugs, can you tell?)
Especially the ones that decide to hold Summer Smackdown in my bathtub. After a hard day of destruction, I want nothing more than a long, lukewarm bath. But it was not to be.

The Executioner’s Song had to play one more time, for when I was ready to plop my red and white body into the tub, it was already occupied. By an angry spider and a very confused grasshopper, who had somehow managed to escape the death machine, only to face cosmic condemnation in the Fiberglass Fortitude of Fate. Trapped in the I-hate-it, not-easy-to-clean-you-lying-salesperson-at-Home-Depot, all-in-one shower surround/bathtub (which I hope to replace someday with a real, porcelain, clawfoot tub) the two of them circled one another warily. The spider leapt at the grasshopper and they started wrasslin’.

Some other time I might have found this amusing, but I was hot and dirty (not in the fun way LOL) All I wanted was to take a bath. I quashed the sport and called it a draw, by using a paper towel to scoop them both up and dump them into the toilet, flushing them down into the septic tank underworld. I still suspect there is probably a mutant batch of bugs living in there, plotting to take over the world.

Blue is the boy-who-flew-all-the-way-to-California-to-break-his-phone.

Yes {insert heavy sigh} once again we are going to have to deal with Satan’s handmaiden, the cell phone company. The lad called on Friend’s phone, to tell me that somehow (apparently the Invisible Man followed them home from their tour of Universal Studios, went on a bender and knocked Middle Son’s telephone onto the floor. Or an earthquake, they have those out there, doncha know. But somehow, magically, in a way that is incomprehensible, or at least unexplainable to his mother) his telephone went to the Big Tower in the Sky.

Green was the envy of the girl, disappointed that her brother got to go on a cross-country trip while she was stuck at dumb ol’ home with dumb ol’ mom. Until some buddies of Brother’s called. Brother has some friends who are Dance, Dance Revolution devotees, and are girls but are not girlfriends.
{momentary aside}

Ohmagawd did you see that kid on Freaks on Parade…errrr…”Master of Champions” on ABC-TV, the new television show devoted to exposing the American public to some of the most bizarre human beings on the planet? Watch the girl who does a handstand/backbend then shoots a bow and arrow with HER TOES! Observe the HUMAN CANDELABRA! Be amazed at the boy who can do the video game Dance, Dance Revolution WHILE JUGGLING FIRE!

Sorry, I digress.

Brother’s friends-who-just-happen-to-be-female, called Daughter, knowing that he was gone, and asked her if she would like to join them. As if the thought of your friends getting together with your sibling isn’t horrifying enough, they were also going to meet up with his actual currrent girlfriend. My son is living in Superman’s Bizzarro Land - George Costanza’s nightmare - when worlds collide.

When he called (on friend’s phone) to tell me about his I-don’t-know-how-it-happened phone breakage, Daughter gleefully informed him of these abhorrent events. He acted like it was no big deal, but I could hear his Veneer of Invulnerability cracking like the arctic glaciers.

Such is life. Sometimes you’re the windshield (or bathtub) and sometimes you’re the bug. Just be glad you’re not the Human Candelabra.

Best wishes for a safe and happy 4th of July to all of you!

Categories: Family, Television