Three months ago I moved to Arkansas. Laugh it up, fuzz ball. Somebody has to live in Arkansas, right? Otherwise how would the rest of the country keep making fun of it?
Well, I've never really thought of myself as a redneck... in fact, I can give a list of reasons why I don't qualify as a redneck:
-I know how to pronounce certain words correctly ("es-cape" not "eck-scape", etc),
-I don't own a gun and I've never been hunting,
-I don't own a truck with a gunrack,
-I don't even own either a truck OR a gunrack,
-I went to a rodeo just once, but it was with the intent of making fun of people,
-I don't own any flannel or camouflage clothing,
-I don't quote Larry the Cable Guy,
-the closest thing to a weapon in my house is a set of golfclubs or a Nerf gun,
-I have my teeth cleaned every six months by a trained professional,
-my list of geniuses includes Albert Einstein and not Jeff Foxworthy,
I could go on...
...but you may notice one fairly obvious item missing from that list, and that is the problem that I'd like to talk about in this blog today.
The Innocent Beginning to an Extremely Depressing Story
About two months ago, I cut my own hair with a pair of clippers... nice and short. I'm pretty sure that a lot of dudes out there do this and I'm not a freak...
The Extremely Depressing End of the Extremely Depressing Story
Yesterday, I walked into a barbershop and told the barber to make me look good. The barber asked how short I wanted my hair cut on the top versus in back. I responded that I didn't know. So she grabbed her comb and measured my hair: "Right now, it's 2 inches on the top... and... 2.5 inches on the back." That phrase sunk deep into my heart...
I'm sure you know what that means. I had a mullet. You know, longer hair in the back than in the front... "business up-front, party in the back"... Nothing makes someone a redneck as quickly as owning and sporting a mullet. It doesn't matter how many items are on the list of things I do that disqualify me as a redneck. I can't deny the fact that I had a mullet.
If you consider yourself to not be a redneck, and suddenly you realize that you have a mullet, your opinion about not being a redneck is automatially wrong. And let me attest, this will turn your world upside-down. My entire frame of reference as a non-redneck had shifted.
Now, before I just automatically qualify myself as a redneck due to my mullet, let me ask a question: Does it matter whether my mullet was inadvertent?
Be honest in your comments... my life, as I know it, depends on your answers.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Sunday, January 03, 2010
What The Next Decade Holds For Me
Since everyone else is coming up with their new goals for the new decade, I figured I may as well jump on the bandwagon. No, wait, that's not what I meant to say... I've never condoned "the bandwagon" or jumping onto it. While some who know me may claim that I've been a bandwagon jumper for years, this is, of course, not true. No matter how much evidence people present against you, you can never fess up to jumping onto bandwagons. You lose all credibility in all areas of life if you get caught bandwagon jumping. The bandwagon jumper's mantra is always to DENY DENY DENY! In the face of all evidence, just deny it all. None of it is true. You can always come up with some sort of reason that you needed to, or were forced into doing what you did. Justify your actions! Those who are prosecuting you as a bandwagon jumper want nothing more than for you to admit that you jumped onto that bandwagon. This is something you just simply cannot allow yourself to do. Never give the prosecution any satisfaction. Denial is so much more than just a river in Africa... it is the only useful tool to the bandwagon jumper.
With that said, I am not jumping on any bandwagons now... I'm simply sharing what I hope to accomplish in the next decade.
Actually now that I'm thinking about what matters most to me in the coming ten years, there is really just one thing that comes to the surface which will be the focus of the rest of this post.
My wife, three beautiful daughters, and I are about to finish building our first home. Let me clarify... WE haven't actually done any of the building. We have had the much more laborious part of the building process than the actual labor - we have had to make some decisions. Decisions like what color we want to paint the walls (er, I mean, what color we want SOMEONE ELSE to paint OUR walls), and another really painstaking decision: what color we want to stain the wood (again, I mean what color we want someone else to stain our wood), and so on and so forth. The easiest, most no-brain decision in the entire laborious process for us was to put in a super-sized water heater (three daughters...).
So you can see, this has been extremely energy-consuming work for us. Which brings us to where we are now. We are about one week from the house being complete. This is the perfect time to begin thinking about what I don't like about the house, since it is way too late to change it, although I guess it's nice to have a project already in mind for when we get "house project hungry". Seems like everyone we know with a house has a list of things they want to do to their homes.
At this point in time, after all the effort we have put into building our home, there is just one thing that I want to do in the next ten years:
Completely re-design the bathroom. Let me put it into some context. Our builder didn't give us many choices to make in the bathroom. In hindsight, I wish he would have let us completely design the bathroom from scratch. The rest of the house could have been a standard template floorplan with no customization, but the bathroom is where I want complete control (the last half of that sentence could be used in a lot of different real-life scenarios... feel free to quote me in your everyday life as circumstances require).
Here is what I want the bathroom to be.
-Two toilets, his and hers. Sort of like on that old Saturday Night Live commercial for the matching toilets. Just think of it - it would no longer be possible for the woman to blame the man for clogging the toilet.
-One urinal. Why don't we already have these in our homes? Why are these only used in public restrooms? Am I missing something here?
-Two bidets. Why do Americans claim to be the most advanced country in the world if we don't even use bidets? They leave you so much cleaner than toilet paper, so much more ready to face the cruel world outside. I want two of these in my bathroom so I don't have to share mine with anyone. The bidet would need to have a built-in blow dryer, since you never can trust a bidet towel. (The topic of Bidet Towels could require an entire blog by itself...)
-Everything made out of either inflatable or Nerf materials. This would eliminate all bathroom injuries.
-Circus mirrors. On days when I feel too skinny, I could use the mirror that makes me look fatter. On days when I feel too tall, I could use the mirror that makes me look shorter.
-Two showers. One that does not allow any loofas under any circumstances.
-A security system and a giant mega-phone. So I can watch what the kids are doing and give them orders from my throne.
-A dozen bathroom servants, who will do everything for me. Especially shaving, fanning me with palm fronds, and feeding me grapes.
May we all have a great decade with at least one attainable goal...
With that said, I am not jumping on any bandwagons now... I'm simply sharing what I hope to accomplish in the next decade.
Actually now that I'm thinking about what matters most to me in the coming ten years, there is really just one thing that comes to the surface which will be the focus of the rest of this post.
My wife, three beautiful daughters, and I are about to finish building our first home. Let me clarify... WE haven't actually done any of the building. We have had the much more laborious part of the building process than the actual labor - we have had to make some decisions. Decisions like what color we want to paint the walls (er, I mean, what color we want SOMEONE ELSE to paint OUR walls), and another really painstaking decision: what color we want to stain the wood (again, I mean what color we want someone else to stain our wood), and so on and so forth. The easiest, most no-brain decision in the entire laborious process for us was to put in a super-sized water heater (three daughters...).
So you can see, this has been extremely energy-consuming work for us. Which brings us to where we are now. We are about one week from the house being complete. This is the perfect time to begin thinking about what I don't like about the house, since it is way too late to change it, although I guess it's nice to have a project already in mind for when we get "house project hungry". Seems like everyone we know with a house has a list of things they want to do to their homes.
At this point in time, after all the effort we have put into building our home, there is just one thing that I want to do in the next ten years:
Completely re-design the bathroom. Let me put it into some context. Our builder didn't give us many choices to make in the bathroom. In hindsight, I wish he would have let us completely design the bathroom from scratch. The rest of the house could have been a standard template floorplan with no customization, but the bathroom is where I want complete control (the last half of that sentence could be used in a lot of different real-life scenarios... feel free to quote me in your everyday life as circumstances require).
Here is what I want the bathroom to be.
-Two toilets, his and hers. Sort of like on that old Saturday Night Live commercial for the matching toilets. Just think of it - it would no longer be possible for the woman to blame the man for clogging the toilet.
-One urinal. Why don't we already have these in our homes? Why are these only used in public restrooms? Am I missing something here?
-Two bidets. Why do Americans claim to be the most advanced country in the world if we don't even use bidets? They leave you so much cleaner than toilet paper, so much more ready to face the cruel world outside. I want two of these in my bathroom so I don't have to share mine with anyone. The bidet would need to have a built-in blow dryer, since you never can trust a bidet towel. (The topic of Bidet Towels could require an entire blog by itself...)
-Everything made out of either inflatable or Nerf materials. This would eliminate all bathroom injuries.
-Circus mirrors. On days when I feel too skinny, I could use the mirror that makes me look fatter. On days when I feel too tall, I could use the mirror that makes me look shorter.
-Two showers. One that does not allow any loofas under any circumstances.
-A security system and a giant mega-phone. So I can watch what the kids are doing and give them orders from my throne.
-A dozen bathroom servants, who will do everything for me. Especially shaving, fanning me with palm fronds, and feeding me grapes.
May we all have a great decade with at least one attainable goal...
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