Redneck Review

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Circus of the Absurd














How Redneck do you have to be to wear this to Thanksgiving dinner?
I think the house would have wheels on it. Now don't you trailer trash
people go getting your panties up your butt (Oh, you already do. They're
called thongs!). I spent my first 12 formative years in a home on wheels,
so I'm allowed to use the TT words. Now you might notice that this offer
is an exclusive. Don't go buyin' no cheap knockoffs of the Turkey Table
Hat. The inventors at Collections, Etc. might go all crazed crystal meth
addict on your a$.

Actually, this photo was just to snag your interest. We will now return
you to your regular programming, which is of course all about ME!
ME ME ME! ME stuffed into a chicken stuffed into a duck stuffed
into a turkey. I call it momturducken. With a side of greenMEEEEn
Funyun casserole, and a MEcan pie for dessert. The beverage would
be Cherry Vanilla Diet Dr. ME. No, I'm not serious. I can't stand
that stuff. It would of course be Cherry Diet ME, or Classic ME.
Guess who's not coming to dinner at my Thanksgiving table? That's
right. All of you!

So getting back to my tales of working for the state unemployment
office....I was out of my element. I am from Redneckland, all white
people all the time. We are all pretty similar. Except for that Nub
guy who pushes himself around in a little red wagon. Dadblastit!
There I go again! That was on Burt Reynolds' TV show, Evening
Shade. I mean Big Larry, the 500 lb. guy who walks all over town
hitching rides in the back of pickup trucks. Imagine if he didn't get
all that exercise walking!

My job in South St. Louis was an eye-opener! They had different
kinds of people working there! There must have been 4 (count 'em,
4!) Black people! (Well, it was South St. Louis, after all, which is
not so very different from Redneckland). There was a Little Person,
and a woman with an oxygen tank, and an albino, and a closeted
gay man (that's what the workers told me, anyway), and some
Catholics, and a Lutheran, and I think even a Jewish person. Plus
two women who wore sensible shoes, but I didn't get any other
vibes from them, so they must have just been Midwesterners with
comfortable feet. Now comes the Circus of the Absurd part. It wasn't
that great diversity that made the work environment strange. It was the
actions
of the people.

My cronies in the unemployment claims department were not so
crazy, as I knew the method to their madness. Familiarity breeds
understanding of their coping methods. Alice would do anything to
be in control, so she was our ringmaster. Shirley was the sad clown,
always nervousing (thanks, Cowboy, from Big Brother 5, for that
new word) that she had punched something into the CRT that couldn't
be fixed. Paul was the magician who always fixed it. Cliff the temp was
the Slowest Man On Earth. Eileen the temp was the Oldest Living
B****. Bob, the albino claims supervisor, was the driver of the clown
car, miraculously coming up with workers to move the crowd when it
seemed there were not enough workers scheduled. Larry, the supervisor
of the technicians, was the lion tamer, keeping the tantrums to a minimum.

The Job Service side of the office was certifiably nuts. They didn't
have enough work to do. Nobody came to the unemployment office
to look for work! So they spent the day sitting in each other's cubicles
talking about us. Carol, the oxygen tank lady, was like the bearded
woman. She scared everyone, because they didn't want to turn out
like her. Jane the Little Person wasn't nuts, but people treated her
as if she would break, and tried to do things for her that she would
rather have done herself. Pat the employment service technician
belonged under the Big Top. Word had it that in the downtown
office, she threw a pencil at another worker in a disagreement.
She lived alone and played Nintendo and walked about a mile
home from K-Mart with a blue hard-plastic kiddie pool on her
head for her cats to swim in. Go figure. Diana, the job counselor,
wore two different shoes to work. (No, Mabel, she didn't have
foot surgery. She got dressed in the dark). Shirley pointed this
out to Diana after lunch, and Diana said, "I wish you hadn't told
me. Now I'll be self-conscious the rest of the day." Lois was
divorced, but her ex-husband lived in the upstairs of her house.
Lois had connections, because she used to work with Kathleen
Madigan, the comedian. Gina and Cynthia were the two popular
girls who got their way. They put the sign-in book away at 8:00 am
on the dot, but would get it back out if one of their buddies was
late. They were like corrupt ticket-takers, skimming the till.

I was constantly amazed at what people could get away with.
Joyce, the 60-something claims tech that worked in the cubicle
next to me, seemed on the surface to be a nice little grandmotherly
woman. She wore a wig, but nobody would ask why. Her shoes
matched her purse. Her fingernails matched her pastel sweater/
skirt sets. She was calm, very genteel, and called everybody
"honey." Then one day she finished taking an appeal in person
from a Middle Eastern guy, turned to me, and said, "Typical
Sand N****r." What?!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was speechless. These
people were much more racist than the Rednecks I was used
to. Their excuse was "You haven't been around them like we
have. You don't know what they're like." Which was just hard
to take from people who are supposedly smarter than average,
because you have to get a pretty good score on the merit test
to be interviewed and hired. It's not like I was working with
a bunch of 8th grade dropouts who had never been out of
Hooterville.

Speaking of Hooterville, I eventually got a transfer from that
office to one that was two blocks from my house in Redneckland.
I worked there until a big reorganization that made the claims
all automated, done by phone. But it left Job Service people
working, in a job where nobody ever came to see them. Hey,
I could have taken a transfer to the downtown St. Louis office,
or to Springfield, but by then I had my #1 son, and didn't want
to drive or move.

And yeah, I drew unemployment for 26 weeks. Because I could.

Friday, September 30, 2005

Part 2-Politics in the Unemployment Office

All the people that worked with me at the Unemployment Office
had to take a state merit test to get the job. They call the people
with the highest scores. So nobody there was dumb. I did not
especially want people to know that I had been teaching for several
years before I took this job.

Apparently good ol' Bob, my supervisor had told everyone about
me before I reported for work. Because I would overhear Alice
and her crony Eileen the temp saying things like "well, she has a
degree" while they were looking at me over the tops of their half-
glasses. Now I wasn't puttin' on airs. I would have preferred they
didn't know. Alice would dump a day's worth of PI folders on me,
and say, "I don't have time, could you file these for me?" I didn't
mind. I figured she had been there longer, and I could stand to pay
some dues. These things were filed by SS#, so you had to put them
all in order, then find the file drawer where they went. That little
plan backfired when Bob started paying me overtime to do the
filing when I waited after work for my Hillbilly Husband to pick
me up. So then Alice would answer the phones after the receptionist
of the day came off the desk, and transfer all the calls to me. Or to
Shirley, because she started the same day I did. Or to Paul, because
she flat-out didn't like him. We played along with this little game. The
trick was to be really friendly with the caller, and offer to look up
his claim on the CRT. The longer you were on the line, the fewer
calls you had to take.

We got a new guy named Judd who told everyone he had 3 degrees.
We were not impressed. In fact, Alice said, "Then why are you
working here?" Judd lived at home with his mother, even though
he was in his mid-30s. He looked kind of like that TV guy
Christopher Lowell. He once accused me of telling him to "get off
his f***ing a$$ and call some G**d*** PIs." That went all the way
to the office manager, on a day I was on vacation. Filthy coward!
That is not my style, as anybody who knows me personally would
attest. I prefer to snipe about people behind their backs, and avoid
confrontation. So they put a note in my file because of the complaint,
while the little liar got away with it. The claims supervisor, Al, said
he believed me completely, but that they had to do something due
to Judd's complaint. I think they were afraid Judd would pull the
gay card and make a big stink. His motive was to get out of doing
PIs, because he was a claims technician, but everyone started training
by doing PIs. This did not go over well with my carpool driver, Paul
who was the type who would have said such a thing to Judd if he had
been working with him that day. Alice put aside her dislike for Paul
and agreed, and vowed to "fix that little prick."

Claims technicians made a little more money, and their main duty
was to adjudicate claims. That means they called the employer and
the claimant, and decided which one was telling the truth, and whether
the claimant got unemployment with no DQ, or if there were a certain
number of weeks penalty before he could get it. Within 6 months, they
had an opening in that department, and Bob promoted me.

My new boss was Larry, who looked like a flesh & blood Ned Flanders.
He was very calm, and had a good idea of what was really going on.
We had a couple of prima donnas in that department. Larry kept them
in line. Our desks were at the back of the office, behind the claims
deputies. We wore headsets because we were on the phone all day.
Each morning we got a list of calls to make during certain time periods.
We had to pull the file, call, and write determinations. Our name went
on the decisions, so some claimants would call and ask to talk to
specific people. They were usually irate because they had been DQed.
You had to explain how that decision was reached, and tell them they
could file an appeal. Much of the day was spent waiting for employers
to call back. We left the headsets on, because you never knew when
you would get a call, and you could just plug in to any phone that was
close. The receptionists knew not to give general calls to people wearing
the headsets, because they were on calls that day.

Judd sat right in front of me. He always wore his headset, even on days
when his duty was mail, or purging files, or filing appeals. Alice had
waited for her revenge, and as soon as he finished his training with the
deputies, she gave all calls to him after the receptionist left. He answered
them the first couple of days. Then he complained to Larry. Larry told
him that was part of his job. Then the rest of us started getting calls, while
Judd didn't. I went up front to consult Alice, who by this time was nice to
me because I did my job well. Alice said, "I am sending them to him.
Why doesn't he pick up?" The call would go back to the front desk, and
some of the Job Service people would intercept them, and look back
at who wasn't talking, and send the call to us. When several of us got
calls specifically asking for "Judd," we knew he was not answering.
Alice called Larry, who walked over to Judd's cubicle and turned up
the volume on his phone. "You've got to keep this where you can
hear it. You're missing calls." Judd acted like how did that happen?
Then the next day he did the same thing. This time, Alice hollered
across the office: "I think Judd needs to turn his phone up!" Larry
went in again, and he was not happy. He sternly told Judd that the
phone volume was not to be turned down, consider that a warning.
Judd was really pissy after that. He would try to go file or make
copies, but he would have to run back to his phone, because Alice
still sent them. She would even tell callers, "Let me transfer you to
our technician, Judd. He will be happy to help you." Then if a call
went back, they would say they were on hold for Judd. Alice was
a freakin' genius. If she was on your side.

Tomorrow, I might explain what a United Nations of Misfits this
office was. Or I might do something completely different. Depends
on the buzz I get from my Sonic Cherry Diet Coke.

Thursday, September 29, 2005

The Unemployment Office

No, don't worry about me. I haven't been fired. Redneck Diva left
a comment yesterday to leave my work at work. Bossy little vixen,
isn't she? Anyone who has ever been a teacher knows that is impossible.
It is kind of a stressful job. In fact, I got fed up with it one time, paid
off my car and my house (hey, it was a $17, 900 house) and quit.
That's right. I couldn't take the heat, so I jumped out of the kitchen
and into the fire. That's the kind of thing my Hillbilly Mama would say.
She kind of mixes things up. Like that movie, Death Becomes Her,
was referred to as She Looks Good Dead. But I digress.

I quit. We didn't have the two boy young 'uns yet, just my Hillbilly
Husband's boys on the weekends. I figured I could find any old kind
of job that was better than driving 60 miles one-way to work, and
bringing home stuff that kept me up until 11:30-12:00. I landed a
job at Casey's General Store for 6 weeks, but that's another story.

I took some state merit tests, and was called for an interview with
the Missouri Division of Employment Security. It is really the
unemployment office, but we weren't allowed to call it that. They
hired me, and guess what! It was in St. Louis. A 60 mile drive one-
way. I started thinking this was not such a good idea, since I was
making about $2000 a year less.

Once I got to working, I loved it. THE WORK DID NOT COME
HOME WITH ME! When work was over, I didn't think about it
until 8:00 the next morning. Not even 7:59. I didn't mind the drive.
HH and I rode together and he would drop me off. He worked a
few miles away. When he took a job closer to home, I found a work
buddy to ride with.

I should not have liked this job. It was back in the day when Old
Bush ruled the land. Since so many people were out of work, with
not many good jobs to be had, Old Bush gave the masses extended
unemployment. That meant they got another 13 weeks of benefits
after their original 26. Those union guys were in deadbeat heaven.
They had to make ONE contact per week looking for work--their
union hall. The others knew how to play the game, which was plain
to see when their job search was in alphabetical order. They just
looked in the yellow pages and wrote down employers and phone
numbers. Remember George Costanza and Vandelay Industries?
It was like that, without the private office for that woman worker.
Out attitudes were pretty much like hers, though.

My job was to take PIs or to take new claims. We alternated by
how the supervisor assigned us. Usually 3 deputies (my title, not
law enforcement) and 2 temps would take the PIs, or personal
interviews. To do this, we'd take a work search log out of the
basket at the reception desk, call the person's name, and take
them to our cubicle. There we would punch in the SS# on a CRT,
review the work search log, update the file, and send them on
their way for another 4 weeks. The key was to listen and see if
they'd disqualify themselves by admitting to working for cash one
day, or being home sick. The sure way to start a riot was to pull
the PIs from the top of the rack, not the bottom. People had to
wait over an hour, sometimes two, thanks to Old Bush. We could
do a PI in about 5 minutes.

Taking new claims required calling a number, like waiting in a
bakery. Some people came in for a number, went to the bar
across the street, and called in every so often to see what number
we were on. New claims could suck the life right out of you,
especially an interstate claim. They were not on computer. You
had to use at least 4 forms, sometimes more, depending on the
state. Each one was different. We had a file of all 49 other states.
The Illinois claims were breaking our backs. We were on South
Broadway, a hop skip and a jump from Illinois. People had the
right to file in any office, though the claim was based on the state
where wages were paid. They liked ours, because they said we
were nicer than the downtown office on Washington Ave. We
had a worker, Alice, who would tell the Illinois people: "If you
were smart, you would go file this in Illinois. They can do it on
their computer and it will be faster." She was right. It could be
2-3 weeks faster. Of course they did not want to say: "I'm not
smart, so I want you to do it." Alice held the record for getting
rid of Illinois claims.

We had a temp, Cliff, who was ex-Army. He was very professional
and very thorough. One day Cliff called a number, and the guy
jumped up and begged to trade with anyone. A guy 20 numbers
behind traded, and the original guy still got out ahead of Cliff's
claimant. Cliff liked to take a nap on his 15 minute break. Under
the table in the break room. He would lie down, set his watch
alarm, and cross his hands over his chest like a corpse. It was
quite unnerving if you didn't know Cliff had gone into the break
room ahead of you. Our supervisor, Bob, was the closest thing
to a friend that Cliff had. Bob was ex-Air Force, and admired
Cliff's work. Paul, my ride, was also ex-Air Force and told Bob:
"I'd do great work too, if I only talked to 7 claimants a day."

The penalty for being good at your job was that you got stuck
doing PIs on Mondays and Tuesdays. The people who had
worked there longer took to dragging their feet, so they got
to do new claims. Our best team was Paul, Shirley, me, and
our temp Lynnette. We usually got stuck with Cliff, but we
worked around him. Throw anyone else into our mix, and
it was ON! Oh, you want to be slow? I'll be slower. You've
only called 3 people? I'll wait until you catch up. Pity the poor
unemployed fool who came in on a day someone wasn't
pulling their weight. Good ol' Bob came to help us sometimes.
He was that kind of guy. He was also kind of albino, but that
was beside the point. He was from Minnesota, for crying out
loud. He didn't need melanin.

We lived for break time, when the smokers would light up
outside on the picnic table in the parking lot, and the non-
smokers would walk a block to the 7-11, being careful to
avoid the guy who pushed a lamp up and down the sidewalk
in a grocery cart. 7-11 had coffee, and Big Gulps, and banana
Slurpees. Not to mention Little Debbie cakes sold individually
for $.25. Our drawers were full of snacks. We were pretty
good about it, though Shirley swore that when she worked
downtown, a woman opened her drawer one day and took
out a slice of watermelon and started eating it.

We did not have any security guards at our office, but they did
downtown. We had a guy who worked for Probation and Parole,
and you could tell some of his clients. He had to get stern with
them. "Look, Buddy, it's 98 degrees outside and you have on
a jacket. Unless you just dislocated your shoulder, I'd say you
have a gun in there. You ever bring that back in my office, I will
report you." Because he was that kind of guy. He gave them a
chance. We never had any claimants go ballistic.

Tomorrow: office politics at the unemployment office. Please
come back and read it. I'm like Sominex. Read Hillbilly Mom
and SLEEEEEP.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Hillbilly Mutant Turtle Mom

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This is what my students think of me. I'm stylin' in my American
flag contacts and my imitation Dracula choker. Observe the rosy
glow in my cheeks that comes from wiggling my way into my
designer faux pineapple turtle shell. I know how to accessorize
too, what with my jet-black cape and my green-apple toenail
polish on my hooves. Cause I ain't got turtle feet no more--I had
the cosmetic surgery to remove those ugly claws. When I save
up more of my hard-earned moolah, I'm going to have that
unsightly green stump removed from my rump.

This is a picture that a student gave me. It had "To Mrs. Hillbilly
Mom, From So-and-So, Happy Halloween." So maybe it isn't
really an artist's rendering of moi. But you know, it's all about
ME ME ME, so I just assumed...And you know that when you
assume, you make an a$$ out of you and me.

What else do you know? Let's have a little test, shall we?
Let me answer for you: "Yes! Please! Give us a little test!"
Oh, all right, since you insist. Did you know that....

A rabbit with a hole in its head will sit in the road until a policeman
picks it up and puts it to the side?
Parking spaces marked "visitor" are for the teacher who gets to
school latest?
When disagreeing with allowing religious activities to be held at
school, it is proper to start the statement with: I am not a devil-
worshipper, but...?
Just because you have a secretary does not mean you are more
important than the rest of the help?
Pickles are made from cucumbers!
Black electrical tape holding the lens in your glasses is not a good
look on picture day?
If people stop talking when you enter the teachers' workroom, it
does not necessarily mean they are planning a surprise party for you?
Telling the teacher he is going to Hell because he is Catholic is not
considered polite?
Every now and then, a discussion of someone setting oneself
ablaze is hilariously funny, though a bit politically incorrect?
Slowing down to the speed limit because a kid in a 1970s model
Datsun is tailgating you will make him swerve wildly back and forth?
A Burger King soda left in the car overnight will leak out of its cup
and leave a stain on the floor mat, but the kid who left it will not
believe you and say: "Let's fill it with water and leave it in the sink,
and if the water has gone down in the morning, that means it did
leak out in the car" ?
The kid will never know if you pour the water out after he has gone
to sleep?

Put your names on your papers and bring them to my desk. Find
something to do quietly until everyone is finished.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Witness Protection Program















This is how my Hillbilly Husband takes a picture. No worries about
my kid being identified by "Fitty," the 55-gallon barrel killer. I barely
recognize him myself, except for the unstylish black shoes with white
socks.

This is #1 son. He belongs in the Kleptomaniac Protection Program.
I don't know where this kid stashes things. We have searched the
house numerous times. Somewhere there is a treasure trove of our
missing items.

What does the kid take? Would it be, oh, I don't know....money, or
candy, or porn (not that we have any)? NO! Here is what has
disappeared, one by one, over the past couple of years:

12 pencil sharpeners
40 pencils
8 pairs of scissors
17 rolls of tape
5 fingernail/toenail clippers

Pencil Sharpeners-We started with the little plastic kind that you hold
over a wastebasket and turn your pencil to peel off shavings. Then
when those disappeared, we got the kind with a clear plastic flip thingy
to dump when it was full. Next was a kind like schools have, with a
handle, and a suction cup to hold it on a counter. Then came the battery
kind where you stick the pencil in and it grinds itself. The latest version
are the small kind that are see-through plastic, and you push the pencil
in the hole and it grinds. My Hillbilly Mama even bought each boy one.
Now they are both gone, plus the one I bought to keep on the homework
desk.

Pencils-He must eat them. Or he thinks they are disposable. We finally
get one sharpened, and then it's gone. Then HH has to whittle one with
his pocket knife.

Scissors-Every year I buy each boy one for school. They bring them
home at the end of the year, and they're gone. Also, my orange-handled
Fiskars (2 pair) are gone. Even the one I've had since before I married
HH. And my heavy steel black-handled scissors, and my imitation black-
handled Wal-mart counterfeit Fiskars. The ones in the kitchen drawer
are AWOL. What's the kid doing, performing surgery?

Tape-Heaven help you if you need to tape something around the
Hillbilly Mansion. I buy a 4-pack of Scotch tape, and all that is left
is the cardboard holder. I had to glue wrapping on a birthday party
gift. Santa gets discouraged when he's got a lot of wrapping to do
at 3:00 am. Is #1 son making a mummy on the sly?

Fingernail/Toenail Clippers-Eeewww! This is not normal. Not to gross
you out, but nobody else could have taken them. HH and I do our
clipping in the master bathroom, with our feet propped on the big
triangle bathtub. We clip #2 son's nails. This is done by commanding:
"Go get the clippers! Now take them back!" #1 clips as the mood
strikes him. Or when I say, "That is nasty. Look at your big ol'
woman-fingernails." He leaves the clippers lying around until we
command him to put them away. So now he must be hiding them.
In the last 2 months, we have lost 2 giant toenail clippers, 2 regular
fingernail clippers, and a pair of baby fingernail clippers with little
balloons painted on them. All we have left is a plain pair of tiny baby
fingernail clippers.

This kid is 10 years old. He is headed for a life of crime. Oh, not the
good stuff, like embezzling a fortune. The petty stuff. White collar
crime. Pilfering staples and paperclips and post-its and pens from
work. Hardly worth the effort, boy. If you do the crime, make sure
crime pays.

DISCLAIMER: Do not steal. It is wrong. It is very wrong. Even if you
get A LOT of money. Do not do it. You will get caught. You will have
to go to trial and have a bunch of freaking idiots on the jury.

Monday, September 26, 2005

EEEEEEEWWWWWWW!!!!

We had quite a shock this evening as I was preparing supper. By that
I mean I was eating the pepperoni off #2 son's Little Caesar's $5.00
pizza while he ran down to the basement fridge to fetch a mini Sierra
Mist. The boy returned empty-handed.

Where is your soda? (Gotta get all the food groups, you know.)
I couldn't get one loose from the ring thing. Oh, and there is a giant
worm down there.
What?
A big worm. It is by the TV.
#1! Go get your brother a soda. You were supposed to take them
loose from the plastic, so now you have to get it for him.

This got no argument from #1 son. Verrrrry unusual. No doubt, he
wanted to see the worm. He ran down and got the soda.

Hey! There's no giant worm down here!
Yes there is. Look on the rug by the TV.
EEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Is it like a fishing worm?
No. It is shiny.
Does it have legs?
I don't know.
Is it slimy?
No, just shiny. It is crawling.

He came running up the steps, squealing like a little girl. Then he
grabbed his camera and took off back to the basement. Nerd.
He snapped a pic and brought it to me, because I refused to go
down there or even look.















I called my Hillbilly Husband, who had just left work for the 40
minute drive home. He would know what to do.

Is it a snake?
What!
Is it moving? You better watch it or it'll get away.

No way was I watching that thing for 40 minutes. I got a glass
sun-tea jug. #1 said, "That won't fit."
I got a glass soup bowl.

Can't you get a plastic one?
Yeah. If you want it to get away!
Get the glass one!
It's a good thing you didn't step on it. Then you would get the heart
and the colon and the organs all over your foot.

#1 took the bowl and trapped the worm. Then he said it was moving.
Nobody would go back downstairs. We could see the bowl through
the stairwell. HH got home and his buddy, Buddy, called. "Get off the
freakin' phone! You can call him back!"

HH picked up the worm with his bare hands. That's what he is good
for. Buggy things and cleaning up vomit. He held it in his palm. "It's
just a rolie-polie bug." MY A$$! It was a rolie-polie bug four inches
long, curled up like one of those big colorful lollipops on a wooden
stick. Only he was battleship gray. And probably not so tasty.

HH waltzed him around the kitchen, near my food, and then took
him out to the porch to set him free. What's this world coming to?
Climb into the handbaskets, people, for the long slow ride to HELL.
Can we not even kill a BUG anymore?















Here he is in all his glory, crawling across our 2 x 6 porch
boards. So he can come back in, I guess.

I know it is a millipede. This is as good as any textbook photo.
Props to my 10-year-old photographer. So I know it's not a
bug, it's an arthropod. I used to teach science for cryin'
out loud! These things are creepy. I do not want them in
my house. There is a mysterious case of the open basement
door that I have yet to investigate. I will keep you posted.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Hillbilly Momfeld's Breezeway















Time for a picture. I have been boring myself to sleep lately. I don't
have anything to talk about, so I will go on and on about nothing. I
fancy myself to be the Seinfeld of the blog world. A blog about
nothing. Alas, I am not talented enough to claim that title. So I shall
call myself Hillbilly Momfeld.

This is a picture of our breezeway, between the side porch and the
garage. I took this photo because it was raining, but you can't really
see it. What you can see is all the junk my Hillbilly Husband has
accumulated on that potter's bench or whatever he calls it. I call it
a junk collector. Let's see what's on it, shall we?

The first thing I notice is the cat. She is not a permanent fixture. She
only appears when she hears people. Because to her, that means
FOOD. Notice that she is right next to 3 jugs of Meow Mix. We
buy the giant bags and pour it in those jugs so we can demand that
#1 son feed them. Normally, these jugs are in the garage. I guess
we are running a self-serve food bar now.

On top of the extra shelves to collect more junk are two cannisters
of fish food. These are for the overgrown goldfish in our hillbilly
fishpond. The cats like to eat the fish food, so they knock them
off all the time. That allows the neighbor's dog to run off with them.

Next we have an empty goldfish bowl with blue rocks. There are
3 stacks of empty flower pots. The big white thingy is a rotisserie
that my grandma gave us for Christmas 3 years ago that didn't
work. I think Grandma was a re-gifter. HH fixed it, and we use
it on occasion to roast Save-A-Lot cornish hens, which HH calls
"little chickens." Our yellow and white bad cooler is at the end.
A redneck can never have too many coolers. That's why we keep
them even if the lid is broken and the inside is cracked.

The bottom level has 2 Power Wheels batteries that do not work.
Duh. Our kids are 7 and 10, their Power Wheels Jeep days are long
gone. I think maybe we could get rid of the nonworking batteries.

Down there by the black tuxedo-looking cat, there is a cannister of
some type of cleaner. HH brought it home from work. I guess he is
waiting for one of the kids or animals to eat it. He is not very safety-
conscious. That blue flower pot was in the fishpond holding the
pump. Which must mean that the pump is not working now.

The long troughs are for feeding the cats. Four eat out of one, and
the anti-social long-haired white calico inappropriately named "Snuggles"
dines alone from the other one. That box with a hole in it is our cathouse.
I know. HH said he wanted to build a cathouse. Imagine my relief when
this is what he came up with.

Hanging from the porch ceiling is a twisty-thingy my grandma gave
us that is made from a 2-liter soda bottle. It is one of 3. Hmm...
Anybody into numerology? I am afraid to find out what all these
2s and 3s are about.

That tiger cat in the foreground was the runt of the litter. Then one
day he started eating. He wouldn't leave until he ate the last crumb.
He grew and grew, and now he is the bully. His name is Simba,
and he has a face full of scars from trying to bully Snuggles, who
is not from his litter, and is having none of it.

The brick sidewalk is made of bricks from the road behind our
old house. The city put in a blacktop road, and HH and our backyard
neighbor told them to pile up the bricks in our yards. We hauled
them out here, and HH built this brick sidewalk at the side and front
of the house. Problem is, they grow moss and are quite slippery.
These have moss. They are on the north side of the house. I never
believed that thing about moss growing on the north side of a tree,
either. The front sidewalk does not grow moss. Go figure.

Lastly, we have part of HH's rock garden. He had to buy a couple
truckloads of lava rock for the base. Then he scavenged some rocks
from my grandma, who belongs to a rock club. He has some petrified
wood and some fossils, and, well, just a bunch of rocks.

The big puddles on the porch and sidewalk are from the rain. Not
because the 5 cats and 1 dog got together for one big circle-pee.

Oh, and lest I forget--the Christmas lights stay up all year long. (Ha!
My mind was wandering and I typed 'all year wrong.') Yep. It's
not a redneck house without the permanent Christmas lights.

There now. Aren't you nice and snoozy and ready for bed? Oh, I hope
no one was reading this at work. Yeah. Hillbilly Momfeld. You could
bottle me and sell me as a sleep aid.