Just the Facts about Rednecks

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Grab a paddle. We're gonna take a canoe ride down a Class Five river in the heart of Appalachia!

We've got everything we need. Plenty of food, plenty of beer, matches in plastic bags, and sleeping sacks bound up in trash bags. We're gonna rough it.

Dump the stuff in the canoe, shove off, down we go into the white water.

Our stupid city slicker asses sink like stones after about 3000 yards.

Every redneck knows why. Because we didn't shroud the canoes, and the first little slaps of whitewater swamped our canoes and sank 'em like stones.

That wouldn't make for a very interesting novel, now would it? But there's a novel (and a movie) called "Deliverance," in which certain city slickers set off in canoes and have perilous adventures in wild Appalachia, never having taken the trouble to shroud their canoes.

We rednecks say: "Deliver us from Deliverance!" We are so goddamn sick and tired of being portrayed as ignorant butt-bangers who date our siblings and crap off our back porches.

I'm a goat judge by trade, and that makes me familiar with a lot of rednecks. And frankly, if my car broke down on a mountain road, I sure as hell would rather see a redneck coming in the distance than a Professor Emeritus of Economics from Oxford University.

Rednecks know how to fix things. They know how to get up in the morning, fill a thermos, and do a day's work for honest pay. They know how to treat dogs, women, and grandparents kindly. They know how to relax at the end of the day, with a beer or two and maybe a smoke. Some of them go to church, some don't, but fully 90 percent of them won't cheat you and won't fight you unless you start it.

I know gay rednecks, I know girl rednecks, I know black rednecks, I know rednecks that can tell the difference between a woman crashing down a mountainside through thick brush and a deer doing the same. I've never met a redneck who wouldn't stop in the dark of night to help someone change a tire. And no, Flannery darlin', they don't cut your throat after putting the spare on.

Jeff Foxworthy has made himself famous telling jokes that begin: "You know you're a redneck if..." Have you ever noticed how witty those jokes are? Someone had to be pretty smart to think them up. And this is what makes me the craziest in all of this. Who came up with the bright idea that rednecks are stupid?

My grandpa was a redneck. He grew up in a house with no plumbing and never wore shoes except in the coldest winter months. Guess what, Mr. Oxford? My grandpa invented a drill that could put five holes side by side in the end of a human hair.

All of this is Anne's way of saying that James Dickey never took a goddamn canoe ride in his life, and when King Arthur returns at Armageddon to fight for his people (that's us rednecks), the Four Horsemen are gonna turn tail and run like rabbits.

Rednecks don't talk about things. They got a job to do, they get it done. Mark my word, Osama. And you, too, Dobson. When y'all crash and burn, it'll be a redneck that mops up and moves on.

IT'S A REDNECK THANG, AND IF Y'ALL DON'T UNDERSTAND, IT'S YOUR F&*#(*&IN LOSS.

Come set a spell. Take your shoes off. Stay as long as you like.
ANNIE'S SORRY SHE EVER LEFT HOME