I was only a mile away from work this morning when I stopped behind a pale, banana-yellow, jeep-like vehicle manufactured at least twenty years ago. In the back window was a Git-R-Done decal and another stencilled on the front windshield: Redneck. In red letters, of course.

I was immediately reminded of a field contractor my company employs. This guy attended school with me. He was a shy, geeky guy that had an unhealthy obsession with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I didn't see him for seven years until we hired him and he showed up in the biggest pickup truck I've ever seen. It was black as death and decorated with confederate flags, stickers of angry looking bald eagles, a shotgun rack, and huge muffler pipes aimed to the sky like a big rig's. It was terrifying. What happened to this guy? I know he's not a real redneck. He's a geeky suburban kid.

Now he wears camoulflage and carries the Skoal Points catalog in his ass pocket. His voice is too low and mumbly for me to discern whether there's a fake southern drawl thing going on. I have to assume he suffered brain damage from huffing too much paint thinner with his toothless grain alcohol chugging buddies.

I want to hang out with them one day. I've always wondered if it would be fun to hold squirrels in a bucket of gasoline until they reach the near drowning point, let them go, and then throw matches at the sopping little critters.

I've also never had the opportunity to laugh more loudly than necessary at things like "Dang I kint seem ta git mah hand around ta mah mud slope deez daze!"

I like cheap beer and farting so I'm sure we'll have something in common.

I got to work and the yellow obscenity pulled in behind me. It had turned away 3 minutes before. As it turns out he'd been taking a short cut that saved no time. It was the very same pseudo-hick that works for us. I didn't ask what happened to the black truck. 9:10 AM - Bottle Rocket Fire Alarm