White Trash Etiquette

by Dr. Verne Edstrom, Esq.

  Now I ain’t saying I can help you get outta this alive. But if you do it right, you could probably get through with just a suspended sentence and a good place in line at the liver transplant clinic.

  Tips for Dressing Proper

  Now there’s two kinds of parties—the kind with kin or your buddies, and the kind where you might be called to fancy up for a spell.

  The first kind don’t call for no dressing up. Hell, if it’s at your sister-in-law’s house, you probably don’t need no clothes at all, seeing as how she’s looser than the tranny of an ’87 Yugo.

  But say you got your special occasion. Maybe it’s a presentencing affair for your brother’s three-strikes conviction. Maybe the treasurer down at the Teamsters hall just beat a RICO case. Or maybe profits is up 129 percent this year, so your boss is finally gonna throw you an Xmas party, seeing as how it’s way cheaper than giving you a raise.

  Your woman is gonna be pumped. It’s that one time of year when she gets to wear the fancy dress she got from Sears for your cousin’s fifth wedding back in ’93. Okay, so maybe she put on ten or twenty pounds since then. Hell, maybe it was fifty if your stump-grinding business is going good and you got extra money for Stovetop Stuffing.

  But there ain’t nothing finer than a woman in a tight black dress, even if she is your wife.

  Problem is, that means you gotta dress up too. Try jaking outta this all you want, but your woman’s gonna be pissed if you figure on wearing your Carhartts and a Chicago Bears hat.

  Give in on this point. From where I’m sitting, you’re gonna get in a lot bigger trouble before the night’s done, so’s you might as well score some points early.

  Think about some nice flannel that got no blood on it from field dressing deers, maybe your Marlboro jacket, and your best steel-toes—the ones that got no bearing grease on ’em.

  This, friends, is what you call class.

  The Torture of Mingling

  Mingling is the worst part of any fancy party. In case you didn’t know, it’s Ojibwe for “I’d rather eat a rich lady’s china cupboard than yap with you.”

  When you first get there, everybody’s acting like one big happy family, which they ain’t, and like everybody cares about everybody, which they don’t. So if it’s a work party, that means you gotta mingle till you naturally separate into bosses, white-collar guys, and decent working people, at which point you can start getting hammered.

  But be careful. This is the one time of year the boss acts human. That means he might talk to you.

  He’s gonna want to meet your woman, ask about the family, tell your wife how good of a worker you is, even though he only pays $6.40 an hour and thinks your name is Harry.

  You also gotta make an impression on the boss’ wife. A few tips for scoring in this situation: Try not to talk about fan belts, drinking the worms in tequila, or the burglary you did at that hair replacement clinic.

  She being a rich lady and all, you gotta talk refined. Try saying some deep and thoughtful stuff like, “The Cavaliers ain’t gonna be &%$# this year if LeBron don’t start hitting the three,” or “You know any decent places for trout fishing around here?”

  This is what you call subtle. Rich folks is impressed by that. Next thing you know, she’ll be telling the old man how refined you is, you get promoted to foreman, and next time your woman needs a dress, you got the jack to score one from someplace really classy, like Target.

  The Respectful Guest Always Brings a Gift

  Okay, so say your kid goes on a meth bender and ends up proposing by accident to some rich girl from one of them places called Barrington Woods Estates. You figure she’s a skank, on account of she don’t like Hank Williams Jr., but the missus says you gotta go to the engagement party the girl’s folks is throwing. Besides, it won’t be that bad; rich people always got good TVs.

  Anyways, you gotta bring a gift. It’s the international sign for saying, “Hey, thanks for letting me come over and drink up all your liquor.”

  Now it don’t matter if it’s a wake, an anniversary, or you’re doing a home invasion robbery and you wanna show a little class—me, I always wrap up a hockey stick. It’s good for unclogging gutters, pushing your kids outta the way of the TV, or beating your neighbors who squawk about all the broke snowmobiles in your front yard. You can also use it to hold up vines in your tomato patch or hunt deer when you’re too broke for ammo.

  So while everybody else is bringing them dainty little pen sets or some goddamned fruit baskets—What? Do they figure the host got sired by some guys from the marsupial family?—you’ll be the only guy showing real class.

  Danger! Open Bar Ahead!

  There comes a time in every trash’s life when he’s confronted by something so big, so menacing, that there’s no turning back. Yep, I’m talking about the open bar.

  (At this point, it woulda been good to cue the ominous music, like they do in movies, which tells you some scary-ass scenes is coming up. I was thinking Mushroomhead or Slipknot might be good. But seeing as how Broadway Books is too cheap to spring for a soundtrack, on account of they probably spent all their money on scones and venti, which is rich people food that got no meat in it, just pretend some scary music got played right here.)

  Putting an open bar in front of White Trash is like throwing a batch of naked cheerleaders into the prison exercise yard. You’re in trouble. I ain’t even gonna advise you on this on account of you’ll be in a coma by morning, so’s you won’t be able to thank me. But I got some suggestions:

  1. Belly up to a crowded part of the bar. When you pass out, you’ll land on someone else first, instead of going straight to the floor and smacking your head too hard.

  2. If you gotta barf, do it with class. Never barf on the bar. Just bend down so no one sees, barf, then throw somebody else’s coat on top of it. Nobody’s the wiser, and the bartender won’t cut you off.

  3. Once you got about nine or fourteen shots in you, anything with two legs is gonna be looking fine. But don’t go pawing at the waitress. This also gets you cut off. Make sure you paw at the wife of a buddy who’s littler than you. Which leads us to…

  Nothing Better Than a Good Brawl

  According to section 4.32 of the White Trash Constitution, “Any party, wedding, funeral, or holiday gathering must include at least one brawl. Catfights or stomping parking lot attendants do not fulfill this requirement.”

  Which is why it’s your sacred duty to do a little knuckling.

  Just remember: It ain’t your fault. It’s the fault of whoever got the bright idea to spring for an open bar. Moron shoulda knowed better.

  Now it’s always a good idea to pick on little guys. Whisky don’t taste good if your mouth is bleeding. Little guys usually punch you in the stomach or neck, which don’t cut into your drinking ability.

  But make sure you win. If you get your ass whupped by the midget whose wife you was pawing at, most guys’ll figure you’re a cross-dresser or a Dodgers fan. So if you’re too hammered and might lose, fake like you’re having a pancreas failure. Your buddies won’t know what that is. They’ll give you shots of Beam to make it better. And nobody’ll punch you out for at least a year, on account of they don’t wanna catch no pancreas failure, too.

  Bonus Round for the Ladies

  Okay, ladies, so say you’re at the company party, and your old man has ignored you all night. Now he’s back to pawing at the midget’s wife. That means you got diplomatic immunity to do some tomcatting yourself—and finally score a decent man.

  My advice: Do the old Heaving Chest Maneuver on one of them front-office guys.

  Two things you gotta know about white-collar fruities: First off, they’re part girl, so you gotta check to make sure they’re capable of reproducting activity.

  Second off, they got the romantic powers of a smoked muskie. But at least they’re into that sensitive stuff, which means they’ll think it’s therapeutic if you get drunk and start talking about poisoning your husband with some Weed-B-
Gone.

  Of course, the front-office guy’s trophy wife is gonna be pissed. Don’t worry. You could whup her two days from Hell on account of all she eats is SlimFast and celery. Besides, she’ll be ascared you’ll put bruises on her, which won’t match her jogging suit when she’s power walking at the mall.

  When the trophy wife ain’t looking, drag Mr. Fruity into a supply closet. Once he gets a taste of that good trash, he ain’t going back.

  And if he’s gonna keep the affair going, he’s gonna have to schedule your old man for overtime to get him outta the house. That puts you in the bonus round: You got an extra man on the side, and there’s more overtime money for scoring Lean Cuisine.

  The Best Way to Drunk Drive Is in Someone Else’s Car

  Once it gets past ten, the bosses and the white collars usually go home, on account of they can’t hold their liquor and gotta jog on their NordicTracks. Which means for the next few hours the decent people got the bar to themselfs. Which means you can brawl, have domestic arguments, and wreck stuff.

  But sooner or later the dainty little %$#@ with the bow tie behind the bar, who’s probably working his way through law school so’s he can sue grandmas and orphans, is gonna call it closing time.

  Enter your biggest problem of the night: drunk driving. Seeing as how your woman took the truck to meet Mr. Wussification at the Holiday Inn, you either gotta walk it, hitch it, or catch a ride.

  But the smart trash knows there’s another option. See, you figured the evening would go like this. You’d get hammered, your woman would get pissed, she’d take off with a white-collar fruity, and you’d be stuck hoofing it. Which is why she drove your truck, and you borrowed your buddy’s.

  The best way to drunk drive is always in someone else’s car. Say you end up careening through a Pontiac dealership, or you figure you’re gonna park in the showroom of a pet store. You’re gonna be too hung over in the morning to deal with it. Which means you don’t want your name on the title, on account of it’s way better if the cops come looking for your buddy instead.

  If a major accident happens, just abandon the truck, hitch a ride home, and tell your buddy it was stolen.

  After all, he’s your buddy, ain’t he? He shouldn’t mind giving of himself so the truly needy can sleep off an open bar. Ain’t that what friendship is all about?

  All that talk about open bars is making me thirsty. Which means we gotta change the subject, otherwise I’ll be bolting down to McCarthy’s, where they got one-dollar beers and the waitress sneaks you shots of Jameson if you bum her cigs.

  Which means I won’t be coming back. Which means I’ll never finish this goddamned book. Which means I’ll probably have to end it with a whole bunch of blank pages and call it performance art.

  Problem is, my editor is from the Silicon Valley, where they’s known for making fake boobs. And it ain’t gonna look too good if I’m all beat up in the bread line at St. Malachi’s tomorrow, and I gotta explain that I almost got pummeled to death by some fake boobs.

  Which means we gotta stop talking about liquor and get to the other most important part about home life: dogs and varmints.

  Really, Eunice, I Thought That Dog Was a Minnow

  Dear Dr. Verne:

  My wife finally flipped. She went out and bought one of them high-dollar fluffy yip dogs. You know, the kind you use to clean out your shotgun? Now I know what you’re thinking: “Why don’t you just be a man and put your foot down, you big sissy?” But ya see, Verne, Eunice is one fine piece of woman. When this woman wears spandex, there isn’t one man who don’t turn his head. So I needs to know how to tell her that the dog has to go diplomatic like.

  —Bob in Quincy, Illinois

  Dear Bob:

  You don’t gotta tell me Eunice is stepping dynamite. I seen her do karaoke at the Viking Lounge before. If it wasn’t for that big scar on her cheek, she could get a job at Hooters.

  But women is funny about them fufu dogs. I don’t know how you’re gonna tell her it’s either you or the dog without you being the one staying at Motel 6.

  Me, I’d lie.

  Now most self-help guys will tell you lying ain’t good. But they ain’t married to Eunice.

  My advice is to take the dog hunting and leave it out in a field, then tell your woman he ran away. If that don’t work—seeing as how fluff dogs ain’t easy to drag outta the car—then I’d use it for walleye bait. Just tell Eunice you mistaked it for a large minnow and that you’re terribly sorry and that’s why you bought her this black Lab to make up for it.

  As I recall, Eunice may be USDA-inspected Grade-A meat, but she ain’t no master mechanic upstairs.

  Newlywed Varmint Storage Problems

  Dear Dr. Verne:

  Each winter my friend Jeff has been trapping coon and storing them in the freezer until he had enough to sell. (The buyer don’t want Jeff skinnin’ ’em ’cause he ain’t very good at it.) Now that Jeff got married, things changed.

  His wife spotted a frozen paw sticking out of a garbage bag and resting on a leftover wedding cake she’d saved. She made him remove the coons and then she threw out the cake.

  Jeff can’t store the coons outside ’cause the dogs eat them, or it warms up too much and they bloat. His mom lives down the road and lets him use her freezer, but it’s a small one and filled up fast. He even asked me if I got any extra fridge space.

  Seems to me he ought to solve this problem back home instead of shipping coons out across the county. What’s your thoughts on this?

  —Concerned on the Mesabi Range

  Dear Mesabi Range Guy:

  Jeff gotta lay down the law, only it ain’t as easy as it used to be.

  Back in the old days, a guy could tell his woman how it was gonna be, and she’d listen. Hell if I know why. It just was.

  But now they got this marital equality. That means you got what they call shared responsibilities, which is the fruity way of saying men don’t got it good no more.

  Me, I ain’t exactly partial to it, on account of in the old days all we had to do is howl and drink and forget to pick stuff up from the grocery store. Why be a moron and give that up?

  But under this shared responsibility, you gotta divide the bossing evenly.

  Take Jeff’s wife. She oughtta be in charge of cooking, cleaning, and tending after the kids and money, on account of women don’t drink up paychecks as much.

  Jeff, he should be the boss of fixing stuff, shooting at the stray pit bulls, and saying where the dead coons is stored.

  Problem is, Jeff’s wife is probably one of them feminisms who gone to college. She’s looking to get say over the freezer, too, so she can expand her sphere of influence, which is military talk for saying Jeff’s about to get his ass kicked.

  That’s why most decent trash get a little something going on the side. Business guys call this finding an auxiliary supplier. If Jeff was to score himself a side honey—I hear there’s a woman at the Mountain Iron bait shop who’s loose—then he’d also score an extra coon-storing facility.

  But what I’m really thinking about is that wedding cake. You know where Jeff’s old lady tossed it? I wouldn’t mind you sending me a piece if you could find it.

  Is It Okay to Shoot My Neighbor?

  Dear Dr. Verne:

  I got a problem. It seems that my neighbor in the blue trailer (you know, the one with no roof) has been parking his Pinto in my driveway. This makes me mad ’cause I just done laid new gravel and I ain’t got to use it yet.

  I asked the preacher what I should do about it, and he said I should share (mostly cause I don’t have a car anyway), but I don’t wanna share.

  What I want to know is this: Can I shoot him, or should I put a certain yellow bodily fluid in his still?

  By the way, can you get sick by drinking varnish?

  —Arnie in Savannah, Georgia

  Dear Arnie:

  Your first mistake was talking to that preacher, who wasn’t even good enough to get into the Priest Unio
n, so he had to become a preacher, who don’t even say Mass, just some cheap-ass services.

  But the preacher’s right about one thing: A guy should share. It’s okay to share stuff like pry bars or Pall Malls or the leftover ham your woman cooked in April, seeing as how it’s green now anyways.

  But driveways is a different story. It says so right in the White Trash Constitution: “Thou shalt not covet they neighbor’s wife or driveway.” Which means the guy in the blue trailer’s probably a Satan worshipper.

  In most states it’s okay to shoot Satan worshippers, just so’s you wait till hunting season and don’t bag over your limit. But I don’t figure the point of putting yellow bodily fluid in his still.

  First off, it’s against the Sacred White Trash Ways to wreck a batch of liquor. Think about all the starving children in Africa who coulda drank it.

  Second off, if you got yellow bodily fluids seeping outta you, I’d get your ass to a doctor. It sounds like your radiator might be leaking, and if your heart don’t get enough coolant, it’ll probably blow up and get guts all over your good recliner.

  Now about the varnish. It says on the label you ain’t supposed to drink it, but that’s just sissy talk made up by pointy-head scientists who can’t hold their liquor or their industrial wood treatments.

  I say it’s okay to drink, but it’s better when you mix it with some OJ and gin.

  I Cheated on My Cousin and Killed My Uncle’s Bird Dog

  Dear Dr. Verne:

  You gotta help me! I was at a family reunion at my Uncle Billy’s place when it all happened. My cousin Marty caught me in the bedroom naked with his wife. She started it.

  Anyways, while I was taking the gun away from him, it went off. The slug went through the floor of the trailer and killed my uncle’s bird dog.

  Now my wife is mad at me and I ain’t getting any. Besides that, I ain’t got three hundred bucks for no new bird dog. Everybody’s mad at me. What should I do?