Embrace Your Inner Trash

Does that thing got a hemi?

I have to agree with what Ann Landers once said. Class has nothing to do with money, and everything to do with how you carry yourself. Along the same lines, "white trash" is not a designation conferred by lack of money -- but a status conferred by behavior. There are matters of both style and substance, which can help make this determination. I have two categories -- one is major red flags, and one is warning indicators. I myself must be somewhat trashy, because I fit several of the minor indicators. Not trying to horn in on Jeff Foxworthy’s routine, here are my trash flags:

MAJOR RED FLAGS

1) Modular housing - If your house was manufactured, enough said
2) Ownership of pit bull dog; also ownership of any farm animal (sheep, rooster, goat) as a pet
3) Pickup truck equipped with: fog lights, roll bar, mud flaps, gun rack, confederate flag, or ultra high suspension; also Ford F250 or F350, when you didn't even need a Ford F150.
4) Mullet hair style, tattoos before they were even popular
5) Indoor furniture, appliances, old cars or other objects inappropriate to a front yard, in the front yard
6) Credit card viewed as free money; charged up to the max and only 'minimum amount due' ever paid.
7) Holding beer, unless asleep or eating.
8) Smoking cigarette, unless asleep or eating.
9) Complicated relationships with ex, current and future spouses

MINOR FLAGS

1) Processed food, spray-on cheese in pantry
2) Lazee Boy recliner
3) Artwork that is singing bass or dogs playing poker
4) Furniture with laminate surface, couches with Herculon ™ or other artificial fabrics
5) Most clothes bought at: Wal Mart, Target, Sam's, Kohl's, Mervin's or Academy Surplus
6) Wallpaper in every room (helps if it clashes), signs with religious slogans on wall or throw pillows
7) Fake flowers and fake ficus trees
8) Pet dander and dust bunnies everywhere

I myself fall guilty to items 1, 4, 5 and 8 under 'minor flags'. It is hard to extricate all the signs of trashiness, and be totally tasteful. I know a couple of people that escape all these flags, and they bore the hell out of me. Visiting their homes, I feel like I'm at a museum with yellow taped furniture. The overall message to glean from all this is to be yourself, be unpretentious and embrace your inner hillbilly. Life is too short to be emotionally constipated, prim and proper. Far better to commit the occasional faux pas, and relax. And that relaxed trashy person -- if it's congruent with who you really are -- is the best person of all.