Jake has been hard at work overhauling his new truck for the past month, and he’s finally finished. A little backstory on the truck. He bought it used for a “very good price” from a local guy here in town who I think drinks a lot of Mountain Dew and goes to Nickelback concerts because the truck, in my estimation, is the equivalent of a Country Kitchen All You Can Eat Buffet on wheels (read: redneck bait). Jake pretty much dismantled it and made it into a legit work truck, fit for a hardworking manly man such as himself.

I hate this truck. To me, it represents that one half of this marital unit is living high on the hog, making enough money to splurge on what I consider non essentials, while the other one of us has to make due with Walmart brand “Bran with Raisins” Cereal, and pretend to be happy even though she’s more of an organic, gluten-free Kashi GoLean Crunch kind of gal.

Where was I?

Oh yes, let’s see a before and after of the truck, shall we?

Before: An unadorned flatbed, perfect for making sweet sexy times to someone named Darnella Coots or Kyshalia McCrud under the stars in a place called Palmer’s Hollow.

After: No more sexy times. The flatbed now features more metal workboxes than a Radio Shack r&d facility.  Each one will store Jake’s excessively thorough collection of tools. The man owns 20 hammers so he needs lots of boxes.

Before: “Cow mobiling” mud flaps. That’s right. Mud flaps that say “cow mobiling” on them. I don’t know why. The flaps are punctuated with a pair of elegant longhorns.

Snazzy, oui?

After: Unadorned, slogan-free mud flaps. No longhorns. The strip of reflective metal on the bottom still makes the taste level questionable, but I think my husband is like a squirrel; he likes things that are shiny.  If you ask me, shiny mud flaps are the equivalent of a bedazzled sweater at Christmas time. But nobody asks my opinion about stuff like this.

Another after shot: The chrome casings have been removed from the tail lights.

Before: An exaggerated muffler that sounds like a bunch of fat dudes rolling by on a fleet of choppers.

After: Whoa! The muffler is still there. Jake told me he’s getting rid of it. Says that cost is a factor right now.  But I think he secretly likes it.  I think that if we weren’t together, he’d have two on each vehicle.  For now, I think he’s trying to placate me by telling me “the muffler will go.” Uh huh.  Sure. Whatever.

Verdict: The truck is still pretty much redneck. But at least now there’s a legit utility behind all the redneckedness.

I hate this truck

I hate this truck because it’s so redneck

Like a can of chewing tobacco on wheels

Like a turkey fryer on a flatbed

Like a pet ferret with manual transmission

And it’s parked in my driveway

Purchased by my husband two weeks before the birth of our first child

Under the pretext of needing it to “improve efficiency”

For hauling heavy machinery from fencing job to fencing job

My ass

My reputation

My husband

Who might be a redneck

That’s what it’s come to

Granted, he bought it used

Pre-accessorized with all kinds of whimsical redneck flourishes

Like chrome “cow mobiling” mud flaps

And chrome-plated door handles

That look like they came out of a Cracker Jack box

No further proof is needed

Of my rural hell

Except for maybe this

It’s a muffler

That’s really

REALLY

Loud

Somewhere nearby a cardinal slowly dies

Strangled by the sound of the muffler’s torturous roar

As this truck still idles in my driveway

Waiting for its new owner to tame its lusty needs

(and strip away some of its redneck cheese)

(I hope)

While his wife must make due with Walmart’s

House brand Raisin Bran

And other bits of off-brand grocery

The End.

My friend Pauline and I went to a big garlic festival this weekend.  The best moment of the event was sampling a local vintner’s wine — and by “local”, I mean he was a unkempt roughneck who had a bloody shaving nick on his chin   — while tasting some of his finest cheese.  The cheese came from an aerosol can.  It was Cheez Whiz.

Imagine the scene if you will:  Me sipping a glass of pumpkin pie wine with one hand with a fingerful of Cheese Whiz in the other as a smiling hillbilly with a bloody chin stands before me. It was….very real.

Here I am, trying my hardest to adapt to life in the country with a big ole grin on my face…and my husband rolls into our driveway in this:

It’s his latest truck. Brand new. He loves it like a city guy loves Philippe Patek watches. It confers instant status. Working man cache. It says, ‘I’m so busy building stuff I basically need a dump truck to get me where I need to go.’  That, and ‘watch me run your Prius off the road.’

I have a sneaking suspicion that word of his purchase has already swept through the back roads and byways of our rural county like an outbreak of genital warts at a Motley Crue after-party. Working dudes around here make it their job to keep very close tabs on what other dudes are driving.

If you’re female and reading this, I’m sure you feel my pain. You must. (Heck, most dudes within a 50-mile radius of a city can probably commiserate.) What woman can look at a truck like this in her driveway  and not come to the conclusion that when her husband dons a trucker cap…..he really is wearing it un-ironically?

What’s next? A stock car? A pet ferret?

The setting: At a t-shirt kiosk where the quality of the merchandise veers…. deep into the woods, shall we say. (An example: A t-shirt depicting a bodacious babe spilling out of her taut bikini top as she struggles to hold up the head of a freshly slaughtered buck. The tagline reads: “Rack hunting.”  Har!)

The t-shirt vendor is overheard saying to a potential customer: “Sorry, I had a massive run on all my ‘stars and bars’ shirts here awhile ago. Imagine that….’stars and bars’ selling out in rural Virginia. Hyuck! Hyuck! Hyuck!”

Stars and bars = the confederate flag. Around here, that flag is still flown with pride.

This truck is hot

Normally, I’m not into old trucks.  

They’re a reminder of life’s choices.

But this truck caught my eye. It’s a vintage Ford painted with “poor man’s” black primer.  It was purchased for $1,500 by a New York City firefighter-slash-bartender, who was recently down here visiting his buddy, a good friend of ours.

(“A New York City firefighter-slash-bartender.” Damn, this guy must get some action.)

Around here, it could be considered just another old truck. 

But in Manhattan, it’s like a hipster with chest hair.  Rolling up to the firehouse on Great Jones in Manhattan, where this particular firefighter is apparently stationed—a place where ladies tend to linger—well, this truck pretty much guarantees its new owner will be starting more fires than he puts out.

Some men look at porn.  

My husband looks at Truck Trader, which, for those of you not familiar with this august publication, is like a second bible for rednecks.  A sister magazine to the illustrious Auto Trader (immortalized in the movie Joe Dirt starring David Spade), Truck Trader is a compendium of big trucks for sale in any given region, and my husband has been getting off on its collection of sultry photographs more than usual lately.  

See, he’s in the market for a new hauling machine, one that is bigger, badder and more voluptuous than the one he currently rides in—a hefty 450 diesel power stroke Ford equipped with so many bells and whistles, and more flashing lights than a Vegas show sign.  He’s looking for a new work truck that has four to the floor chassis, a 550 diesel quadriphonic engine with laser quatro power stroke diesel hammer fire.  

Or something like that.  

Every time he starts telling me what he’s in the market for, I have to use my upmost concentration to cling to my brain cells or risk losing my neurons to the back of my skull.  I forget all train of thought, my eyes glaze over, and I mumble, “Mm-mm. Oh?? Sounds nice, dear.”  I have no idea what airleaf suspension or a day cab is, nor do I really care.  But I think the main reason I tune out once he starts talking trucks, or when I see the latest Truck Trader on his bedside table, is because the topic brings into unalterable focus the realization that my husband might be a redneck.  Did I marry a redneck?  For most former Cosmopolitan/Glamour editors, this is a question that is never pondered.  Yet I find myself asking it on a somewhat recurring basis.

Am I surprised?  No, not really. After all, we met at a rodeo. In Montana. I was writing a story about it. He was one of the competitors—a bullrider.  The guy has been horned in the face twice by a bull, and thought it was cool both times.  When he got kicked in the hand by a horse and broke a finger, he set the injury with a popsicle stick and an extra absorbent Maxipad.  He’s as tough as he is happy-go-lucky.  So while I am merrily hitched to one of the most dashing, risk-taking, manliest-of-men, hilarious, brilliant, and utterly unique human beings imaginable, there is a flip side to all that awesome-ness.  And the flip side is Truck Trader.