What Country Is

I would like to start this blog post by just letting y'all know that this man in the video above, Luke Bryan, is my mother's husband.

Psych! Not really. She wishes.

Today, I threw out my cigarettes. Tomorrow, if I can figure out how to do it, I will be removing the Browning sticker from the back of my beloved 1999 Dodge Durango that has been mentioned in previous blog entries.

I have had an epiphany, and its not a silly one like when I discovered that shampoo and conditioner can come in seperate bottles or that my friend's German Shepherd dog doesn't speak German. No, this one is much closer to my heart, and I'm feeling a little ashamed of myself that I haven't realized it before.

Taking a smoke with the boys at work doesn't make me country.

Advertising for Browning, Mossy Oak, Realtree, or any other hunting supply company by slapping their sticker on my truck doesn't make me country.

Sporting a John Deere or Farmall hoodie doesn't make me country. All it means is that I paid way too much money to advertise for a company that makes tractors that I don't even own, and 99% of the folks who bought the same hoodie don't own either.

There is no way that I can "country-fy" myself. I could spend a stupid amount of money on Wrangler jeans, Fat Baby (barf) boots, or Realtree hoodies, but that won't make me country. All it will make me is a broke idiot with no money in my rhinestoned, camouflage wallet (which I do have and its frikken cute). Spending unnecessary amounts of money on material things is actually quite "uncountry". That money could be better spent on an egg incubator, or a goat.

There are more trends that people seem to believe are "country", and some of them are quite depressing. Newsflash - being racist does NOT make you country! It makes you ignorant, and that's nothing to be proud of. Sure, I don't like driving through the ghetto of Lansing after dark, but that doesn't make me racist. Its scary down there in the hood. If the folks that resided there were Canadian instead of black, I'd probably be wary of Canadians, but in fact I quite adore Canadians. I love their accents and when they asked for "choco-bars" at the store I used to work at. Do not let this lead you to believe that I am against the rebel flag. I'm a firm believer that the rebel flag represents the history and heritage of the South, and I have nothing wrong with that.

Being labeled as a, pardon my French, b*tch is also not exactly "country", although I have several friends who happen to think that being a b*tch is very "country" and it ups their status quo with other "country" people. What ever happened to Southern hospitality? Sure, we're in Michigan, but since we're all so racist-redneck here in the fake South we might as well take the good with the bad, right? To be fair, I used to pretend that I was a b*tch too, but it didn't work out.
I guess the moral of the story is this: I don't decide who is country. I do have pretty good poser-radar myself but that doesn't make me the judge, just the jury. I'm not calling myself country either. Sometimes I do things that make me feel country, such as when I go pick up feed in my beloved, beat to pieces, rusty but trusty 1999 Dodge Durango, butcher some rabbits, drop off processed chickens to customers, or spread rabbit poop on the dormant vegetable field (it is NOT a garden, it is a field). That doesn't make me country. That's for other people to decide. I'm just having fun playing in the mud, and so should all the other country girls.

This post was dedicated to all of the female high school FFA members wearing Carhartts and John Deere caps who refused to gut their own chickens at the Michigan FFA Poultry competition that my place of employment hosted because it was "yucky" and "gross". You all bring shame to your families and I'm embarassed to call you my FFA peers.

(This added later)

Oh! Oh! And another thing!

To all of you mall girls who strut your stuff in your fancy clothes, tan on a regular basis, and spend too much time making yourself something you're not but still chasing country boys? Guess what! You can fake it all you want, and try as hard as you can to be be a princess cowgirl, but you're not gonna get any sort of country boy worth his weight in good black dirt. Cut the crap.

I'm done now.