A. Tell her you bet on the Thrashers and lost again?
B. Tell her you was robbed, but the guy only took $55 (don’t forget the juice) cuz he didn’t want to be stealing too much from no family man?
C. Tell her you happen to run into Father McGarry, and he was saying how they need money for the parish horseshoe league, so you donated $55?
D. All of the above.
If you answered A, you’re about to get your ass kicked. Even your woman knows not to bet on the Thrashers.
If you answered B, you suck at lying. Either quit betting or get divorced.
If you answered D, you’re good at talking outta your ass. You’d make a good drunk or a senator from Mississippi.
But if you answered C, you’re righteous White Trash.
The best way to turn a &%$#up into your advantage is to pretend like you did noble. If you tell your woman you gave the money to Father McGarry, she might be pissed, on account of she thinks Father McGarry is one of them perverts. But she can’t be mad too long, on account of women is suckers for doing good deeds.
That means whenever you blow your money, always say something noble, like you bought twenty-five boxes of Girl Scout cookies. Or they got a United Way drive at the plant. Or your girlfriend was short on the rent and you had to front her.
Problem is, pretty soon you gonna run out of noble stuff to say. That means you gotta find an auxiliary loot source.
Enter the boss.
He May Be Evil, but at Least He’s Stupid
The Scouting Report:
Raised by yuppies who forced him to play soccer at an early age…Wore lots of matching outfits…Couldn’t get a date for the prom…Flunked out of business school…Married a beefy woman named Darlene who whines like a opera singer with multiple gunshot wounds…Bought a red sports car…Failed the real estate exam…Got into bossing to take revenge on the world…
The good thing about bosses is they ain’t very smart. You probably didn’t know that boss in Swedish means, “Can somebody show me how to run the copy machine?”
Which means you got the advantage.
Say you laid fifty bucks on St. Louis and seven over the Eagles. A course you lost. What were you thinking, going with the Rams?
Problem is, you already spent most of your noble lies on your woman. So you gotta figure out a new batch of noble stuff to tell your boss so he’ll front you your paycheck.
Do you:
A. Tell him bad-ass space guys—way meaner than them guys from Star Trek—kidnapped you and forced you to bet on the Rams, on account of they don’t know no bookies on Earth?
B. Tell him you saw some orphans hanging out in the alley behind your house, so’s you kicked their ass on account of you figured it was them who stole your jigsaw last week, but then you found out wrong, so’s you had to buy ’em fifty-five bucks worth of Jim Beam to make up for it?
C. Tell him your kid is having an esophagus transplant, and you need fifty-five bucks to cover the co-payment?
D. All of the above.
Seeing as how we’re talking about the boss here, all of these lies should work—at least the first couple of times. But after awhile, he’ll be getting to suspiciousness. That’s why it’s best to lie about stuff he don’t understand.
Good lies is stuff like, “My daughter’s gotta get her pancreas eradicated” or “My wife’s getting a skin graft on her uterus.”
He won’t know what the hell you’re talking about, so he’ll have to fork over the money, otherwise the guys at the plant’ll be laughing at him more than they already do.
But pretty soon them pointy-heads in accounting will figure you got fronted on your paycheck till next July. They’ll cut you off. Which means you gotta get a new batch of lies for Arch-Nemesis No. Three, the bookie.
The Old Rich Uncle from Duluth Trick
This is where the lying gets hard. Bookies is trained professionals. They ain’t falling for nothing about pancreases or skin grafting.
Let’s look at the situation through his eyes: You bet on the Thrashers and the Rams; he knows you’re a moron. You been mumbling about your wife; he knows you’re in deep &%$# at home. And the boys from the plant already told him how you ain’t got no paychecks coming till July. That means unless you get to some serious lying, he’s gonna cash you in.
Which is where the Old Rich Uncle from Duluth Trick comes in.
Tell your bookie you ain’t got money this week on account of you had to go see your uncle in the hospital. How it wouldn’t be right that you, his favorite nephew—the one he always talked about giving his vending machine company to—didn’t visit him on his deathbed.
He’ll think you got scratch coming. He’ll let you slide.
The next time you can’t pay up, tell him you’re short cuz you had to go to Duluth again to talk to lawyers. Your uncle’s making you executor of his estate, which means your grubs will control the loot.
He’ll cut you more slack.
The trick is to string your bookie out like you’re catching a carp. First your uncle gets better. Then he goes back at the hospital. Then he got a spleen miscarriage. Then he recovers.
To make it look good, carry a picture of Keith Richards in your wallet. Pretend it’s your uncle. Your bookie ain’t gonna know the difference. All he knows is the guy looks like he’s gonna croak any minute, which means you’ll have big scratch to make more stupid bets on the Thrashers and the Rams.
But sooner or later, your bookie will get to figuring there ain’t no uncle. By this point, hopefully you’re on a winning streak and paid off your debts.
Then again, there ain’t a chance in hell of that.
Which leaves you three options:
1. Tell your woman you heard they’re hiring at a rendering plant in Arkansas. Get your ass down there right quick.
2. Get beaten to death with a steering wheel lock.
3. Rat your bookie out.
Option One ain’t that good. First off, Arkansas is hot and all they ever eat is grits, which is basically Cream of Wheat, only they can’t spell that so they call it grits.
Option Two is a little better, seeing as how if you bet on the Rams, you ain’t never gonna amount to much anyways. Problem is, by the time you get reincarnated, you’re gonna owe a &%$#load of child support.
That leaves Option Three: Rat the guy out. A course, Dr. Verne would never advise nobody to rat—except in special occasions, like saving your own ass.
If you can get a deal for probation, tell the feds all you know. The bookie goes away for ten years, you clear up your debts, and you can start thinking up new lies to tell your woman.
This here’s what financial guys call sound money management.
The White Trash Index
One of the biggest problems for us trash is math. Fact is, you ain’t getting on the road to financial security if you don’t know what the number thirteen means.
Big Mike understood this. He was our math teacher at the penitentiary, on account of he was in for embezzling from the Kmart lawn and garden department, so’s you know he could count.
But he wasn’t gonna teach us no calculus, cuz it sounded like it might be Chinese. And since he went to ’Nam, where them Chineses was always shooting at him, he wasn’t gonna do ’em no favors by teaching the boys back home no commie math.
So he got to figuring out this special White Trash math on account of it was more useful. You’d just memorize the following list so’s you could figure what them big numbers mean. You’d also get clued in on your heritage, seeing as how it was good for winning sucker bets at the bar.
So in honor of Big Mike, who ain’t with us no more on account of he got shivved over a pack of GPC menthols, repeat after me. Them funny things that don’t look like letters is called numbers. If you don’t know what they is, get a guard to explain ’em to you.
Babies needed to discourage your in-laws from thinking you’re a lesbian: 6
Legs you’ll have left after passing out on train track
s: 0
Average times it takes to pass the driver’s license test: 7
Dollars you’ll get from a pawnshop for a stolen circular saw: 10
Extramarital affairs for the average White Trash woman: 17
Extramarital affairs for the average White Trash man: 62
Times you’ve spiked your husband’s Old Style with Liquid-Plumr because of that last statistic: 9
Average number of beers consumed at a felony presentencing party: 326
Joints it takes to drive a forklift off a loading dock: 5
Number of beers it takes to bribe the plant urinalysis tester: 100
Proper number of years to wait before repainting your house: 58
Times you’ve taken a restraining order out against your husband: 11
Average number of people wearing blaze orange hunting jackets at a White Trash wedding: 24
Bags of Beer Nuts you’ll get by trading in the antlers of a ten-point buck at a bar in the Upper Peninsula: 39
Average dollar value of the jewelry stolen from the casket at a White Trash funeral: 28
Average number of death threats needed to get your damned HMO to cover your claim for a broken elbow you got in a brawl at Shea Stadium: 4
Number of lies you told to the job service counselor during your weekly meeting: 16
Number of teeth in the average White Trash male over age 27: 8
Shots fired during the average family picnic: 21
Times your uncle Mel’s been arrested for indecent exposure: 4
Blows it takes to kill your boss with a claw hammer: 3
Okay, seeing as how all this counting done hurt my head, let’s get our ass to the mailbag before our brains blow up and we gotta waste all our duct tape putting our heads back together.
What the &%$# Is a 401(k)?
Dear Dr. Verne:
What the hell is a 401(k)? I’ve heard the other shop guys talk about it during cig breaks, and I nod my head like I know what they’re talking about, but I have no clue. The only thing I know is that I have to decide if I want a little money taken out of my paycheck now so it will pay off later when I’m old.
The whole thing sounds like a great excuse to talk to Becky in the payroll department—she has some bodacious ta-tas—but I want to know what the hell I’m talking about. I don’t want to write those newspaper assholes about it because I want my answer in English.
So, Verne, should I sacrifice some cig and Beam money now? Will it really pay off when I retire? Is it true some suit-wearing, bottled-water-drinking pussy from New York will have control of my money?
—Confused in Reno
Dear Confused:
First off, a 401(k) is basically the same as a savings account, except they call it 401(k) cuz it was named by accountants who like giving goofy names to stuff so no one can understand it and you gotta hire their sorry ass.
The good thing about a 401(k) is it gets taken outta your paycheck before you can drink it up. Better yet, your boss, if he ain’t a huge cheap-ass like mine, usually kicks in some money, too. This means the boss is actually paying for the Beam you’ll be drinking when you retire.
The downside is that you probably ain’t never gonna retire, on account of 94 percent of all White Trash die from being mistaken for abandoned kitchen appliances and crushed in garbage compactors before they’re sixty-five.
The other downside is some candy-ass from New York is gonna be handling your money, which means he might blow it all investing in wine cooler futures. At which point you get some guys together from the union and kick his ass, which would be fun, which means it ain’t a complete loss.
Can Chicks Ever Really Respect an Accountant?
Dear Dr. Verne:
Speaking of sorry-ass accountants, I am one. I can’t satisfy my wife in bed. Can you tell me how to please a woman?
—Clueless in San Diego
Dear Fruity Accountant:
You being an accountant and all, you can’t expect your woman to get excited about going to bed with 178 pounds of blubber and gristle. But if you insist on trying, I got some surefire ways to please women, which might even work for accountants.
First off, you gotta set what you call your romantic ambiance. I’d start with some soothing love music, like ZZ Top or Sammy Hagar.
Then I’d make her one of them candlelight dinners. Bring out some nice appetizers, which is what fancy guys call the stuff you eat when you’re too hungry to wait for supper. Nothing shows a woman you got class better than deep-fried cheese sticks. But if you don’t want to stink up the house with the deep fryer, just throw some Cheetos in a cereal bowl.
Now most fruity guys %$#& up by going next with a salad. When you make your woman a salad, you’re basically saying to her: “I eat the same stuff as rabbits.”
I’ll clue ya, pal: Women don’t get excited about sleeping with rabbits. They’re looking for lions, which means you gotta go straight to the main course: potpies.
Nothing says romance better than a turkey potpie. Turkey is a bird, which is kind of like a dove, which is the symbol of love. Make sure you point this out in case she don’t get it.
Now she’s melting outta your hands.
It’s time, my friend, to repair to the bedroom—or the sofa if the bedroom got no TV. This is where a lotta White Trash get stuck. Guys is always asking me, “Yo, Verne, what’s the etiquette of watching TV when you’re supposed to be satisfying the old lady?”
Me, I judge this by the caliber of the game. Say it’s a dainty West Coast game, like the Lakers–Golden State. For that I don’t mind turning down the sound. But if it’s something good, like Pistons–Cavs, no decent woman should expect to get your full attention. If your woman squawks about stuff like this, you’re an asshole for marrying her and you deserve it.
Anyways, at this point you ain’t gonna have no problems. The potpies and ZZ Top already got her purring like them babes on the 1-900-NAUGHTY line. All you got to do is sit back, watch Ben Wallace, and let her do the work.
And when she asks about them miraculous sexual powers, don’t forget to tell her you learned it all from Dr. Verne.
You Don’t Know Nothing About Chicks
Dear Dr. Verne:
I was very disappointed after reading your worthless advice to Clueless in San Diego on how to satisfy a woman in bed. If ZZ Top, Cheetos, and potpies satisfy your White Trash woman, she must be faking it.
To please a woman, a real man needs to learn about a woman’s body, pay attention, take a lot of time, and do some of the play/work. You need lessons from a real woman.
—Bay Area Babe
Dear Lady:
First off, I don’t appreciate you intruding on my book. This here’s some self-help for decent Americans, not people who talk about crap like “empowerment” when they ain’t even discussing outboard motors.
Now it sounds like you been going to too many of them woman studies classes, otherwise you wouldn’t be yammering like this. As an expert in this field—seeing as how I seen more backseats in bar parking lots than any man alive—let me clue you in on satisfying the ladies.
Decent White Trash wouldn’t be interested in no woman who didn’t like ZZ Top and potpies. Right-thinking guys know if their woman is eating fruity &%$# like salads and fifty-eight-grain pasta, they won’t got big enough hips to do some quality child-bearing.
Now about faking orgasms: Of course they are. How many ladies you know is gonna have orgasms when they’re bedding down with some stinky guy who spent the last ten hours fixing mufflers? That’s why White Trash ladies look at guys the same as food: Volume is better than quality.
Take tonight, for your example here. All that’s on cable is the Clippers–Phoenix, which is fruity West Coast ball, which means they’re going dainty in the paint. Plus, my dart league don’t play tonight. Which means I got nothing else to do. Which means me and the little missus is gonna bring the ol’ pneumatic drill in for servicing about seventeen times.
Now I ain’
t claiming all them’s gonna be quality operations. But say I hit just .235, which is your basic backup shortstop batting average. That means I’m still knocking down four Big O’s a night. You telling me your sensitive ponytail guy can hit with that kind of power?
Now about learning women’s bodies: Hell, most White Trash learn this by age four, when they’re old enough to steal the old man’s Hustler.
I hate to say this, lady, but I think you ain’t being tolerant of our cultural diversity.
A lot of White Trash men think it’s good being a yuppie, seeing as how they get paid way more and don’t gotta date women who spit tobacco on the carpet.
Same goes for your White Trash ladies. They figure if they ditch the spandex and quit chewing their gum like some goddamned woodchuck, they could land one of them guys named Chad. The good thing about Chad is he don’t smell like roofing tar and got little stockbroker muscles so you can smack ’im around if he gets outta line.
Problem is, yuppie life ain’t all it’s cracked to be.
Skippy, Brittany, and Why Them Yuppies Ain’t Good at Love
Yuppies is like a baby varmint who lost his ma. They’re out there all alone in the woods of life, dainty little guys who don’t know how to hunt or shoplift. They’re defenseless. Which is why they wear them cute sweaters tied around their neck, the international distress signal for “Can someone point me to Old Navy?”
But say you wanna date Chad. And say you gotta bring him home to the family on Thanksgiving for approval. Your uncles is gonna be in the living room watching football and swapping pipefitting stories. They’re gonna take one look at Chad, pet him on the head, and make ’im fetch beers all afternoon.
And it ain’t gonna look good when your ma sets him a place at the kids’ table.
But say you don’t believe me yet. Say you’re still thinking about dating a yuppie. Let me clue you about your average yuppie date.
Skippy Finds the One
Skippy’s talking wine with the waiter, trying to be impressive, like he’s got a thin mustache and an ascot or something. The waiter ain’t buying, but he ain’t letting on either. Each table is worth twenty bucks in tips. Thirty if he kisses ass hard enough. That’ll damn near pay a month’s worth of cable. And if Skippy’s willing to spring for the cable, the waiter’s willing to not smack him while Skippy talks outta his ass about wine.
White Trash Etiquette Page 4
