Redneck Studies

I've been studying my brother for some time now and I am beginning to get a handle on the concept of "Redneck" especially the southern variety. For one thing, it's an acquired trait. My brother was born and raised in New England and has lived everywhere from the northern plains to southern California without betraying any such tendencies previously.

One of the primary traits is the habit of trying to come up with original yet ad hoc solutions to common problems, attempting to bypass the ways of the world as it were, without, at the same time, covering all of the possible, and often obvious, consequences.

For example: My brother decided, a couple of years ago when gasoline prices were going through one of their regular and in no way manipulated spikes, to do a little hydrocarbon arbitrage. He bought a number of plastic jerry cans and filled them with regular unleaded in an attempt to lock in the price. The full cans he then stored in the shed out back.

Let's forget the opportunity cost of tying up cash in a volatile commodity.

The redneck point is: The shed is not watertight. Neither are the jerry cans. By the time the price of gas had risen enough for him to feel justified dipping into the strategic reserve, the cans contained probably 98% distilled petroleum and 2% H2O. I had to rescue him more than once before we figured out why his truck kept conking out on him (invariably in the middle of the night).

Although he no longer tops off the truck from the cans neither has he disposed of the contaminated fuel. (Note: Review the concept of sunk costs.) Apparently, a couple of weeks ago he filled the tank of the lawnmower from one of the cans. The lawn is now knee high and the grass is literally going to seed. (The length of time it has taken to fix the mower, this time, is not entirely his fault since Mom put the receiver of the phone in her room (Why does she even have a phone in her room?) down backwards which took the entire house off-line for the weekend (we don't use the land line much) causing the lawnmower repair guys to get a busy signal and delay returning the mower to us.)

The last time the mower needed repair (August) he bitched and moaned for a day and a half about the cost. This time, not a word. Which means he knows it's his fault. The repair guys didn't just find water in the tank. Spiders (more accurately, spider corpses) were clogging up the carburetor, too.