THE RULES OF RURAL AMERICA OT

THE RULES OF RURAL AMERICA ARE AS FOLLOWS:

Listen up City Slickers !

1. Pull your droopy pants up. You look like an idiot.

2. Turn your cap right, your head isn't crooked.

3. Let's get this straight; it's called a "dirt road." I drive a pickup truck because I want to. No matter how slow you drive, you're going to get dust on your Lexus. Drive it or get out of the way.

4. They are cattle. They're live steaks. That's why they smell funny to you. But they smell like money to us. Get over it. Don't like it? Rt. 70 goes east and west, I-65 goes north and south. Pick one.

5. So you have a $60,000 car. We're impressed. We have $150,000 corn pickers and hay balers that are driven only 3 weeks a year.

6. So every person in rural America waves. It's called being friendly. Try to understand the concept.

7. If that cell phone rings while an 8-point buck and 3 does are coming in, we WILL shoot it out of your hand. You better hope you don't have it up to your ear at the time.

8. Yeah, we eat tater & gravy, beans & cornbread. You really want sushi & caviar? It's available at the corner bait shop.

9. The "Opener" refers to the first day of deer season. It's a religious holiday held the closest Saturday to the first of November.

10. We open doors for women. That is applied to all women, regardless of age.

11. No, there's no "vegetarian special" on the menu. Order steak. Or you can order the Chef's Salad and pick off the 2 pounds of ham & turkey.

12. When we fill out a table, there are three main dishes: meats, vegetables, and breads. We use three spices: salt, pepper, and ketchup. Oh, yeah.... We don't care what you folks in the city call that stuff you eat... IT AIN'T REAL CHILI!!

13. You bring "coke" into my house, it better be brown, wet and served over ice.

14. You bring "Mary Jane" into my house, she better be cute, know how to shoot, drive a truck, and have long hair.

15. College and High School Football is as important here as the Lakers and the Knicks, and a dang site more fun to watch.

16. Yeah, we have golf courses. But don't hit the water hazards -- it spooks the fish.

17. Colleges? We have them all over. We have State Universities, Community Colleges, and Vo-techs. They come outta there with an education plus a love for God and country, and they still wave at everybody when they come for the holidays.

18. We have a whole ton of folks in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. So don't mess with us. If you do, you will get “whooped by the best.”

19. Turn down that blasted car stereo! That thumpity-thump stuff ain't music, anyway. We don't want to hear it anymore than we want to see your boxers. Refer back to #1.

20. 4 inches isn't a blizzard - it's a flurry. Drive like you got some sense in it, and DON'T take all our bread, milk, and bleach from the grocery stores. This ain't Alaska, worst case you may have to live a whole day without croissants. The pickups with snow blades will have you out the next day.

You might want to change that to Hyundai, Honda's are built in rural Ohio by a lot of rural Ohioans. There's a Toyota plant in SW rural Indiana too, lotta corn fed boys working there also.

1.Don't order filet mignon or pasta primavera at The Waffle House. It's a diner. They serve breakfast 24 hours a day. Let them cook something they know. If you upset the ladies in the kitchen, they'll kick your a$$. 2.Don't laugh at the names of our family, (Billy Joe Bob, Merlene, etc.)or we will just HAVE to kick your a$$. 3.Don't order a bottle or a can of soda here. Down here it's called Coke no matter who makes it or what brand. Accept it. Doing otherwise can lead to an a$$ kicking. 4.We know our heritage. Most of us are more literate than you. We are also better educated and generally a lot nicer. Don't refer to us as a bunch of hicks or we'll kick your a$$. 5.We have plenty of business sense. You have to to make a living down here. Naturally, we do sometimes have small lapses in judgment from time to time, but we are not dumb enough to let someone move to our state in order to run for the Senate. If someone tried to do that, we would kick their a$$. 6.Don't laugh at our giant fiberglass cows and our tractors made out of car parts. Anything that inspires tourists to buy 50,000 postcards can't be bad. We'll kick your a$$. 7.We are fully aware of how hot it gets here in the summer, so shut the h3&& up. Just spend your money and get the hell out of here or we'll kick your a$$. 8.Don't order the vegetarian special at the local Cracker barrel. Everyone will instantly know that you're a tourist. Eat your steak rare like God intended and have some potatoes with that, for heaven's sake! Also, don't ask what a hot dish is or we'll kick your a$$. 9.Don't try to fake a Southern accent. We don't have an accent. Do NOT mention the movie "Deliverance" as that will incite a riot and you will get your a$$ kicked. 10.Don't talk about how much better things are at home because we know better. Many of us have visited big-city h#$%-holes like Detroit, New York, and LA, and we have the scars to prove it. If you don't like it here, Northwest Airlines is ready when you are. Move your a$$ on home before it gets kicked. 11.Yes, we know that bass fishing is "not your thing." We don't care. If you don't understand the beauty of being out on a lake when it's 70 degrees then you should go home and try fishing in New York Harbor. Also, don't hog the couch in the lake house or we'll kick your a$$. 12.Don't complain that the south is flat and that there aren't enough trees. If you whine about OUR scenic beauty we'll kick your a$$ all the way back to Cleveland. 13.Don't ridicule our mannerisms. We only speak when spoken to. We hold doors open for others. We offer our seats to old folks because such things are expected of civilized people. Behave yourselves around our sweet, little grey-haired grandmothers or they will kick some manners into your a$$ just like they did ours. 14.So you think we're quaint or losers because most of us live on farms? That's because we have enough sense to not live in filthy, smelly, crime-infested cesspools like New York or LA. Make fun of our fresh air and we'll kick your a$$. 15. We know its not your fault. You didnt do all of those things you say the law claimed you did, but come down here and complain about it, and that will probably get your a$$ kicked.
16. AND LASTLY, a truck is a truck of many given shapes and forms.They are not some big mass of metal with leahter seats, custom carpet and GPS devices. Our trucks work for us, and we take care of them the best we can. We dont need GPS because we know where we are going. call your SUV a truck, and we'll kick your a$$.

YA'LL COME BACK, YA HEAR?

we have a few of these issues, but living in the center of the county, in the center of the state, in the center of the US helps some. Unfortunately I fear these things are coming. Everything seem to be building like crazy.

Gene Painter
Pilot Grove, Missourah