Family Thanksgiving: Tabacco and Meth Production

If there was ever any doubt about where I live (redneck capitol), let me relate some of the events of today.

Last night I drove from my mother-in-law's in Tupelo back home to Starkville to meet up with some friends. One in particular was visiting from Toronto where he runs his own casting company for print ads and commercials. I hadn't seen him in a few years so it was cool to catch up and learn about his business.

I got up this morning to drive back to Tupelo (Nettleton, really) to pick up M and her younger sister to go to their dad's family Thanksgiving dealio. First we needed to swing by the younger sister's boyfriend's trailer and pick him up.

He ain't there.

She calls him on his cell phone to find out that his dad woke him up early that morning all in a tizzy. If rednecks have tizzys that is. It seems that his mom, who recently left his dad for another guy and had gotten into the meth making business, got locked up in the jailhouse. So he couldn't come to the Thanksgiving dealio on account that his maw was locked up for making the meth.

Cut to the father-in-law's family's place. The teenage boys are out in the yard throwing the football around. Runnin', jumpin', shoutin'. That seems right, you know, an all-american kind of a thing to do. Except that some of 'em have cigarettes barely hanging from their lips as they run around. I thought you had to have been smoking at least 20 years to master the cigarette-barely-hanging-from-the-lips-while-engaging-in-some-sort-of-physical-activity trick. I guess not.

Then their 2 year old cousin comes up to me. He's got some dark stuff around his mouth and he announces "I got some dip" and pulls his lip and cheek away from his gums to proudly prove that he does in fact have dip. He spits and then walks on. We asked the grandma if he really dips and she's like "Yeah, he dips and chews tobacco." Two. Years. Old. Ho-ly poop.

Well anyway, we were told that we'd be eating at 1:00pm but it was more like 1:45pm and I had to be back in Starkville for a meeting at 4:00pm (to which I was late) so we literally ate and ran.

The teenage boys were getting their huntin' gear together to go shoot stuff and grandma was like "C ain't goin'. His momma said for him to stay right here cause he's grounded. He got all F's." Ouch. He's about 15 and in the sixth grade. He's failed many grades many times. Poor guy. Maybe if they had classes in runnin', jumpin', huntin' and chewin' he'd be more interested and do better.

That made for an interesting day. I won't go into M's mom's alcoholic ex-boyfriend that showed up all but unannounced on Thanksgiving morning.

[Sam Beckett] Oh boy [/Sam Beckett]