Hi
As today is Saturday, and the weather is quite decent here (Oirland) for a change, I took the opportunity to wax my car. I live in a low rise apartment complex, so the parking area is communal, and I park below my apartment.
It occurred to me that I may have been crossing some line into white trash behaviour by working on my car in the communal parking area.
I would like to know when this line is crossed…I’m sure washing, or hoovering the car would be fine, or even changing wiper blades, but is changing the brake pads a bridge too far? Or changing the oil? Or installing a new stereo?
If you take items off of the car, then leave it that way for more than a few hours, you’re pushing the limits of WT behavior. I’ve always waxed my car in the parking lot (and installed stereo equipment), but refuse to believe that I’m WT. :dubious: Changing oil might be a little sketchy, since it can get messy pretty quickly.
I think anything you do where the tires stay on the ground (with the exception of changing a flat) is perfectly acceptable. Of course, if you live in a neighborhood like mine, it’s not uncommon to see people with engine lifts and a lot of beer working in their front yards, so I may be less than objective.
What if you do the unacceptable things mentioned above but are black? Then what are you called? Would it have made a thread title without getting deleted by now?
What if you do the unacceptable things mentioned above but are Asian? Then what are you called? Would it have made a thread title without getting deleted by now?
What if you do the unacceptable things mentioned above but are Native? Then what are you called? Would it have made a thread title without getting deleted by now?
In the spirit of fun in which I believe this thread was offered, I’ll say that washing your car, waxing, your car, basic maintenance like oil changes, tire changes/rotations, brake jobs, heck, even a properly equipped and well-executed timing belt change won’t qualify you as WT. It is your behavior while doing these things which will give you your bullet points for your WT resumé. From the unfortunately close observation of a neighbor, I can tell you that
[list]
[li] You must be half-mooning everyone around you, your flabby sunburned “love handles” folded over a pale greyish randomly hairy, singly creased strip of skin.[/li]
[li] Every third word must be “FUCK,” or a variant. “Fck you, you fcking f*ck,” is apparently the WT Team America motto.[/li]
[li]Smoking, or holding a cigarette in your mouth and squinting against it while your head is inside the engine compartment earns you extra redneck points.[/li]
[li] Prolonged revving, squealing of belts, clouds of exhaust in the driveway etc. after “fixing” your truck will also net you extra WT points.[/li]
Hope this helps!
Hi,
Apologies if I offended sensibilities with the thread title. I used the term white trash because a) I am (pasty) white and b) it’s common usage does not seem to be racially charged.
In retrospect I should have omitted the white bit.
I am laughing at **Tortugas ** post though, I have seen this in action myself.
Typical language associated with these activities over here include many blasphemous comments…“Jaysus, Mary and Holy St. effin’ Joseph”, “Be the lanterin’ Lambs of Jaysus”(no I don’t know what that means either). It’s to do with our strongly Catholic traditions.
You could also add yelling at the engine so loudly that spit flies and cooks on the exhaust manifold, then spinning around and kicking the car so hard you break your toes.
Howsabout I ship off my neighbor (I’ll punch little airholes in the crate, I promise), you ship me yours, and then they can be exotic and charming in their new environs, instead of being obnoxious and trashy…
Please?
I think his family would be relieved. They’d say “Ireland?!? Jimmy always wanted to go to Texas!”
Doing any kind of car maintenance is fine with me as long as you clean up after yourself and it’s done in a day or two (no bits of car scattered all over for a week or so).
I’d be more concerned if you let your car completely fall apart into the rust-riddled, pile of falling apart junk with a foot of trash on the floorboards that never runs and is always parked in front of my house like a certain neighbor of mine has!
Well, I should get to experience yours (or similar) without the expense of air freight as I’m moving to Livermore in November.
On a similar note, an acquaintance (with a mullet) broke his nose on his truck steering wheel some time back. His cellphone had been cutting out and was pi**ing him off, so he threw it on the floor and tried to stomp it, but hit the brake pedal instead. I think this would qualify for a Golden Cleetus award…
'mercans are very well tolerated here, I just hope Paddies are in CA!!
Well, Tortuga, I should get to experience yours (or similar) without the expense of air freight as I’m moving to Livermore in November.
On a similar note, an acquaintance (with a mullet) broke his nose on his truck steering wheel some time back. His cellphone had been cutting out and was pi**ing him off, so he threw it on the floor and tried to stomp it, but hit the brake pedal instead. I think this would qualify for a Golden Cleetus award…
'mercans are very well tolerated here, I just hope Paddies are in CA!!
Well, Tortuga, I should get to experience yours (or similar) without the expense of air freight as I’m moving to Livermore in November.
On a similar note, an acquaintance (with a mullet) broke his nose on his truck steering wheel some time back. His cellphone had been cutting out and was pi**ing him off, so he threw it on the floor and tried to stomp it, but hit the brake pedal instead. I think this would qualify for a Golden Cleetus award…
'mercans are very well tolerated here, I just hope Paddies are in CA!!
Oh no, white trash, let me get horribly offended and stuff. Blah blah blah. Idiots.
Speaking as someone who’s familiar with the, uh, “Pale Refuse” species, I can tell you that you’re forgetting one critical process: Not knowing what the hell you’re doing. See, for a true “Pale Refuse” project, it needs to blow up in tremendous fashion.
Let’s say you’re changing the wiper blades. For a true white trash project, a wiper blade change requires: removing the wipers, discovering a spot of rust on the hood and removing the hood, discovering something wrong with the engine and removing the engine, dismantling the engine into its component pieces and leaving these spread all over the parking lot, then disappearing for a week and a half. Between each step, and sometimes during, you have to discover you don’t have a critical part or tool and run to the auto parts store, then just dump the bags on the asphalt and continue the great crusade. Ideally, there’ll be cigarette butts and crumpled cans of beer spread around, too.
Don’t forget that you need at least 6 small children running around barefoot with stains all over their singlets and wearing only nappies. With the pleasant sound in the background of your wife yelling obsenities to you and the children with a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth… well that’s what they do here in OZ.
It’s all about the props.
