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A possum lives under my porch.

I suppose you think I’m a hick. That my hound dog rides in the back of my pick-up truck on the way to the coon hunt. This is wrong, wrong, wrong! Simply because: if I had a gun or a hound dog the possum would’ve been dead meat long ago.

No, the possum lives under my porch because I belong to that new breed of male--The White Neck.

There are a few misconceptions about White Necks. Many people think we love nature. The truth is, white necks like nature--the way we want it.

We like trees and gardens and grass, but we hate the things that are wrong with nature (and there are many):

1. We hate bugs. We know bug zappers indiscriminately kill all bugs good and bad, and that’s fine with us. We know there are better ways to kill bugs, but we enjoy that frying sound.
2. We hate rats. We hate the ugly rats that are in sewers. We hate the cute rats with long ears and fuzzy tails (mistakenly called bunnies) that eat the tulips and vegetables we plant. We really hate them. We also hate the slender graceful tall rats with big soft eyes (mistakenly called deer) that eat the trees we just got done planting, and stomp through the garden like cattle at a feedlot. We really, really hate them.
3. We hate moles, voles, grasshoppers, slugs, badgers, skunks, chipmunks, squirrels, and, as if the yard wasn’t crowded enough, we hate possums.

Now, before you get too weepy over the carnage in my backyard, you need to know something else about the average white neck--we are powerless to do anything about it.

1. We don’t own guns. The fact is, our White Neck fathers never taught us to use them, so we are afraid of accidentally shooting ourselves. A friend of mine asked if I wanted to go deer hunting with him. I became instantly alarmed- I would never go hunting with someone stupid enough to give me a loaded gun.
2. We are kinda wimpy. Gutting a steaming carcass is not for me. I can throw a dead mouse in the garbage but don’t have the time or desire to hide out in full Cammo waiting for the perfect kill shot.

I used to vent my feelings by watching Bambi over and over again: the part where Bambi’s Mom gets gunned DOWN!! {Insert scary laugh here.} Then I stumbled upon a better solution--I found a red neck!

It turns out he’s my Pastor! I guess he gets tired of being all mealy mouthed and sensitive all week long, owns several guns from his hunting days as a kid, and has Friday afternoons free!

So he spends a relaxing afternoon sitting on my back porch with binoculars and a gun (don’t ask me what kind--what do I care?) and blasts whatever moves. Then when I come home from work he reports how many varmints (you gotta’ like a guy who refers to animals you hate as “varmints”) he has dispatched.

And possibly some of his redneck-i-ness is rubbing off. Just yesterday I started hankerin’ for some possum stew. {Scary laugh inserted.} Hahahaha!

Sincerely, Jeff Gould

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