Wrok

White Trash Etiquette
by Dr. Verne Edstrom, Esq.

White Trash Etiquette contains everything you need to know to live like decent trash, including:

• The proper way to fake a back injury
• How to prevent your in-laws from stealing the silverware at wedding receptions
• The Ten Hottest White Trash Career Opportunities
• How to improve your drunk-driving skills
• Sound advice on everything from lying to your boss to making your next convenience-store robbery fun for the whole family

There's also troubleshooting for troublemakers:

• I'm getting married; can I still wear white if I'm a tramp?
• Can chicks ever really respect an accountant?
• How do I pick a good bail bondsman?
• How can I get my 14-year-old cousin unpregnant?

And much more.

Chapter 1

(In case you's wondering, this ain't Chapter 1. This here's your Roman numerals, which was thought up by them ancient Romanians. Everybody knows these guys was deep — even if they pranced around in bedsheets on account of nobody invented clothes yet.)

Now unless you wanna spend your golden years like your grandma — living in a Pontiac in the scrap yard — decent trash knows they gotta earn so you always got money for cigs and meat. But a lot of people has a hard time figuring out what's the best career option: work, welfare, workers' comp, or crime?

Most folks go straight to welfare or workers' comp, seeing as how jobs and crime can rarely compete with laying on the couch all day watching cable. You don't wanna be stuck cleaning bathrooms or casing out a laundromat if some fat lady's gonna take off her shirt on Jerry Springer today, am I right?

But unless you got a job at Wal-Mart, working generally pays better than welfare, which means you got more jack to buy them fineries in life, like Hamburger Helper and propane. And the fact is, some jobs ain't all bad.

How to Tell If Your Job Sucks

In its recent scientifical report entitled Jobs That Don't Suck, the U.S. Department of Commerce discovered there were at least thirteen in America.

So how do you know if you got one of 'em? Just answer yes or no to the following questions. Your job's suckage rating got figured at the bottom.

1. Does your job got free coffee that ain't that limp-wristed kind guys with berets and sandals drink?

2. Can you ash on the floor and set fire to stuff if nobody's using it?

3. Do you get time off on major holidays, like Opening Day, St. Patrick's, and Deer Hunting Season?

4. Is it okay to be drunk some of the time, just so it ain't every day?

5. Do the other employees bring good lunches you can steal outta the company fridge when they ain't looking?

6. Does the boss still fall for the Call-in-a-Bomb-Threat-When-You's-Too-Hung-Over-to-Show-Up-for-Work Scam?

7. a. If you're a man, do the women employees wear halter tops and not look like them Russian ladies?

   7b. If you're a woman, are the men employees you're having affairs with respectful enough not to call your house when the old man's home?

8. Is there wildlife you can shoot out the window during lunchtime?

9. Is there a bitchy human resource lady who's fun to torture by putting cig burns in her paperwork and telling her, "You look pretty today, kinda like Eva Braun"?

10. Can you make a decent score by busting into the pop machine when no one's looking?

Suckage Rating

Give yourself 1 point for each yes answer.

• 8-10: If you answered yes to eight or more questions, you're probably in the Lucky Thirteen. That means it ain't a good idea to spray paint cars in the executive parking lot no more.

• 5-7: Your job's probably worth keeping — if you answered yes to question 10 and you're getting at least fifty bucks a week.

• 3-4: Get your ass outta there right quick — but don't forget to hold up the payroll department before you leave!

• 0-2: What are you, some kind of moron?

The Ten Hottest White Trash Career Opportunities

Now I'm figuring most of you done failed that last test. That's because the guys who invented jobs is called "bosses," which is Cherokee for "Antichrist." But don't go a worrying. Your ol' pal Verne got you covered.

Fact is, ever since them bulletproof windows killed the convenience store robbing industry, it ain't been easy for people to score themselves a decent career. And seeing how most of the factory jobs gone to China and Mississippi, where the bus line don't go, a lot of us trash is in what you call your state of despair.

But there's still a lot of jobs where you hardly have to work — much less show up — and the pay's better than AFDC.

According to my scientific calculations, this here's gonna be the Top Ten White Trash growth professions in the twenty-first century. So stop looking at the Baywatch reruns and pay attention.

1. CEO

The upside: The hardest thing you're ever gonna do is say, "Have my helicopter ready in ten minutes, Cheeves." Most of the time you sit around pretending to read reports from the Pacific Rim project or firing people cuz they're too old. And you always got an excuse for missing work when you get drunk and fall off the porch. Just call your secretary and say, "I'll be at home working on my vision statement today." Nobody ever actually reads these things, so nobody's gonna know you was actually watching Judge Judy, who's kinda hot for an old broad.

The downside: Guys'll expect you to play golf, which means you gotta dress up like retirees from Florida and swing little clubs that ain't even manly enough to hunt gooses with.

You also gotta get one of them molded executive hairdos, which means hacking off the mullet. Forget about ever shacking up again with ladies who can hold decent conversations about muscle cars.

The pay: Higher than you can count with an eighth-grade public school education. Plus, you get stock options. I don't exactly know what these is, but you ever see a CEO mooching drinks at closing time?

2. Crack Whore

The upside: You can call in sick every day on account of it's part of the job requirements. You don't gotta pay taxes or rent, cuz crack whores figure good living is clean cardboard in an alley behind a carpet store. Plus, you get to travel to exotic places like the bus station.

The downside: No paid vacations. Company headquarters is the men's room of a Phillips 66.

The pay: None. But since you're keeping expenses low, this is what them granola eaters call living off the fat of the land.

3. Designated Hitter

The upside: Sit on the bench, say uplifting things like, "C'mon, Jonesy, we need a hit," swing a bat four times a day, then beeline it to the clubhouse deli spread before your teammates get in and all that's left is the bean salad.

The downside: You don't get to play in the field. That means you won't score extra bus fare when the drunks pelt you with quarters in Detroit.

The pay: We're talking guaranteed contracts of $5 million a year, plus you get to gouge kids twenty bucks a pop for autographing their crap at card shows.

4. Trophy Wife

The upside: Watch TV. Lunch. Watch more TV.

The downside: You gotta marry some candy-ass who'll buy you exercise equipment, which means if you pound cheese puffs all day, he'll trade you in for a new model that runs on grapefruit and bean sprouts.

The pay: Free Lexus, big screen, and makeup. You also get unlimited credit cards to binge shop for halter tops and plastic lawn animals.

5. Third World Dictator

The upside: You can call yourself a general and order aircraft carriers to take your buddies fishing. Live in a palace where they got servants who'll fetch cigs and chocolate milk from the Circle K.

The downside: Everybody's calling you El Presidente, which sounds kinda sissified for the boss of a country. Most third world gas stations ain't worth robbing. Everybody talks Mexican on cable.

The pay: You own the country. This comes in handy when you're short on gas money.

6. Symphony Violinist

The upside: Hack away with a funny stick on a violin, then pretend the screeching is famous music from Austria. Rich guys pay top dollar to hear this stuff. You only gotta work three-hour shifts. And the boss is some guy who wears white gloves and is always flopping his arms like a mallard with a sore wing, which means you don't gotta follow his orders. What's he gonna do to you? Hit you with his little baton?

The downside: You gotta wear a tux. Your relatives is gonna think you're a waiter from them bird food restaurants downtown.

The pay: How am I supposed to know? Get off your ass and find out yourself. I'm tired of doing all the work here.

Copyright © 2006 by Dr. Verne Edstrom, Esq.. Excerpted by permission of Broadway, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

After graduating in just eleven years from the White Trash Studies program at University of Wisconsin — Green Bay, Dr. Verne Edstrom, ESQ., set out to write a book Emily Post would be proud of — if she knew how to hang drywall and steer a bass boat with her feet.