You might be a redneck if...

Many Americans are aware that a redneck is someone who is poor, missing several teeth, poorly educated, and in love with duct tape, explosions, pickup trucks, and beer. Rednecks have a lot of stuff around the house that they might fix one day; they are fanatically self-reliant and resent intrusion by outsiders and the government.  Jeff Foxworthy has earned his living as a comedian largely making redneck jokes.

I suspect that we might be the rednecks of Handong Global University, if not of Pohang, South Korea.

We moved a week ago to our permanent apartment and got around to unrolling our big rugs yesterday. Before we packed up in May, we rented a carpet cleaner to remove the fur and smell left on the rugs from our dog Ralph, a strange lab/pitbull sort of mix. However, after being plastic-wrapped and in warehouses and on a summertime ship for 10 weeks, the rugs seem to have re-generated their former dogginess. When Elisabeth and I unwrapped and unrolled the first one we were knocked back by the eau de Ralph.

So, we decided to put the rug over our porch/balcony railing to air out in the wind. Within an hour, the rug had disappeared from view.  A careful look over the railing (it appears to be glued to the brick rather than bolted, so we're very careful) revealed our rug precariously dangling off the air conditioner one balcony down.  Nick went downstairs to shove it down to the parking lot, until we could decide what to do about the smell.

We mulled our options.  We have seen no carpet cleaners - either the detergent or the vacuum/appliance. We could lay the rugs out and scrub them with shampoo or dish soap to remove the oils.  But where?  The roof (warm and flat and relatively clean) has no water supply. The outside faucet is near a lot of dirt. What to do? Sam recalled a recent conversation about folks in the Middle East who take their rugs car washes where there are specialized racks for washing their rugs. (Google does not confirm this, however).

Well,... This morning we loaded our rugs onto the new van's roof and went to the car wash.  No specialty rug racks were to be found, so we heaved the rugs over the partition walls in the car wash slots and soaped them up good.  I'm sure that an oriental rug dealer would have wet himself to see us using car shampoo on these.



Now, being a forgetful adult with a full day's agenda, it never occurred to me that the kids would see this as a grand opportunity to have a fun with the shampoo brushes and the sprayers.  We took up 3 stalls, and all the sprayers were in use amid much screaming and giggling.  Other customers and passers-by stared in wonder at the scene.  

kids' school.































When we were done, we rolled up the sopping rugs, hoisted them onto the van, and drove them back to campus, dripping all the way. Nick and Sam heaved them over the fence and we unrolled them on the plastic/grate playground at the school that Elisabeth and David attend. We can see them from our balcony. They look lovely.











I suppose some of our other behaviors can be seen in a "redneck" light. We happily drilled holes in the walls this week to hang our paintings and pictures; Sam's conversations with other tenants suggest we're seen as rebels, and our new drill is in demand.

We go to the dumpster nearly every day; today we retrieved a 5-drawer, white dresser from the dumpster.  It needs very minor adjustments to the drawer tracks/wheels and it shall reside nicely on our porch for storing fabric, crafts, and wrapping paper, etc.  I can't imagine why someone tossed it out instead of passing it on or selling it.  Then there are the bunk beds that Nick re-fashioned last week, taking over the Smoker's Patio (to their great chagrin) with his sawdust and power tools; he is certain that there are questions about whether he is really a Professor (a very respected title here) since he appears to be a dumb American who uses his hands instead of just buying furniture.

But you know what?  We're pretty happy about our ingenuity and maybe too proud about being rebellious. And we enjoy our time learning how to make and fix things together. Maybe we are rednecks.  And that's ok.