Yeah, I live in a trailer...what's your point?

So, apparently I'm supposed to be ashamed of my current abode...otherwise known as the double wide. Yes, it's true, children...I live in a trailer...a mo-bile home, if you will. I'm not ashamed of that...it's shelter and shelter's kind of important in life. It ranks right up there with food, and clean water and chocolate and good quality tequila. But, here's the thing...

I'm the only one who doesn't have a problem with my trailer. See, I happen to like it a little bit...my only gripe is it's a little small for a family of 5 but aside from that...it's cheap, it's warm in the winter/cool in the summer, it keeps me dry and it gives me somewhere to store my shoes so really, it's all I need. But other people have a problem with my trailer. Oh yeah, see when you meet me, you would never guess I live in a trailer...in an honest-to-God trailer park...with driving directions that include the phrase 'okay, turn off the paved road onto the second dirt road on your right'.

But my trailer park isn't just your ordinary run-of-the white trash mill trailer park, no sirree. My trailer park is situated dead center in the middle of one of the most high income areas of my county outside the city limits. Right down the road from my 'hood are million-plus dollar homes complete with private lakes and shit like that. So, when I am at my kids' schools and I meet other parents, they think that because of my fancy talkin' that I reside in one of those homes like they do...that is, until they come to drop off their precious little Hunters and Austins and Jackson-Parkers...then, they cringe inside their spic-and-span SUVs and look at my house like it's a dungeon of horrors. (FYI, I drive an SUV as well only mine looks like an SUV should...it's covered in the purest of red Alabama mud and it may or may not contain a towing hitch...I'm not going to say because really, that's private and you don't need to know.)

Now, being a high-class sort of redneck, my trailer is a double-wide. This means that (1) it took 2, count 'em, 2, trucks to pull this baby in here and (2) I am obviously the most affluent person in my neighborhood since I have the biggest trailer. I'm quite proud of my trailer as it has some amenities that make some of my stick-built home friends envious. For instance, I have just over 2,000 sq feet of space. That's a lot of space. I have a HUGE kitchen and laundry room and I have a wood burning fireplace.

Now, some may say, but Lib, aren't you afraid of tornadoes? (And this is a real threat in Alabama) and to that I say 'Sure...but I've seen the damage left by tornadoes and if a tornado wants your house it really doesn't give a shit if it's sitting on a concrete slab or an axle...it's taking it...Mother Nature is a bitch and she always gets the house.

Let's say I did lose my house? So what? Do you know how cheap these things are? Hell, I paid $40,000 for my house and I'm fully insured. Mother Nature wants it, she can have it...I'll collect my insurance check and be on the mobile home dealer lot within 48hours ready to buy another one. They can have that thing backed up onto my spot and put up withing another 48 hours. So, I'm back in a house in less than a week. Meanwhile, all those stick house snobs are fighting over contractors and living in tiny motel rooms. Yes, my house is cheap...it was cheap to buy, it's cheap to insure and it's cheap as hell when it comes to taxes. It's considered a 'vehicle' in my state so all I have to do is renew my sticker every year. Yearly property taxes for my double-wide? $56. And, if I get bored with it...I can trade it in for a newer, better one...with a great new-house smell...just like a car. Really, it's not that bad. My family gets a home that isn't' breaking our bank, I get a place to store my books and every body's happy.

So, next time one of those snobby mamas pulls up in my driveway I'm just gonna carry my trailer-park, white-trash ass out there with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other and stand on my deck and scratch my ass all while cussing my young 'uns in the front yard and telling her 'Don't worry...little Jackson-Parker is gonna have a great fucking time chasing the possums out from under the house!' Hey, at least I took my Christmas lights down this year.