Chapter Thirty Five; Redneck Reprieve

“Pack up, girls!" I announce. "We’re going home.”

My kids, who I have affectionately (torturously?) nicknamed Peanut Butter and Jam Jam, let out a whoop of approval and thunder up the stairs to get ready to go.

Home is the farm I grew up on.

A place where a gun rack in your pick up is mandatory and dental care is optional.

Laura Ingalls. Ellie May Clammpet. Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama.

Me.

Yep. I’m a hick at heart. It’s just true.

I decided to hit the road a day early this year. It had been a crap week and I was desperately craving the break that only a trip back home provides. So, I cancelled my Friday night plans. Packed up two kids, one dog, cracked the sun roof of my mid-life crisis sports car and headed west.

Peanut Butter, my spunky first grader, is in the back watching a movie on my laptop, our pretend canine next to her in his crate (any dog that weighs less than most cats is not really a dog in my farm girl book). My teenager, Jam Jam, is next to me in the front happy as a hunting dog in the fall to be DJ for the trip.

(Note to pedophiles: I don’t typically blog about my kids because they’re amazing and this is the internet. So all sickos please note: I have an alarm system and I am in the market for a pit bull. Okay, maybe not the pit bull, but the alarm system is for real. And it works. Trust me. Several uniformed men with guns show up, sirens blaring, in two minutes flat when that sucker goes off. And every neighbor within ten blocks stands on their lawn to see what the hell is happening. And how do I know this? Let’s just say it involves one lost key, my mini skirt ass getting stuck in my basement window trying to break into my own house at 3AM, and . . . okay, the point is that it works and let’s just leave at that, shall we? Besides, if these facts don’t deter you my five pound animal impersonating a dog will yap your ear off and then pee on you. Which is not a fun experience either so consider yourself warned.)

Where was I? Oh yeah, heading back to them thar hills . . .

Peanut Butter and Jam Jam love these hickville getaways as much as I do. Their weekends at the farm are spent riding the four wheeler around the back forty with their uncle (my dare devil brother), running through the shelter belt chasing deer (then picking wood ticks off later, which is fun in its purest form, you gotta know) and ending every day by going out for endless ice cream cones at the greasy small town diner with my grandparents.

Yes, you read that correctly. My grandparents, their great grandparents. And these grandparents are not the crippled up on death’s door version. They’re in their spry 70’s and it rocks.

Oh, get off the floor. I come from a long line of sluts who got knocked up early on. Its awesome.

Alright, that’s not true. The slut part. But its funnier than the real story, which is actually so sweet and sappy it will make you sick from sugar overload. The truth is they all fell in love at 17, married their soul mate, and stayed married for a million years. (And yes, that has me owning the “Relationship Black Sheep” t-shirt in this happily ever after make you gag family. Let’s just say when I announced my divorce; the collective look of horror on everyone's faces screamed, “What the hell is a divorce?” Yeah. That was fun.)

But what is totally and absolutely redneck about us is the fact that me, my mom, and grandma all produced our first offspring before the age of 22; therefore we’re all incredibly close in age. This is actually quite cool (I think). How many people can say when they were born their GREAT GREAT grandma made them a blanket? Exactly. (I still have mine.)

Unfortunately, that’s a lot pressure for Jam Jam. Let’s hope she finds someone to put a bun in her oven before she’s an old lady of 25 or 26 so she can carry on this sacred family tradition. (If anyone thinks I am serious, go buy yourself a sense of humor. The truth is with a legacy like this, I am not allowing Jam Jam to date until she’s 25. Plus, when she’s asleep I sneak a cd into her stereo that repeatedly chants, “Boys are evil, Boys are evil,” so I think I got it covered.)

So yes, my kids are on grandparent overload when we go back home. Subsequently, their days are spent being endlessly spoiled.

Meanwhile, when I’m back at the ranch I spend my time attempting be more lazy than productive. In other words, I am usually hiding from my mother. That woman is a workhorse and she’s insane. She doesn’t sit down ever and unless I want to come back to my house exhausted I have to dart around the farmhouse the moment I see her coming. To this day, I am repeatedly forced to formulate the occasional escape plan from her country woman tyrant approach to life. When I was growing up, this just meant grabbing a book and heading to the hay bales. After 20 minutes of screeching, “Audra! Where the hell are you??!” she would typically just give up and I would be free. At least for a few hours.

These days, my escape is a three mile run down to the highway stop sign and back. Which is not always easy out here. If you are unfamiliar with this part of the country, here’s a lesson for you: prairie = wind tunnel. Chicago's got nothin’ on these parts. I half expected to see Dorothy and Toto fly by on Saturday, it was that ridiculous.

Fortunately, I have the song, “Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy,” on my iPod, which is best when listened to while running down a country highway with gale force winds at your back. (Although any cowboys out this direction are probably my cousins so I can’t truly live out that song. That would be disgusting.)

I couldn’t avoid Mom forever though. She promptly ambushed me at the mailbox upon my return from Sunday’s run, shovel in hand.

“Here. Now that you're full of sweat for no good reason take this and weed the strawberry patch. I am going to get some god damned work out of you before this weekend is over.”

Shit.

No escape. She’s good.

I grab the shovel and wonder what kind of weeds I am going to face that are going to require a tool of this magnitude.

When I get there I decide that a shovel isn’t enough and I ask Mom if we can just hook up the digger to Dad’s tractor and start over.

Mom just glares at me and walks away.

Nice.

An hour later I found the strawberries and was just thankful this chore was not a shit one. (Literally. My parents also have cattle.)

The remainder of the weekend plays out predictably: Peanut Butter scores two pheasant tail feathers from her great Grandpa. “This one is 20 inches, This one is 22 inches,” she proudly recounts after having sat on his lap at the kitchen table to meticulously measure the remnants of last fall’s hunting season.

Jam Jam isn’t yet savvy enough to escape her enslaving Granny and spends two hours on her hands and knees weeding the irises that rim my parents’ 2 acre “yard.” She thanks me more than once for not forcing her to live on a farm and I pinky swear promise that if I ever remarry, a farm will not be a part of the package.

In other words, it was the perfect redneck reprieve from my week's suckiness.

As I head down the highway back to civilization on Sunday night, I take a look at my slightly sunburned kids, my filthy wood tick buffet of a dog (who I will promptly send to the groomer’s for a good shave when we hit civilization), dirty fingernails (note to self, manicure on Monday) and smile to myself.

Because yeah. I’m single as hell right now. But I am feeling pretty lucky.

Because who can feel all alone with a life like this?

I got two kids, a pretend dog, and at the end of a country highway is a place I know I can always go back to that’s full of simple people whose honest lives are a part of who I am.

And who can ask for a better place than that?

To call home.