Have you ever been stuck in a situation where you had to fix a car mirror by strapping a hand held mirror to it or a headlight is feeling old and decides to hang from the cord forcing you to glue it back in the socket? When I see those weird homemade fixes, the first thing that comes to my mind is “Redneck!” These moments are the best not only when you see them but when you experience them.

It all started back when my dad decided to take out the palm tree in our front yard, it was getting old and it was “in the way of our pretty home” as my mom put it. That giant of a tree had to be cut up into four sections for it all to fit in the ancient meaty truck that we never used. This ’86 Dodge Ram was in fact my brother Jacob’s favorite thing ever, so it was no wonder that when he got his license, he drove it everywhere and loved it so much he even took it to the dump to toss the tree on one Saturday morning. But of course he took me and his close friend Jordan along for the extra muscle. There in the environmental section we got “battle wounds” from the palm fronds and the rough parts of the tree. Getting out of the dump, Jacob got lost, but eventually after a honk from the car behind him, and looking around a bit, he got back out onto the road. Then all of a sudden something happened that made the non-air-conditioned car ride ten times better, it actually started to RAIN in Mesa! But there was a problem; Jacob had to fight the Nile River going up his windshield to see where he was going, because there were no wipers on the window in front of him. So being the mechanic guys they looked like they were, they decided to take the old beast to Auto-Zone. We walked in and as weird as it sounds, we found the correct wiper for the model and year of the truck. When we bought the wiper, I saw there were about ten wiper containers in the trashcan from the other costumers that afternoon. We walked out and success was showing on our faces until we got out to the car and attempted to put the wipers on, there was not even arms for the wipers! Disappointed we left the shop. While we were dropping Jordan back off at his place and heading home, I felt like I should have had a paddle to help us up the street. It was raining hard. As we dried off, Jacob went to work searching for local junk yards to find a truck that had the arms we needed. Once he found one, he called Rianne (one of his best friends) and asked if she wanted to go on the ride with us. Knowing Jacob, you want to see what he’s up to because you don’t know what he’ll do next, so of course she agreed to come with us.
The sign inside the door said you had to be 18 years or older to enter the junk yard and Jacob was only 16 at the time; but he was smart enough to know that one of the guys at the desk could run out and do some magic with the wrench and bring some arms back for the teenagers. But he was wrong; they had something better to do, like talk to old guys at the desk, safely away from the warm rain. What was he thinking, idiot Jacob! How dare he expect the employees to go work... at work?! We eventually left with our heads down, so to help cheer us up, Jacob brought us to his heaven on earth?the watermelon isle at Wal-Mart. Cradling the melon, Jacob lead us back to the truck to find a place where three young people can eat a big watermelon without people thinking we’re weird (not like we cared or anything…). We figured Fun City was a good enough place seeing how it was only a few miles away, it’s a prank and costume store, and my grandma owns it. On the way there, we got a bite out of what being redneck feels like; the rain got so bad that Jacob had no choice but to grab the wiper and stick it out the window along with his full arm and squeegee the glass in front of his face to clear the rain. While he did this we took a few pictures on Rianne’s phone to capture the memory and possibly add it to some other redneck photos online. As we entered the store we brought our watermelon into the back to eat. It’s like a mini kitchen back there with lots of food, knives, and utensils. We all started with probably a fourth of the melon. Rianne and I got full pretty fast, but Jacob kept eating like there was no end to his stomach; he ate more than half all by himself. The extras he brought to the car in a bag for him to eat later. Driving towards Rianne’s house, Jacob went over some bumps that just made us bounce and laugh. Then we sat and pondered, reflecting on the great day that we just had.