Stuff White Trash People Do - With Kids and TVs

We're starting a new regular feature here at SWTPL called "Stuff White Trash People Do," offering day-to-day coverage of actual living, breathing White Trash People in the news.

First up is this one:

Stuff White Trash People Do: They put the kid in the trunk to make room in the car for their giant screen TV

#7 - Settlement Checks

White people litigate. White trash people settle out of court.

At least once in each white trash person's life, his or her ship comes in. Be it a slip and fall at Wal-Mart or a food poisoning claim from Krystal, every white trash person in America will receive at least one large cash legal settlement. This payment is known in white trash circles as a "settlement check."

White trash people are almost always, "waitin' on a settlement check." Specifically, in any given commercial situation, white trash people offer to the seller as a sort of collateral or credit rating enhancement, the information that, though Mr. White Trash's funds are temporarily depleted, a settlement check is imminent and all roadblocks to purchase will be cleared.

Once the settlement check arrives it is quickly spent, often on a pit bull, a cell phone minute recharge, and additional rent to own furniture.

#6 - Rent to Own

Unless you are conversant with the white trash world, you might never imagine that one could (or might want to) pay to rent a three year old couch with suspicious stains on the center cushion or a wagon wheel coffee table with a loose third leg.

Yet it's true. White trash people rent literally everything in their apartment. They rent their big screen TV ($15 per week). They rent their bedroom suit ($25 per week). They even rent their dishwasher, washer and dryer (priceless).

Before taking a new home, a white trash couple will first visit a rent to own estabilshment, where the couple will "go shopping" in the old school "Wheel of Fortune" sense. Once the items are delivered, the payments begin.

White trash rent to own payments are weekly rather than monthly. This is by design so as to take advantage of the limitations of white trash math associated with the conversion of weeks to months. For this and other reasons, in the history of the rent to own industry, only three items (a lamp and two end tables) have ever come to be owned by the renter, and none of these lucky owners were white trash.

For all of its downsides, rent to own has one great advantage for the white trash consumer. When it is time to move on or when the Sheriff comes knocking post eviction, the white trash person need only walk out the door with his pit bull and his X-Box. Everything else in the apartment can be left behind, including, quite frequently, the fiance.

#5 - Disability

At $638 per month, the disability check is a white trash man's best friend. In fact, the pursuit of a disability classification is one of the few areas where white trash men demonstrate initiative, follow-through and a true desire for success - even in the face of genuine obstacles, such as not actually being disabled in any way.

A white trash "disability" typically involves a back or neck injury that will never allow the white trash man to work again. Once so disabled, a white trash man will often use his disability check to purchase a big screen tv and monthly satellite service to provide comfort during the period of his convalescence. However, because $638 per month is not quite enough to provide for all of a white trash man's needs, he often must seek a fiance (see post #1 - "Fiances") to round out his budget. Similarly, a white trash woman's dream is to become engaged to a white trash man drawing disability, while herself collecting both child support from another man and unemployment. This is often referred to as the white trash "triple crown."

#4 - Cell Phones

A cell phone is, perhaps, the white trash person's most important accessory. The style, color, and features of one's cell phone define personhood much the way the right t-shirt defines a white person.

A white trash person's cell phone should be shiny, small and noticeably tricked out. Metallic pink is the color of choice for the well-accessorized white trash woman, and a matching cell phone holder with press on plastic crystals spelling out the woman's initials will complete the look.



The ring tone is also a very important element of the white trash cell phone. Rather than the traditional "ring-ring", the white trash person prefers to hear a loud hip hop du jour song (preferably one with a lot of profanity) when someone is calling; this is also their preference for what the caller hears when they are waiting for the white trash person to answer the phone. For instance, when you call a white trash cell phone, you don't hear "ring-ring", instead you hear "fuck this, fuck that, etc." While this would normally prove problematic for one awaiting something such as a call-back from a job interview, this is a small price for the white trash person to pay to know that his/her friends and relatives will be sufficiently entertained while waiting for Mr. or Mrs. White Trash to answer.

As a result of delinquent rent-to-own big-screen TV payments (See post #6 - "Rent to Own") white trash people are unable to qualify for an actual cell phone plan through a traditional cell phone provider, so they use one of the pay-as-you-go plans, such as Boost Mobile, Virgin Wireless, TracPhone or Cricket. These phones automatically shut off when the white trash person's pre-paid minutes have been used. As a result, "minutes" are the unofficial currency of the white trash nation - much as cigarettes are in prison. Accordingly, white trash people can often be seen bargaining, squabbling or taking on a fiance (See post #1 - "Fiances") over minutes.

#3 - Pain Medication

White trash people really enjoy taking prescription pain medication, especially hydrocodone and vicodin.

Vicodin and hydrocodone are widely available via pharmacy robberies and prescription fraud, but an easier route for many white trash people is to "develop" a chronic pain condition such as lower back spasms, "the arthritis" or migraine headaches. Once the chronic pain condition is established, white trash people frequently move from walk-in clinic to walk-in clinic throughout their geographic area, moaning and writhing in pain. In fact, the ability to spontaneously shout out in pain is a white trash skill with widespread application (see also, post #5 - "Disability").

As more doctors have caught on to the fact that many Americans are now actively seeking pain pills for recreational purposes, these meds have become harder to get. For this reason, some white trash people are now willing to literally inflict physical harm upon themselves (a la "Jackass") in order to score a vicodin or hydrocodone prescription. Self-inflicted white trash injuries may include shooting one's hand with a nail gun, dropping an anvil on a toe, severing a non-essential finger or getting into a drunken bar fight resulting in tooth loss (if applicable).

#2 - Pit Bulls

The pit bull is to white trash people as the chocolate lab is to white people. In fact, pit bulls can be viewed as the official mascot of the White Trash Nation.



The adoption of one's first pit bull puppy is a rite of passage for the young white trash man or woman. For the white trash woman, it means she has established a home of her own; however, in the case of the white trash man, it means he has taken up with - perhaps even become engaged to* - a woman who likes him well enough that she will allow him to move himself and his pit bull puppy into her home.

*See Item #1

#1 - Having a fiance(e)

When non-trashy white people fall in love, they get married. When white trash couples fall in love - or become pregnant - they take a fiance (rhymes with Beyonce - coincidence??). Today, when one is introduced to the significant other of any white trash individual, that person will inevitably be referred to as the fiance. For evidence, we refer you to any recent episode of "Judge Judy."

The fiance phenomenon within white trash culture is relatively new; not too many years ago, white trash couples - no matter how long they had been together, or whether or not they had children together -merely referred to one another as "boyfriend" or "girlfriend." At some point, however, the white trash woman decided that the word "fiance" sounded both more serious and more exotically foreign. She came to believe it bestowed a certain desirable cachet - gravitas, if you will - upon her relationships.

For the white trash man, however, becoming a woman's fiance is more practical than descriptive. It means he can obtain many of the same benefits of marriage (cell phone minutes, cable upgrade, acccess to another man's child support payments, etc ) without the expense or hassle of actually getting married. It means he can move from fiance to fiance - often within the space of only a few months - without legal or social impediment.

A white trash fiance is much like a traditional fiance - the primary difference being that the white trash man has absolutely no intention of marrying his white trash fiance. You see, in white trash parlance, "fiance" does not mean, "woman I intend to marry." Instead, the term means "woman that I am sleeping with and who buys my beer and pays my rent."

Another data point is that within white trash culture, becoming affianced does not involve the man giving the woman a ring; instead, the white trash couple seals the deal by jointly adopting a pit bull puppy*

*See Item #2