Goin' redneckin'

You haven’t lived until you’ve heard a guy from New Zealand try to talk in a hillbilly southern accent. To experience this firsthand, drop on by Woodhaven and we’ll invite our Kiwi neighbor over. We’ll bring out our “Redneck Life” game and I promise, before you have your first red-headed step-young'en named Darryl, alls y’all will be talking in southern accents without even tryin’. It’s just natural that way.

We picked up this hoot of a game at our local farmers market a few years ago. We played it once and immediately bought copies for everyone in Rob’s family for Christmas. Rob proudly claims he comes from a long line of rednecks. He is also beyond thrilled that directions to our house indeed include the phrase “when you leave the paved road…”

This now favorite past-time is based on that old Milton Bradley game “Life” where your game pieces were little plastic cars and you collected a spouse and kids and a mortgage as you moved your little car around the board. In “Redneck Life,” you move your favorite beer bottle cap around the board and collect debt and young'ens and ex-es. You get into various scaps and tussles, losing teeth along the way. The rednecker with the most teeth and least debt at the Day of Reckon’n wins.

We’ve augmented the game a bit as we’ve rednecked. We now include “Hello, My Name Is…” name tags so we can keep our names straight (determined by rolling the dice at the beginning of the game – Earl Lee, Cletus Bob, Thelma Sue, Wynona Louise, etc.). We’ve also started including dinner.

Tonight we have some friends coming over to experience Redneckin’ for the first time. I’ve got a Tater Taco Casserole ready to pop in the oven. The appetizer, served on paper plates, will be an assemblage of Ritz Crackers, Cheez Whiz, and Spam. Our friends are bringing dessert. They were threatening a Pinto Bean Pie but instead promise something involving frozen Twinkies. We also have some unlabeled moonshine we plan to bring out just for the occasion, to be served in jelly jars.

Genius marketers that the developers are, in addition to game stores and the local farmers market, “Redneck Life” can be purchased at a local auto body shop, a bar, a feed store, and a chainsaw shop/liquor store. Oh, and online, too, for them fancy city folk.

Shoot me an email if you want any of the recipes. For more info on the game, click here.