Here’s a confession: I’m a hillbilly. Seriously, I am. I grew up in the mountains of the Ouachita National Forest and I love to say that I’m a “crazy wild-eyed mountain chick who got an education.” The thing is, all of the hillbilly jokes actually have some truth to them. But it’s OK to make the jokes and laugh along because I promise you, hillbillies are unselfconscious. They know they’re rednecks, they know they talk funny, but they also know they have some common sense tactics that actually get results. Living up in the hills all these centuries requires people to learn to get by and make do with what they’ve got and their own smarts. In the joke below, you can see this illustrated perfectly. Hey, whatever works, works.
Two hillbillies walk into a restaurant. While having a bite to eat, they talk about their moonshine operation. Suddenly, a woman eating a sandwich at a nearby table begins to cough. After a minute or so, it becomes apparent that she is in real distress. One of the hillbillies looks at her and says, “Kin ya swallar?” The woman shakes her head no. Then he asks, “Kin ya breathe?” The woman begins to turn blue, and shakes her head no. The hillbilly walks over to the woman, lifts up her dress, yanks down her drawers, and quickly gives her right butt cheek a lick with his tongue.
The woman is so shocked that she has a violent spasm, and the obstruction flies out of her mouth. As she begins to breathe again, the hillbilly walks slowly back to his table.
His partner says, “Ya know, I’d heerd of that there ‘Hind Lick Maneuver’ but I ain’t never seed nobody do it.”
