The White Trash Trailer Bash

As residency ended for me in beautiful Pocatello Idaho, one of my fellow residents whom I consider a friend and good person, had a “White trash trailer party.”  Unlike most of us who were going on to buy a home, he decided to hit the road with his new wife in a travel trailer and work all over the West.  Hence the white trash trailer party.  As a side note, I’m definitely an introvert, and feel awkward and uncomfortable at most parties.  I’m not much of a mingler.  Honestly I wish I were, but I just usually don’t have much to say, or I keep my thoughts and opinions to myself around most people unless I really trust them for some reason and they allow me time to formulate my thoughts.  Anyway, we went to the white trash trailer party.  My friend, the host, was dressed up in his white lab coat, complete with a mullet wig and hillbilly, trailer trash, or red neck teeth.  The appetizers were interesting and the drinks, more medical than trailer trash I suppose.  There were urine sample cups with lemonade, test tubes with red Jello that looked like blood and other ones with horchata that looked like semen samples.  The last ones tasted great, but it was a little gross thinking about drinking them.  A mental Fear Factor of sorts.  They had a taco truck there as well.  There was also a piñata, although not exclusively for trailer trash, it fit.  There were other trailer trash decorations and stuff as well that I cannot recall.  The best part was that everyone was dressed in their best trailer trash outfits.  You see, there was a contest for best trailer trash costume which was evidently hotly sought after.  Everyone did such a good job that I didn’t recognize some of them.  The costume that for me was the best, and I believe did win first place, was the 9 or 10 year-old boy who was walking around in nothing but a diaper and a binky and looked like he was covered with dust from playing in dirt for a few days, complete with the mom in curlers, a cigarette in her mouth and a beer can in her hand.  I am gut laughing now just remembering that boy as I write about his costume.  People are so fun.

            The interesting thing about this whole party to me was how comfortable I felt at the party.  It was like I was with my own people again.  You see, I was literally born in a house trailer, and lived there as a small child.  My Dad lives in a house trailer again.  My Grandma lived in a house trailer.  My brother lives in a house trailer.  I wouldn’t mind living in a house trailer, they can be nice and the neighborhood can be interesting.  Even when I grew up not living in a trailer when I was older than 5, and perhaps some would say I am not true trailer trash, I feel my childhood had some similar elements and I indeed deserve the hard knocks title of white trash from my kinsmen.  Although my middle-class neighborhood was fine, our family stuck out like a sore thumb in my mind and our house was the eye sore on the block.  Both of my parents worked.  Dad worked from 6 or 7 in the morning to 5 or 6 at night as a mechanic, and Mom went to work as a waitress shortly after I would get home from school around 3 in the afternoon and came home at 11 or 12 at night.  So we definitely had our unsupervised time to be boys, and four boys were always doing stuff to get in trouble.  Not me personally, but most in my family smoked pot and cigarettes.  Dad drank beer and Mom drank vodka.  Dad didn’t spend much time making meals after he got home, so dinner was bean and cheese burritos that each made for himself, or hot dogs with the occasional much enjoyed variation of chili on top—I still love those.  Occasionally macaroni and cheese.  I don’t remember ever having much else for dinner when Dad was in charge of the cooking.  Occasionally he would make his famous chocolate chip cookies, that I disappointedly later found out was just the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag.  One boy from school laughed when I told him that was all I ever had for dinner.  But there was food, and we had our home made or thrift store bought clothes or if we were really lucky, a few items of clothes from Target, and it was a life and it was my life and it wasn’t that bad.  I will say, it wasn’t bad with the exception of the drunken fighting between my parents or when one of my brothers really got in trouble and had to be disciplined.  Me, I only got into minor troubles compared to my brothers, and only occasionally got a swat on the bare butt with a plastic, or if I was worse, a wire hanger.  Still I wouldn’t trade it for another growing up experience.  It made me who I am, and I am happy with who I am and where I am.

            On the drive home after the party, I asked my wife, “Did you feel at home at that party, or was it just me?”  She looked at me with a crooked smile and raised eyebrows, and said something to the effect of, “It must have just been you.  I didn’t feel that way.”  She enjoyed the friends at the party and the antics, but she didn’t quite have the same sensation of belonging and being “at home” that I did.  And so it caused me to reflect on who I am and helped me put a finger on the people I am comfortable around.  Maybe I just like to be around people where the bar is low.  And my manners are definitely not refined, so it feels better when I don’t have to pretend to be polished, because I’m not (and I don’t want to be).  There are all types of people in this world, and I enjoy many of them whether they are like me or not.  I like to feel understood and comfortable.  I have learned everyone wants to be understood.  Some people, from any walk of life, can make a person feel at home and understood and that is an amazing gift—and I wish I had it.  I love being around people who can do that.  However, even though it was just people in their trailer trash costumes, it triggered something in my mind and I instantly just felt at home.  I felt my inner self could come to the surface.  We are forged first in childhood and a lot of that sticks forever in our core being, and this experience for me just let that core come right back out.  It felt so good to let my true inner self come up for a breath of fresh air at the white trash trailer party.