Could You Be A Workaholic? By David LeonhardtIf you need to put on boots and grab a lap-top computer to relieve yourself at night, you might be a redneck workaholic.
It never crossed my mind that there could be such a thing as a redneck workaholic, until I read a column on “Are you a workaholic?”
“Did you read this?" I asked my wife. "Are you a workaholic? It looks just like those you-might-be-a-redneck jokes.”
My wife studied
page. “Maybe it was written by a redneck alcoholic.” She suggested.
“Workaholic, not alcoholic.”
“How do you know writer is not an alcoholic?” she demanded.
“I don’t. But column is about workaholics, and it reads just like a series of redneck jokes.”
“Well, maybe it was written by a redneck workaholic, then.” She suggested.
“No way. There is no such a thing.”
“Why not?” she wanted to know.
“Because workaholics sit late in front of computer screens and steroid-laced in-boxes, wearing $500 suits and $550 haircuts. Folks out here wear $19.95 jeans and occasionally wash their hair.”
“But many of them do spend late hours in front of their computers,” my wife pointed out.
“Like who?”
“Like you.”
“Oh, yeah…”
“Being a workaholic is not just about computers and offices and taking out a mortgage for a haircut,” she added. “Look at Buster.”
“Buster?”
“Sure, every time he’s set to retire, he goes and buys another machine,” she pointed out. “One year it was a backhoe. Another it was a dump truck.”
“Wow, he must be desperate this year.”
“Why?” my wife asked.
“Because this year he bought a whole combine…”
“Ooh, that does sound desperate.”
“…plus a farm to use it on!”
“See?” my wife smiled. “You don’t have to live in city to be a workaholic. There can be such a thing as a workaholic redneck.
