I rarely make a practice of responding to a column penned by someone else in this newspaper.

However, there always exceptions to that general rule.

Case in point was Carrie Paquette’s column that appeared in this space on Thursday. For those of you who came in late, Carrie is the Circulation (oops, I mean Subscriber Services) Manager of the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald.

I loved Carrie’s column. You could feel her excitement, almost to the point of a kid’s wide eyes on Christmas morning, about taking her first newspaper job and leaving the confines of a comfortable environment, thus taking that first big plunge into an unknown world.

It’s evident that Carrie enjoys her work. She’s extremely enthusiastic and, keeping with a trait we love here at the News-Herald, is a good team player who is fun to be around.

Actually, I’m a bit envious of Carrie. She fulfilled her dream of working in the newspaper industry and did it through a major move away from her Michigan home. It would have been so easy, so convenient to stay in her own backyard where she would have felt comfortable with her surroundings.

Rather, Carrie broke out a map and found tiny Ahoskie in northeastern North Carolina. Sure, she was a fish out of water when she arrived, complete with her northern Midwest accent and her upbeat, fast-paced style.

We’re doing our best to slow down that breakneck pace before she drops dead of a heart attack. However, our first quest is to address her culinary tastes. No matter how hard she resists, we have to make her a lover of pork barbecue, especially eastern Carolina ‘cue. Just as soon as that occurs, we know we’ve got her hooked.

Then comes the part of making sure she completely understands what it means to live in the South. We take things a bit slower down here, so much to the point that we appear &uot;slow&uot; – as in aloof or having some sort of mental blockage.

What we do enjoy is poking fun at ourselves. Nope, we don’t mind one bit calling each other a redneck. One of my favorite lines is, &uot;You live in a doublewide; shucks, you can’t hide money.&uot;

That leads me into an e-mail I got this week from a good friend over in Northampton County. She shared some of the ways to identify &uot;Trailer Trash.&uot; Hope you enjoy ’em as much as I did:

You know you are trailer trash when….

The Halloween pumpkin on your porch has more teeth than your spouse.

You let your twelve-year-old daughter smoke at the dinner table in front of her kids.

You’ve been married three times and still have the same in-laws.

You think a woman who is &uot;out of your league&uot; bowls on a different night.

Jack Daniels makes your list of most admired people.

You wonder how service stations keep their restrooms so clean.

Anyone in your family ever died right after saying, &uot;Hey y’all watch this.&uot;

Your wife’s hairdo was once ruined by a ceiling fan.

Your junior prom had a daycare.

You think the last words of the Star Spangled Banner are, &uot;Gentlemen start your engines.&uot;

You lit a match in the bathroom and your house exploded right off its wheels.

The bluebook value of your truck goes up and down, depending on how much gas is in it.

You have to go outside to get something from the fridge.

One of your kids was born on a pool table.

You need one more hole punched in your card to get a freebie at the House of Tattoos.

You can’t get married to your sweetheart because there’s a law against it.

Your toilet paper has page numbers on it.

You have a complete set of salad bowls and they all say Cool Whip on the side.

The biggest city you’ve ever been to is Wal-Mart.

Your working T.V. sits on top of your non-working T.V.

You thought the Una-bomber was a wrestler.

You’ve ever used your ironing board as a buffet table.

You think a quarter horse is that ride out in front of the K-Mart.

The neighbors think you’re a detective because a cop always brings you home.

A tornado hits your neighborhood and does $100,000 dollars worth of improvement.

You’ve used a toilet brush as a back scratcher.

You missed 5th grade graduation because you had jury duty.

You think fast food is hitting a deer at 65 mph.

Somebody tells you that you’ve got something in your teeth and you take

them out to see what it is.

You stared at a can of orange juice because it said concentrate.

You’ve ever been too drunk to fish.

See ya’ll next week, ‘ya hear!