Dear Billy Ray,

I have made it no secret on my blog, my facebook account and my twitter stream that I am your most ardent redneck fan. Since the day you busted out singing about your Achey Breaky Heart I just couldn’t help myself.

You’re my flame and I’m your moth baby. The way you shake those hips of yours makes me tingle in a way that makes my husband jealous.

While the world didn’t see your true genius, instead fixating on your follicularly challenged image, I just wanted to run my fingers through your shiny brown locks and tell you it’s all right.

RAWR.

It was you and me up against the world Billy Ray, and I was all right with that. After all, I was country when country wasn’t cool and your shiny kicks were meant to be paired alongside mine.

I have forgiven you a lot Billy Ray. I have looked past your twangy cheesy song choices, I looked the other way when you pretended to be a doctor, and I’m still loyal even when your wee daughter smacks her arse for all to watch. Destroying your wholesome family image and parents dreams of chastity all over the world.

I’m your bitch Billy Ray. I always will be.

But there comes a time when a woman has to draw a line in the sand.

And that time is now.

It’s not you Billy Ray. Not really. I blame myself. You see, I spent one too many moments of my life teasing my sweet husband Boo about looking more like you. I’d urge him consider growing a mullet. I’d take him to country bars and force him to line dance with me all the while saying, “You know Billy Ray would do it for me.”

Heck, I’ve even been known to DVR episodes of Hannah Montana and stick toothpicks in between my husband’s eyelids while he’s duct taped to the couch in an attempt to torture have him soak in your greatness and transform into your likeness.

Hannah Montana: The new waterboarding.

I’ve fought the stereotypes and taught my children to sing proudly about embracing their inner Thrillbilly. I’ve endured endless mocking and lost readers and respect for praising your beauty and talent to the sky.

And I’m okay with that. Until now.

Because it seems now, my husband listened. Which, after almost thirteen years of holy matrimony and sixteen years of passionate romance, is not a small feat.

He heard me yodel loudly (and somewhat drug-induced. I mean, I did just have back surgery after all) about wanting my mullet back. He listened, and after his ears stopped bleeding (cuz apparently I sound surprisingly similar to a cat in heat while singing) he decided to make my dreams come true.

He didn’t decide to forgo haircuts for the next few months and embrace his inner Billy Ray. No. What he did was so much, well, more.

You see dear Billy Ray, while your number one Redneck fan was laying flat on her back recovering from having her back sliced open, a surgery necessitated by years of me graciously bestowing him with the gift of offspring and life, he kidnapped our youngest child and smuggled him out of the house to the hair salon.

I know this sounds innocuous in and of itself, and in fact could be used as an argument for thoughtful parenting; but what you don’t understand Billy Ray, is the fact I have spent months growing my dear Jumby’s hair to be exactly like the style you are sporting now.

Jumby would have rocked this look if only Boo wasn’t such a child stealin’, hair shearin’ fuddy duddy.

He was so adorable. In perhaps maybe a month more, Jumby would have been a spitting image of Hannah Montana’s daddy and I could proudly continue my delusion of being your invisible lover with Jumby as proof of our mutual love.

Sure his hair was a pain in the ass to brush and tended to mat in the back as he lay on the floor and played. And I’ll concede his hair hung in his face and covered up his beautiful brown eyes. But dude, my kid is BLIND. It’s not like he needs those eyes to see. It was for fashion. And as you well know Billy Ray, there is a price for fashion, one I happily had my young son pay so that he could look like you.

For months I ignored the ridicule of others and continued to caress the sweet luscious locks of my darling Jumby. Whenever someone (namely his father and every other relative the poor kid has) would chastise me and urge me to cut his hair, I’d bend down and whisper sweet words of encouragement into Jumby’s hearing aids.

“Don’t you worry my sweet baby boy. You are gorgeous and your hair is beautiful. Don’t you listen to all the haters. Just think of what Billy Ray would do.”

It became our special thing, his and mine, the thing we bonded over.

And then his father abducted him and held him hostage as a pair of shears attacked his head. All the while I lay unknowing in my bed far away.

Forgive me Billy Ray, but when my husband brought my baby back to me and held him out for me to see, I gasped.

The shock was too great.

My husband, the loving rat bastard he is, MULLETED my child.

WHAT THE F*CK???

Jumby is now, indeed proof positive it may be time to scale back my infatuation with you.

“What??? I thought you wanted him to look like Billy Ray!!” My husband defended himself as I screeched unholy words at him. “You kept telling me you wanted your mullet back! So I gave you one!”

I learned in that moment dear Billy Ray, that you are the only one who can truly rock the mullet. All others are posers. And my poor Jumby’s hair has broken my achey breaky heart.

Sure it’s all business in the front. Sure his hair no longer hangs in his beautiful face and gets tangled in drool by his mouth.  But when he turns around and I see the party in the back, a party which is almost as long as my own hair, a little piece of me dies and I’m suddenly wishing I had focused my energies of loving the dreadlocked Axl Rose.

I’m sorry Cyrus, but I can no longer defend the mullet. My kid, already sporting a kick me sign on the back of his wheelchair for being blind, deaf and drool-tastic, is now just one hair away from being beat on the play ground.

He doesn’t look like our love child. He looks like a *shudder* hillbilly.

Poor Jumby. He’s less Billy Ray and more…this.

And it’s all your my Boo’s fault.

I just ask, the next time you are sitting in that salon chair and deciding on the next hair cut, think of me. Think of the public. Think of the disabled kids with their crazy ass mothers and their dumbass fathers.

Because somewhere out there is a little boy who may get saddled with that hair cut. And there just ain’t enough cute in the world to make that look cool again.

Signed,

Tanis Miller, the Redneck Mommy, your biggest (mullet-hating) fan.

P.S: Don’t worry darling. No matter what, you’ll always be my Romeo.

P.P.S: You can be my daddy anytime. *waggles eyebrows*