Hillbilly Teeth for Kids
Junior Vending Machines Stereotype Appalachians

This actual vending machine at a restaurant in Boone helps tourist children look like authentic hillbillies from Appalachia! Makes you glad to live in the 21st century. Photo by Jeff Eason

One of the things that has changed little since I was a kid is the vending machines that are lined up just past the cash registers at nearly every grocery store, retail outlet and restaurant in the country. Strategically placed so close to the cash register that mom cannot possibly get her change in her purse fast enough, these insidious machines are almost all four feet tall, the perfect height for kids to see ‘em, love ‘em, and beg mom for money to put in ‘em.

Several aspects of the machines, however, have changed over the years. For instance, when I was a kid a penny bought you one piece of round bubble gum or two pieces of the flat, spicy gum. Today the only thing a penny is good for is showing kids what Abraham Lincoln’s profile looks like as a cautionary tale against growing a beard without a mustache.

No, these days the kiddy vending machines require quarters, sometimes whole fistfuls of them, to get your prize. Want a piece of bubble gum? It’s a quarter. Bouncy ball? Four quarters. Soon the machines will take paper money and credit cards making it easier for their owners to get creative with the prices of these wonderful prizes.

But what of the wonderful prizes themselves? How have they changed? You can still get gum, of course, but the owners of these loose change bandits have branched out into all sorts of other merchandise.

One of the more popular items is the temporary tattoo. Now, I’m not going to tell anyone how to raise their kids, but if your child is in the habit of buying temporary tattoos, don’t come running to me all surprised when junior comes home with a real, gonna-last-forever, tattoo. It’s only common sense. You wouldn’t serve a third grader near-beer and expect him to abstain from the real thing when he gets a little older, would you?

Today kids can get just about anything they need out of these vending machines. There are the old standbys such as stickers, plastic rings, the aforementioned bouncy balls, and good old-fashioned plastic spiders. But there are also strange, non-kid things like Hillbilly Teeth.

Yes, you heard me right. Today when I left a Boone restaurant I encountered a kiddy machine selling hillbilly teeth. For only four quarters your kid can be the proud owner of a set of choppers that will make him or her look like they’ve never picked up a toothbrush in their life! What fun!

Alright, here comes the rant (lemon) portion of this week’s column. Folks who know me know that I’m about the furthest from politically correct as a person can get. But when on earth did people in Appalachia become the last people in the country whom it’s okay to ridicule and stereotype? When I see a machine selling hillbilly teeth to kids, I know what portion of the country they are talking about. They are not talking about the hillbillies of Beacon Hill in Boston. They are not talking about hillbillies on Capitol Hill or in Chapel Hill. They are taking aim at people who live right here in the High Country. They are poking fun at us moonshine-making, cousin-loving, meth-cooking, hygiene-challenged, barely educated hillbillies.

Is that okay with you? Wouldn’t it be better to call them “ogre teeth” or “witch teeth?” Are these merchants of stereotype more afraid of offending ogres and witches than they are of slighting real people who live in Appalachia? I know that I’ve never seen a kiddy vending machine selling “Asian eyes” or “Middle Eastern noses.”

We’ve become so politically correct in this country that when sportscasters call a boxing match they tell their audience which boxer is which by the differences in the trunks they wear. The match could be between a Swede with skin so pale and translucent that you can actually see his inner organs and a Nigerian so dark as to be almost reflective. And still the announcers would say, “Svenson is in the red trunks with the gold and white trim and Mutumbo is in the red trunks with the gold, white and blue trim.” They could never bring themselves to simply say “Svenson is the white guy and Mutumbo is the black guy.”

If we’ve become that politically correct in this country then surely we can back off on the ridicule directed toward people who live in Appalachia. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a moonshine operation to run….”