Don't tell my Granny, but when it comes to laziness I admit I'm something of an expert these days.
Just ask my wife and kid. The other day the family dog thought I had dropped dead on the couch during a Married With Children marathon and tried to dig a hole and bury me.
But surprisingly, no one consulted me when they did a study on laziness and found that South Carolinians are among the laziest people in the United States.
According to the results of a survey released recently by BusinessWeek.com, the Palmetto State was ranked 8th among all the states in terms being lazy, or "trifling," as Granny used to call it. (Granny worked from daylight to dark, six days a week, even on federal holidays. Granny didn't have much use for trifling people.)
Most of the other states that beat us out were also Southern states, which makes me suspect this is obviously some sort of Yankee conspiracy. The report is based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which makes one ponder, doesn't the federal government have anything better to do that sit around and count lazy Southern people? Don't they have an oil leak in the Gulf to fix? And don't get me started on their leaky economic policies.
According to the survey, South Carolinians ranked No. 1 in the nation in terms of spending time in front of the boob tube and ninth in the nation in terms of being overweight. Almost 30 percent of us are fat. (What can we say, most of us are good cooks!)
According to the report, people in the Palmetto State spent an average of three hours and seven minutes a day watching TV (usually SEC football, NASCAR, and wrasslin'), 8 hours and 42 minutes sleeping (usually in front of the TV), 25 minutes relaxing and thinking (which means we're usually either in the outhouse or fishing), 40 minutes socializing each day (usually gossiping), and only spend three hours and 26 minutes a day on the job (when you average in preachers and government officials, which we have a lot of in these parts).
So in light of this Yankee propaganda, I have decided to conduct my own, more scientific laziness study. Here it is:

How do you know you're lazy?
- If you've ever sat silently choking on a piece of cornbread, because you were waiting for your spouse to refill your iced tea, then you might be lazy.
- If you wouldn't hit a lick at a snake, unless he got in between you and the television, you might be lazy.
- If you've ever sent an email to a co-worker because you don't feel like getting up or even hollering across the office, you might be lazy.
- If the only reason you mow the lawn is to find Granny or one of the kids, then you might be lazy.
- If you've ever thought about using a Mountain Dew bottle in a manner inconsistent with its product labeling because you didn't feel like walking to the restroom, you might be lazy.
- If you've ever told the boss not to worry about giving you that promotion because you didn't want the extra work, then you might be lazy.
- If you've suffered from bedsores during college football season, you might be lazy.
- If you've ever told one of the older kids to smack one of the younger kids, just because you didn't feel like getting up to spank them yourself, you might be lazy.
- If you've ever taken a long nap on the veranda, and buzzards started pecking a hole in your screen door to get at you, then you might lazy.
- If you've ever married a pregnant woman just to save yourself a little work, you're most definitely lazy.
Well, that's about all the hard work I can stand for now. It's time for some good Southern cornbread and iced tea, and a nice long nap before I leave the office and head home to lay down on the couch and watch Monday Night RAW wrasslin'.
But please, don't tell Granny.