The North has sun-dried toe-mah toes
The South has 'mater samiches
The North has coffeehouses
The South has Waffle Houses
The North has switchblade knives
The South has Lee Press-on Nails
The North has double last names
The South has double first names
The North has an ambulance
The South has an amalance
The North has the Mafia
The South has NASCAR
The North has Indy car races
The South has Swamp Buggy races
The North has Cream of Wheat or Oatmeal
The South has grits
The North has green salads
The South has collard greens and chitlins
The North has lobsters
The South has crawdads
The North has Distilleries, Breweries, and liquor stores
The South has stills, shine, and them ridgerunners
The North has the rust belt
The South has the Bible Belt
Rules of the Southern Lifestyle
All good Southerners already know these, but in fairness to those Yankees who were dumb enough to stay down here:
1. Don't order a steak at a Waffle House. They serve breakfast 24 hrs a day, so let them cook something they know.
2. Don't laugh at people's names. Merleen, Bodie, Luther Ray, Tammy Ann, Mari Beth, and Inez have all been known to whip a man for less than that.
3. Don't order a bottle of pop or a can of soda -- this can lead to a merciless beating. Down South it's called Coke, even if you want a Pepsi.
4. Don't show allegiances to any college football squad that isn't an SEC team.
5. Don't refer to Southerner's as a bunch of hillbillies. Many of us are/have been more literate than you (e.g. Welty, Williams, Faulkner), better educated, and generally much nicer to boot. We've got plenty of business sense (e.g.Turner Broadcasting, MCI WorldCom, MTV, and Netscape). Naturally, we can have lapses of judgment from time to time (e.g. Clinton, Fordice, Duke).
6. We are fully aware that the humidity is high.
7. Don't order wheat toast at the Cracker Barrel. If you do this, everyone will know you're from Ohio. Eat the biscuits like God intended and for goodness sake, don't put sugar in your grits.
8. Don't attempt to fake a Southern accent.
9. Don't go around talking about how much better it is back home. If you don't like it here, take yourself back home.
10. We don't play lacrosse, hockey or any of those other sissy Northern games, so don't ask about the scores. We...simply...don't...care.
11. We know how to speak proper English, we talk this way because we want to and we can. It's like playing jazz, you have to know how to do it right first.
12. Last, but by no means least...DO NOT try to tell us how to Bar-B-Q. This could lead to permanent expulsion and revocation of your work visa. Consider yourself just lucky that we let you come down here in the first place. Don't push your luck!
North vs. South
North vs. South
I take that life if I can, with regret as well as joy, and with the sure knowledge that nature’s ways of fang and claw or exposure and starvation are a far crueler fate than I bestow. – Fred Bear