(Note: This came to me from “The Party Crasher” in New York City…. but he’s still a Georgia Boy at heart!)
Fifteen Ways To Avoid A Good Southern Ass Whuppin – (Issued by the Southern Tourism Bureau to ALL visiting Northerners And Northeastern Urbanites)
1) Don’t order filet mignon or pasta primavera at Waffle House. It’s just a diner. They serve breakfast 24 hours a day. Let them cook something they know. If you confuse them, they’ll kick your ass.
2) Don’t laugh at our Southern names (Merlene, Bodie, Ovine, Luther Ray, Tammy Lynn, Darla Beth, Laura Jo Inez, Billy Joe, Sissy, Clovis, Perky, Becky Sue, etc.). Or we will just HAVE to kick your ass.
3) Don’t order a bottle of pop or a can of soda down here. Down here it’s called Coke. Nobody gives a flying damn whether it’s Pepsi, RC, Dr. Pepper, 7-Up or whatever- it’s still a Coke. Accept it. Doing otherwise can lead to an ass kicking.
4) We know our heritage. Most of us are more literate than you (e.g.,Welty, Williams, Faulkner). We are also better educated and generally a lot nicer. Don’t refer to us as a bunch of hillbillies, or we’ll kick your ass.
5) We have plenty of business sense (e.g., Fred Smith of Fed Ex, Turner Broadcasting, MCI WorldCom, MTV, Netscape). Naturally, we do, sometimes, have small lapses in judgment (e.g., Carter, Edwards, Duke, Barnes, Clinton). We don’t care if you think we are dumb. We are not dumb enough to let someone move to our state in order to run for the Senate. If someone tried to do that, we would kick their ass.
6) Don’t laugh at our Civil War monuments. If Lee had listened to Longstreet and flanked Meade at Gettysburg instead of sending Pickett up the middle, you’d be paying taxes to Richmond instead of Washington. If you visit Stone Mountain and complain about the carving, we’ll kick your ass.
7) We are fully aware of how high the humidity is, so shut the hell up. Just spend your money and get the hell out of here, or we’ll kick your ass.
8) Don’t order wheat toast at Cracker Barrel. Everyone will instantly know that you’re a Yankee. Eat your biscuits like God intended – with gravy. And don’t EVER put sugar on your grits, or we’ll kick your ass.
9) Don’t fake a Southern accent. This will incite a riot, and you will get your ass kicked.
10) Don’t talk about how much better things are at home because we know better. Many of us have visited Northern shitholes like Detroit, Chicago , and DC, and we have the scars to prove it. If you don’t like it here, Delta is ready when you are. Move your ass on home before it gets kicked.
11) Yes, we know how to speak proper English. We talk this way because we don’t want to sound like you. We don’t care if you don’t understand what we are saying. All other Southerners understand what we are saying, and that’s all that matters. Now, go away and leave us alone, or we’ll kick your ass.
12) Don’t complain that the South is dirty and polluted. None of OUR lakes or rivers have caught fire recently. If you whine about OUR scenic beauty, we’ll kick your ass all the way back to Boston Harbor.
13) Don’t ridicule our Southern manners. We say sir and ma’am. We hold doors open for others. We offer our seats to old folks because such things are expected of civilized people. Behave yourselves around our sweet little gray-haired grandmothers or they’ll kick some manners into your ass just like they did ours.
14) So you think we’re quaint or losers because most of us live in the countryside? That’s because we have enough sense to not live in filthy, smelly, crime-infested cesspools like New York or Baltimore. Make fun of our fresh air, and we’ll kick your ass.
15) Last, but not least, DO NOT DARE to come down here and tell us how to cook barbecue. This will get your ass shot (right after it is kicked). You’re lucky we let you come down here at all. Criticize our barbecue, and you will go home in a pine box.. . . Minus your ass.
Yeehaw!
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
I fully agree with 14 of the 15. Not sure, however, that I agree with all of Number 8. I prefer a little red eye gravy on my grits but almost every southern Alabama home I’ve been in offers a sugar bowl of brown sugar or raw sugar.
Great list!
I’ve got no problem with calling pop “coke,” but I did have an annoying encounter the first time I traveled south of Mason’s & Dixon’s line. When I was down in Virginia for the first time about 10 years ago, I ordered “cola” as my drink, because I was sick of asking for “coke” and being asked if pepsi was ok or vice versa. The waitress then began to list every soft drink they had on their menu.
Now, it is obvious by my accent that I am a yankee, being from Buffalo. I can see using “coke” as a euphemism for pop. “Coke,” after all, is a nickname to begin with. But cola specifically refers to a drink flavored from extracts of the cola plant.
7-up does not count as cola.
Orange whatever does not count as cola.
What annoyed me was that the waitress seemed completely oblivious to the fact that “cola” means “cola.” It wasn’t a willful “we say cola down here” thing, it was simple cluelessness. I was polite and bit my tongue.
You have to know how people speak when you travel. But at the same time, you also have to know when you’re using the real term and when you’re using slang. You can refuse to use anything but slang, but you have to actually know it is slang.
Oh well; at least we have Cracker Barrel up here to teach us how to eat properly
RE: the “coke” Cola thing. I don’t drink sodas unless it is a root beer float on special occassions. Iced tea is just fine for me, or cold water.
“We say grace and we say ma’am an’ if you ain’t into that, we don’t give a damn!”
Bruce, I thought we won the War of Southern Insurrection and that put an end to all this regional superiority nonsense.
We fought that war to be able to tell “those people down there” that their cultural institutions were corrupt and inferior –besides, what has the South contributed to our Great Northern country since we last whooped their collective ass? Waffle House? Grits in a box? Okra as a grilled side dish? Wal Mart? A cousin’s funeral used as a dating opportunity? Cars on blocks willed to the next generation? Flannel shirts in the summer –on women? Alien abductions –but only if you drink Bud and fish for bass at 2AM? Possum as the other white meat? Personalized plates because family members made them in prison? Reruns of Hee Haw get considered as documentaries?
I don’t know… southerners I’ve known have been gracious, handsome, masculine and civil. Then they speak and that kills the impression; it’s the twang and misplaced sense of superiority that slays me. And the sheer pleasure they take in being lazy. And no teeth. And the white tube socks with sandals thing.
Our ancestors fought a war to make sure this nonsense ended in ’65. More than a hundred years later, it’s clearly time for another ass whooping of the South.
And I didn’t even add the cultural phenomenon of thinking that driving NASCAR is any of the following: 1) a sport; 2) racing; 3) a social event with good looking guys.
Michigan Matt –
We act superior because we know we were right – even 100 years later. It is an honor to be from the south, and a privilege for you (and those like you) visit. Remember that, or you’ll get your ass kicked
God there are times when I miss the South.
I also giggle a little, when people up this way (NH) complain about humidity.
Oh, the only problem with that Barbeque one, is that while all Southerners know how to barbeque, the various regions haven’t quite agreed on which is best among themselves. But good Barbeque is one of those things I miss living up here as well.
We really should have just let the South secede. No one would miss the snobbery that makes John Kerry look like the epitome of the common man. And our industrial and information based economies would still be kicking the ass of their third-world slave-based economies. And as it stands now, a extremely disproportionate amount of the taxes from us folks on the coasts goes to paying for those highly dependent and unproductive states. The only good thing to ever come out of them is the B-52’s and R.E.M.
Oh yeah, and the South still lost. Get over it.
#9 – Score another one for white-on-white racism… and ingratitude to our fighting women and men, many of the best of whom come from the South.
Barbara, thanks. You got me laughing –real good, too.
Calarato –I think Gramps was kidding and offering some twicked humor… no one would be that harsh all the time. Particularly with a humor-centered thread like this one… it’s like taking comments about Bruce’s dog or house or choice in musicians and making it into a political debate.
For me, I love the south. No, I do. The language, the civility, the pace, the checkered history and their universal love of history and respect for the past. How nearly every female with 30+ years on you is automatically your Mom and a male with 20+ years on you calls you Son. It’s family, southern style.
No ass whooping needed –I know which side my wheat toast with 7 grains is buttered.
#11 – OK, Matt, maybe so.
But strange, isn’t it, how much the #9 comments sound like the type of thing he would say normally, or has implied in other discussions?
By the way, if you didn’t see this yet – V needs to hear from you.
Score another for Caralato’s lack of a sense of humor.
And yup, many fine men come from the South, I should know, I’ve slept with many of them. And where do you think my favorite expression “Go haunt a house!” comes from? A good Ole Southern boy.
I will say however that I always find the regional pride stuff odd. But then I’m a mutt, son of a mutt, who was a son of another mutt. I have no ethnic or regional identity other than “American”. And thats plenty good enough for me.
It’s not my fault you aren’t funny, Gramps.
As I said: Everything you said in #9 is (1) your standard every day tone, and/or (2) things you’ve said or implied in other discussions. Cheers! 😉
Coke – It’s an adjustment to switch to calling soda coke. Out here oyu can get some pretty strange looks ordering “coke” where people can overhear you.
Humidity – One of the climate’s better points, like Thailand without the good food. Saves on moisturizer. It also makes beer taste better.
Grits – They are fine, as long as you make them pretty stiff and stir in some Pecorino Romano.
“It is an honor to be from the south, and a privilege for you (and those like you) visit.”
Whereas Southerners assume they have some kind of Constitutional right to travel and move to other people’s states.
Calarato, V got me; thanks for all the effort in relaying the message.
“And yup, many fine men come from the South, I should know, I’ve slept with many of them.”
Good God, Gramps, when I said you were an ignorant slut, I had no idea you would actually identify yourself as one!
And may I ask…were these pity dates for these guys, or did you have to slip them some $$$ first? You can tell me…I won’t give it away. As Connie Chung once said to Mrs. Gingrich: “Just whisper it in my ear, dear.”
Oh and BTW, here in Texas, we put cheese and Tabasco on our grits – never sugar. And the tea is minty and sweet, just like our menfolk.
And yes, if we were to break the 1845 treaty and once again become The Republic of Texas, we would be the 49-state USA’s largest trading partner and have the seventh-largest economy in the world. Deal with it, you Kerry lovers!
Regards,
Peter H.
Third-generation Texan and DAMN PROUD OF IT
Who puts sugar in grits anyway?
#18 – I think Fanny Flagg once said it was done by Yankees who confused grits with Cream of Wheat.
Regards,
Peter H.
If you wanted a cola, you called it “coke”.
If you wanted “Coke”, you called it “co-cola”.
It took me forever to stop calling “Coke” “co-cola” after moving up north.
And, BTW…..Texas isn’t REALLY a southern state. 🙂 🙂
monty
Michigan Matt, it’s a good thing you were just kidding in comment 5. I was getting ready to have you abducted later in the year and hauled down to my winter home. After we whupped your ass we would have forced you to eat grits and deep-fried catfish until you enjoy it. 🙂
C’mon guys. We gave America almost all of its music and much of its folklore. We also managed to shame the whole country in the world’s eyes more than once. Its just a land of extremes.
I can’t believe Yankees are putting money in the South at anything near the rate they put it into their snake-pit cities. At least the South gives a good return.
#22 VinceTN — June 24, 2006 @ 12:45 am – June 24, 2006
I can’t believe Yankees are putting money in the South at anything near the rate they put it into their snake-pit cities.
Actually, the snake pits are/were in the backwoods of the south, primarily in Tennessee, but also elsewhere. Part of their Christian religious ceremonies, don’cha know. Serpent Handlers
Yeah, we got us some snakes down here! I never hike in the woods without boots on. Very little money is put into these woods however. Snakes, unlike Dem block voters, actually have to help themselves.
Sweet tea only, thank you very much. Order iced tea in Pennsylvania and you get this nasty unsweetened crap.
As for coke, up here, they’re nuts about this really nasty stuff called birch beer. Tastes like tums. Narsty.
#20 – Monty, read your history books. Texas was one of the original six states that formed the Confederacy. In fact, then-governor Sam Houston (he of San Jacinto fame) fought tooth-and-nail to keep Texas in the Union, but the Legislature impeached him and replaced him with the secessionist lieutenant governor, who approved the articles of secession.
Incidentally – Florida was also a charter member of the Confederacy, but you often don’t hear about that from the Yankees who live there nowadays. It’s something they don’t want to acknowledge.
Regards,
Peter H.
This is fabulous!
My personal favorite is #4 about the Cokes. When I was growing up, it was
“What would you like to drink?”
“Ummm a Coke.”
“Okay, what kind?”
“Grape Fanta!”
And that was a typical conversation.
Ditto on the literature: do NOT fuck with a literate, well-educated Southerner. Seriously. Yes, we have a chip on our shoulder about this, and with good reason.
And the barbeque?? Geeez, we don’t even tolerate people from as far north as NORTH CAROLINA telling us how to barbeque. The vinegar v. ketchup debate has torn apart families.
Trace at #21, I’ve already been on a date that strangely took a turn toward kidnapping (role playing of course), long road trip in an AMC Gremlin, bondage, grits & honey, smells of aging catfish and an ass whooping.
I will NEVER go on a date with GrampaGryph again.