Help me, I'm turning Southern

When I moved to the South 10 years ago, I made a short mental list of things I would never do.

1. Don't say y'all

2. Don't drink sweet tea

3. Don't stay down here for more than 10 years

Well, I just recently betrayed that list again by becoming addicted to boiled peanuts. Anyone ever eat these things? I had one by accident the other day and now I'm hooked. Even bought a cold pack of 'em at a convenience store the other day and ate them for my lunch. They're sort of like meatier sunflower seeds.

I hope this trend doesn't continue. The only things left on my list are

5. Don't buy a pickup truck and hang a gun rack inside

6. Don't fly the Confederate flag and

7. Don't become a closet racist.

 

Don't interview Jimmy Carter at 7:30 in the a.m. because his breath will stink as if he'd just eaten boiled peanuts out of Ros' cornhole.

 

Jeezus Xan,

The thread just started and you're already trying to kill it??

 

Y'all is a great contraction and sweet tea is one of the top three drinks on the planet.

As for the gun rack, they make a nice place to store your umbrella if you aren't a gun owner. Heck, my grandfather put one in his truck and puts his cane on it when he's driving.

 

Ya, all people from the South are racists. Haven't heard that one around here in a while. Yeesh.

 

You're a White Sox fan and you live in the South. You're a double-racist.

 

You know me better than that, Pall. Not all people in the South eat boiled peanuts, either.

Covering news, I meet a bunch of closet racists - many you wouldn't normally expect - but obviously not everyone is. It was just a trait I didn't want to pick up.

 

Have you started saying "Get you some" yet?

 

My wife went to college in the South. Her roommate, who was from New York City, stayed there after graduating. It's been more than 20 years and she now has a Southern accent.

 

Yes, but it's still mostly a mocking tone. It's yet to seriously slip into my ever devolving grammar.

 

10 for me Frank and I've probably had a Southern accent for the last five or six - at least according to my friends up north who still chuckle when I talk to them.

 

Have you started saying 'fixin'' yet? I noticed myself saying y'all recently, but I refuse to say fixin'.