Southern Stuff: Part 2

A couple of posts ago, I discussed deviled egg plates.  I mentioned that the only female in my office that didn't own one was Susan from Wisconsin.  Susan is one of my favorite people in the world, even if she is a Yankee.  Sadly, she is leaving the company we work for (after 20+ years!)  She's taking a new job in Mobile, AL where she will have 10 minute access to the Gulf Coast beaches, so I can't blame her at all.  But I am going to miss the fire out of her.  While we were organizing her going-away luncheon, I decided to put together a list of all of the Southern things that we (me & my office-mates) have taught her.  I'm editing the list to take out some of the inside jokes...but I'm sharing the rest with y'all:

 

Things Susan has learned about being Southern:

• When it’s raining while the sun is shining, it means the devil is beating his wife with a wet dishtowel.
• How to open up a can of whoop-ass. (Note: We suspect that she always knew how to do this...just not what to call it.)
• How to properly pronounce the word for a small stream of water (creek)
• How to make cheese toast. (Seriously...how do you get through childhood without learning how to make cheese toast...WHICH IS NOT AN OPEN-FACED GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH...cheese toast is made in the oven, not on the stove-top)
• What it means when you’re “fixin to” do something.
• What pan-fried chicken is.
• When to bless somebody’s heart (and that it may not be meant as a compliment)
• What “swingers” really means…and that it is not something to talk about in polite company. (Note: this may have been a blonde moment and not a yankee moment...but I'm still including it on the list)
• How much something cost and where you got it. (She really, really hated whenever someone did that..."What a nice pair of earrings." "Why thank you so much.  I got them at Target on sale for $4.40")
• That a “hoe-down” is a fun party. (I mean, even the BEATLES knew that (Rocky Racoon) and they were from England.)
• That when you have a hoe-down, people are going to bring a covered dish, so get over it already. (This really drove her nuts.  She'd throw a party...people would ask her "What can I bring?" and she'd always say "Nothing...I've got it covered." and then we'd show up with something anyway.)
• Whether or not it is proper to put sugar or cheese in grits. (It is not.)
• That “the cat stealing a baby’s breath” is an old-wives’ tale.
• The difference between a hose pipe and a water pipe.
• How to make a tomato sammich (White Bread. sliced tomatoes. Mayo (Preferrably Blue Plate, it's the only time I don't prefer Kraft Mayo). salt and pepper) And a true-blue, honest-to-God-real tomato sammich is made on WonderBread...which you can't even buy anymore.
• What a thing-a-ma-jig is
• The true meaning of “winner-winner, chicken-dinner.”
• What “some count” is…(i.e. that those ribs are some count)
• That GRITS are girls raised in the south…and that she has two of them.
• How to correctly pronounce P-C-Bs. Polychlorinated Biphenyls.  We are a bunch of engineering/lab nerds with Southern accents.  PCB is Pay-Cee-Bays.
• What a freaking tornado warning means! (And not to try to drive yourself through one)! (She drove through the storm that produced the tornados that deccimated Tuscaloosa on April 27, 2011...against stringent advice.)
• The right way to eat pumpkin seeds and scuppernongs. (You don't eat the outer parts of either)
• What it means to “bow up.” (We struggled forever to articulate for her what this meant...this action happens when someone says something that offends someone else: John bowed up at Paul when Paul made fun of his shirt.  The best explanation we could come up with was that of a hissing cat...whose back "bows up" when it hisses.)
• That when you’re sore from too much exercise the next morning you are “Stove up”
• When you twist your ankle, it gets “Swole up”

 

Unfortunately, we never taught her how to appreciate gravy.

After reveiwing the list during her luncheon, we then presented Susan with her very own egg plate to take with her and declared her no-longer a Yankee, but a properly raised Southern Lady.  Bless her heart.