“You must be from the North” By George L. Fisher

 

In this special edition of “Be My Guest Thursday”(yeah, I KNOW it’s Monday not Thursday)….I’m serving up a Southern Helpin’ of Humor today with a guest post from my Macon Georgia friend and classmate (well same high school…different years!). George gives us a little insight into how a “dyed in the wool Southerner” feel when some one mistakenly takes him for a Notherner! Hilarious George! Thanks for the laugh…. I needed that this Monday morning! Happy Reading!  Janiece

George and Pottamus (grandson)

I am fuming right now. It’s not because it’s Monday, and it’s not because I
had to get the tire on my car patched, nor is it the fact that I’m still
recovering from my last little episode of Gout.

“The incident” happened on the way home. A couple members of my family were a tad under the weather. Nothing major, just a lower gastrointestinal bug or thingy…One of those things that kind of require you to be “nearer my john to thee” , as it were..Ahem.
I stopped off at the drugstore to get a few things: Some pink stuff, cough
drops, and a couple packs of gum and a couple bottles of Ginger Ale.
That’s when “it” happened.
Another customer in the place, a woman, and obviously ignorant beyond
description, comes up to me and says: (allow me a moment here to take a
cleansing breath) “You must be from the North, buying Ginger ale.”(Long
pregnant pause to allow the words to sink in..)
“EX-CUUUUUSSSE ME?!?” I replied.
“You must be from the North- Nobody buys Ginger Ale here” or something to that effect. By this time my blood pressure was rising and my head spinning and ears are ringing. No way in hell she just said that to me—and not just once but said it twice. I wouldn’t have been anymore shocked had I just peed on an electric fence.

The cashier had a look on her face that said, “OH-NO-YOU-JUS-DID-ENT!!

“Madame”, I replied, raising my voice to the right amount of decibels so not
only could the checkout girl hear it but also the ladies and customers back
in aisle 11 (Incontinence, laxative, and antacid) —

“I have NEVER EVER been accused of anything so DASTARDLY in my entire
life–!!
I was still in shock, my face turning red. She looked at me and tried to
justify her mis-aligned perception, and she may have mentioned something
about what folks in Michigan drink. Quite frankly it’s all a blur and I
responded once more:
“Maam, I drink CO-COLAS. I am from the South, I am a Macon boy and we drink Co-Colas down here, even if they have “DR. Pepper” or “Orange Crush” labels on the bottle, and furthermore, I have been accused of a lot of things, some of them unmentionable, but I have NEVER, EVER been accused of being a Northerner.” As an aside I also mentioned my Great Great Grandaddy was a signer of Georgia’s secession document before the Civil War.

Who in the H-E-double- hockey-sticks did this woman think she was? (who, by the way, was nattily dressed and how I know is just so happens there was
another lady in the store who saw the way she was dressed and gave her a good going over with her eyeballs when she came traipsing her big ol’ butt in the place like gangbusters and very unladylike I might add) First, she starts up a conversation with me, and secondly, accuses me of being a foreigner?
I wasn’t raised thinking that it’s ok to hit women, but I’m telling you
people, this woman was a testament to wife beating. Clearing my throat, and
becoming still louder, I continued.“As an addendum, Madame, I will have you know that Ginger Ale is a staple of the Southern medicine cabinet. To three parts ginger ale one normally adds one part black and white movie and one part Grandmas couch and within a 12-24 hour period one is as good as new.”I was seething. I was at a crossroads. I could continue to have “conversation” with this heathen, or I could grab my stuff and take the high road and exit the premises. I must be getting old, because I chose the latter.It is times like this that I would love to have a tattoo on my person someplace (in this case my buttocks) that proclaims “Forget, Hell”, or “American by Birth, Southern by the Grace of God” that I could “whip out” and show her that would have made her swallow her snuff or perhaps soil herself. She deserved to do both.I am back home now, my blood pressure almost back to normal and my two sick ones are getting better by the minute. The Pottamus will be as wide open as a peanut hull before bed and the Booger has casually sipped on her Ginger ale. My wife, god love her, who hath charms to soothe my savage “Southern” beast told me it would be ok, that some folks are alive only because it’s against the law to kill them. She told me to just forget about it.

Forget, Hell.

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http://everythingandnothing.typepad.com/mississippi/the_south/