Southern People Are Funny

(This is in response to your comment on my last post, burg. Hope you enjoy.)

Two days after K and I married--October 8, to be exact--we packed up our car and moved to Charleston, South Carolina. K was in the Navy and Charleston was his home port--not that he spent all that much time there, you realize. With his short- and long-term cruises, he was gone a whole lot more than I ever dreamed possible. But, I digress. We found ourselves an apartment and started our lives together.

A few weeks after we moved into our apartment, K was gone on a cruise. It was a short one--a week or ten days at the most--so it must have been the one to Gitmo. Anyway, here I was, alone, in a city--don't forget, I grew up in a town of less than 1000 people--no phone, didn't drive, and didn't know anyone. It was a bit daunting. Somehow or another, I became friends with another Navy wife who lived on the other side of the parking lot from us. To say we got close quickly is putting it mildly.

Laurie and her husband were from Philadelphia and that in itself made her my long-lost sister--or at the very least, my long-lost cousin! There was just something about us Yankees standing against the Southern folk that made a bond between us that was very strong. Now, don't get me wrong, all of the people I met that were natives or from other places in the South were very nice--they all were just different than we Yankees were. Native Southerners just can't understand the shared experiences we Northerners had. Now, finally, we get to my story.

During the Christmas season, Laurie, her husband, K, and I went to the local mall to do some Christmas shopping. (We had no money, so it must have been more Christmas window shopping, but, I digress again.) As this was the South, we were wearing short sleeves. Laurie and I were lamenting the fact that we were not going to see snow at all for Christmas, much less for the entire winter. We continued belly-aching as we were waiting to be taken care of in one store. The clerk must have over-heard us--actually, he would have had to be deaf to NOT hear us complaining--because he asked, "Are you-all from up North?" To which we replied, "Yes." He then asked us, "Do you get much snow where you are from?" Laurie nodded her head and I said, "Yes. As a matter of fact, we get at least 200" of snow where I'm from." To which the clerk looked at me, very befuddled, and asked, "All at once?" I'm sorry to say, I could not answer the man because I was trying too hard not to laugh. I'm sure the poor thing must still, to this day, be wondering why Laurie and I started laughing hysterically the second we were out of his sight.

And this is why I think some Southern people are funny! :)