Another repost

Monday, August 31, 2009

I know I sound like an anti-Southerner, what with my referring to Georgia as 'the arse-end of the free world' and 'armpit' and other such epithets, but I feel I ought to perhaps explain my rationale. It is therefore with great pleasure that I present to you my

10 Reasons I Hate Living in Georgia!

10) No friggin' sidewalks.

The distance between where I live and where I work is not too far, but if I wanted to walk to and from work I would probably have to set aside a good couple of hours each way. the reason? No stinkin' sidewalks and too much of that bloody kudzu stuff. Haven't you people ever heard of Roundup?

9) The heat and humidity.

I'm sorry, but I cannot be the only one who thinks that sweating for no reason is wrong. If you're sitting still, doing nothing, and you can feel the beads of sweat forming in places you didn't even know you could sweat from, then it's too damn hot!

8) The traffic.

I've mentioned the insane traffic in a previous post, but I forgot to mention that even though it rains fairly often, nobody seems to know how to drive in the rain. When I used to work at Red Lobster, I would sit outside after my shift and wait for my ride. If during my wait it started to rain, I would only have to wait about 3 minutes before I would hear sirens and see police and fire and medical vehicles rushing to the aid of some dingbat who had hit a pole or skidded into a ditch.

7) That whole 'Southern Hospitality' myth.

We've all heard this one and it's a lie. People here are as rude as they are anywhere else. Some of them are ruder. The reason this myth perpetuates is because these genteel Southerners cover up their rudeness by saying things like "Bless your heart" after the insult, which somehow makes it alright. This especially used when talking trash about someone else, as in "She's a crack whore, bless her heart."

6) The rebel flag.

I especially hate seeing this offensive item hanging from a front porch or on a custom-made flagpole in the back end of a pickup truck (American made, of course), replete with drunken rednecks going "Yeeeeeeeehaaaaa!!". You lost the Civil War - get over it!

5) All the damn fat people.

Now, I'm not the world's skinniest guy by a long chalk, but I daresay people are fatter here than I've seen anywhere else. Georgia is not the fattest state, it actually ranks 14th for adult obesity, but it ranks 3rd for percentage of obese children. Go to any southern Wal-Mart and people-watch. You will see what I mean. You'll see women so large wearing white shorts that you could show movies on their butts. To quote comedienne Carrie Snow, we're talking Cinerama with Dolby here. What gets me is this: how does one even become obese in a state where you can break a sweat just by opening your front door? I fear the answer may lie in my number 4 pick...

4) The, ahem, 'cuisine'.

If you can call it that. The problem here is not the actual dishes themselves... many of them are very tasty. The problem is that 90% of the populace of the state cannot cook worth a toot, but they all seem to think they can. And a disproportionate amount of those people actually work in restaurants. So for a lot of out-of-towners, the first experience of "real Southern home cookin'" may be a butter-laden greasy fryfest with veggies that have been on the boil since Lee surrendered to Grant.

3) Suburban Sprawl.

I have lived here not quite ten years, and the place doesn't even look close to what it did when I first got here. There is not a square inch of land here that they won't tear up, rip all the trees out of and build a subdivision or strip mall on.

2) Sweet tea.

This is just plain wrong. Tea is supposed to be hot, and it's supposed to taste like tea, not syrup. No wonder there are so many toothless fatties around.

1) NASCAR, primer grey Camaros and bright orange Mustangs.

Okay, firstly, I don't dislike NASCAR. I can enjoy motor racing as much as anyone, but when the fans are so rabid and fervent, almost like British soccer fans, and the sport is so basic, just driving around in circles with no twists or turns.... come on. The only fun part is when there's a really spectacular crash. And all the little boy racers with their souped up pieces of crap on the roads... why is it that primer grey and bright orange are the colors you pick for your tricked out hunk o' junk? Ugly is not the word.

There are actually a few more reasons, but I'll post them later. If I posted them now, it wouldn't be a Top Ten, would it? Also, please don't think that there are NO reasons to like living here. I have some great friends here, and they all know who they are.

Cheers everyone!

Jeff

1 comments:

Wildhair said...

I was informed that *I* was responsible for destroying Southern Hospitality.
I had only been working at the LC in G'ville for 3 weeks or so. I was doing an adjustment when the lovely woman remarked about my accent, or lack thereof. "You ain't from 'round here, are yee?"
To which I replied no, but I was loving the Southern Hospitality (a lie, but I was shmoozing). "Well, with all you damn yankees coming here, it's being destroyed."
Dropping a beat I replied, "Bless your heart!"

One thing that bugged me about Jawja was that every woman from every walk of life considered herself a Southern Belle. How's the saying go about southern women telling you off and you'll thank them for it.. I can't remember. I refused to conform.

September 1, 2009 5:25 AM

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