Where you from, anyway?

I would posit that nearly every citizen of the United States of America (hereafter referred to as 'Merica) has met, or at least seen via television/film/radio (is that still a thing?) somebody from somewhere else. That somewhere might be anywhere from the city in the next county over, or a country halfway across the world.

What I'm getting at is that we've all met someone from somewhere else, and they say or do things differently than we do. Why? Because they're weird, that's why.

In some frightening place, it's normal for families to take photos like this.

The reason that this topic is on my mind is because for the past indeterminate amount of time (I'm guessing a little short of forever) I've been a visitor in a strange land. The sense of being an outsider is fun sometimes, especially if the natives are barely aware that I'm different. At times I even blend in seamlessly.

A ghost in the night. A whisper on the wind.

Other times... Not so much.

I could have sworn my disguise was foolproof!

But what's worse than the feeling of not belonging is the false sense of exclusion that some natives project onto you. Because it's not real, it's a division and discrimination that is only recognized by one party.

Exhibit A: Many humans in Louisiana are under the impression that since I hail from North Carolina, I'm not "southern". How they reach this conclusion, I'm not sure. Since I all but have an advanced degree in 'Merica (with a focus on "The South") I can only posit that because North Carolina does not touch the Gulf Coast that it is not "southern" in the eyes of these scholars.

This may be, but nobody in the history of ever has thought, "You know? Let's make only five out of the fifty states 'southern'." That region has been known as the "Deep South", but that definition implies that there is at least another part of the country that is either really fancy (the Top South?), or very appearance motivated (the Shallow South?).

That's a movie I'd see. So long as he can still be racist.

For instance, if I took a survey of all citizens of North Carolina and combined those results with similar data from other states, plus a panel of historians, sociologists and anthropologists, I would venture to say that the results would lean towards the "Of course North Carolina is in the South, dumb ass!" side of the spectrum. But what do I (or anyone not from swamp country) know about what constitutes being "southern"?

So, since I'm not southern, of course I can't have grown up saying "y'all" or any other parts of the southern dialect. I probably say things like, "Hey, yous guys want to put on your sneaks and mosey down to the bodega to get some pop to drink?" Now, I'll grant you that North Carolina is losing its dialect, especially the southern drawl around Raleigh. NCSU Language Project But we still have the right to day that we are southern in our speech patterns.

I doooo duh'clare!!! Etc.

And that's just the blatantly regionalist (is that a thing?) discrimination that people pull on me when they find out that I'm "not from around these parts". Some of it is a bit based in truth, like when they ask if I eat crawfish. To which I respond, "Uh... Yes? Is there a different answer? They're little tiny lobsters. And, I'm a dog. We eat all sorts of shit. Take that last part how you want..."

Chocolate? This is doo-doo, baby!

So it's not so weird to be asked that, because some humans down here don't eat them. To which, I am bound by the laws of bad jokes to say some variation of "that fish cray". But it's whatever. I just wish that seven people wouldn't ask me in the same night, as we're about to go to a crawfish boil, where (surprise!) the main course is crawfish. Use some freaking context clues people... Or at least clean your ears out when I answer the half dozen people before you.

But while we're on the subject of assuming that people don't imbibe certain substances, by show of hands, who associates sweet tea with the southern part of 'Merica? Everyone, right? In fact, I would venture a guess that anywhere folks say "y'all", they should probably be sipping on some sweet tea, whilst reclining in a rocking chair on their front porch.

Hound dog at the feet optional.

So imagine my surprise when some friends came to visit Dr. Woofers in Louisiana and were unable to order a sweet tea at several "acclaimed" "southern" "restaurants". (I'm the writer, I can put quotes around whatever I like. Get over it.) I had never really noticed this egregious faux pas (sp?), mostly because I'm more of a lemonade type guy. And forgive my language, but that's some ol' bullshit!

For all the "You're not southern" crap I'd taken for the past couple of fortnights, and then come to find out they don't even have the decency to serve something that mother fucking McDonalds realized was awesome and shouldn't be confined to the southern parts of 'Merica?

"That honky grandma be tripping!"

Ballin' Is a Habit Part Two

If you haven't read the first post on this topic, well honestly you're not missing too much. If you want to though, you can read up on the background athletic information. Quick recap: my room mate and I are decent at sports, and have played a lot of them. Hence, we've got a lot of stories about winning and/or losing horribly. Here come some more.

Sorry, this image was supposed to be for the post on cooking.

I'll start this post off with a brief tale of one of my more em'bare-ass'ing moments in sports. That's right, good for you! That not so subtle spelling alteration to the word embarrassing cued you in! This story is about pantsing!

For those of you who don't know what the term "pantsing" entails, it's a pretty simple concept. All you need is somebody with loose fitting pants/shorts and somebody else to pull those pants down. Now you can go pants somebody yourself! Let the merriment begin!

Huzzah!

For anyone who's ever played a sport against, played around with or simply been stuck in crowded elevator with a member of the opposite sex, you know that sometimes inadverdent contact is made.

Some times it's painful, like an elbow in the spleen. Some times it's awkward, like an elbow in the boob. Some times it's downright embarrassing, like pulling the shorts off a girl and exposing her rainbow colored panties to the entire intramural fields.

"Boy, I'm glad I wore underwear today."

That my friends is what happened to me, during one of my soul crushing defeats while playing flag football for Teaching Fellows during my undergrad years. For anyone who, for reasons possibly related to illiteracy (why are you pretending to read a blog?) or just poor imagination, the image below is an artist's recreation of the event I just described. In order to protect the identities of everyone involved, the rainbow panties wearing blond girl has been replaced with a cornrows wearing black man.

Also, the football was replaced with a rugby ball.

In my defense, those flag belts are actually more difficult for me to grab than it would be for me to actually tackle somebody. I have to repress a lot of training and frustration to just go for the flag. That's one of the reasons I dislike flag football. It makes me look like an impotent fool who can't even grab a silly piece of fabric dangling from a smaller man's waist. Outrageous, I know. Moving on.

It's not just sports that involve raquets, bats, wheels, frisbees, food or greased pigs that my room mate and I have played. He used to be quite the paint ball player. I've played like twice, one of those times with him. We were on a trip sponsored by NCSU's Cru or something and were playing some paintball. It was mostly rental style equipment, so nothing too pricey.

Not that cheap. Is that even a real paintball gun?

There about 14 or so people on the trip, so we had decent teams. We played in some nice woods, full of trees, creeks and underbrush. Now I had heard my room mate was good, but it was all from him and I sort of assumed that he was just bragging a bit.

The first game of capture the flag we played was over in like three minutes. I didn't see anybody. My room mate just walked back with their flag and said he got six of them. No big deal.

Artist's simulation of my room mate playing paintball.

This continued for the rest of the day. One time he had expended his 20-30 shots gunning down half the opposing team, turned to one he had just taken out of the game and politely asked the dude for some ammo.

The guy gave it to him.

To this day I'm not sure if the other guy did that because he was a genuinely nice guy or if the blood lust in my room mate's eyes terrified him that much.

He did say "please".

If you ever play basketball with my room mate and me, you'll know that there are few things we appreciate more than blocked shots. If you can pack somebody's jumpshot right back down to the ground, that's almost as good as dunking in our opinion. And since neither of us can dunk, looks like you're about to have your shot denied a time or two.

Don't forget the subsequent trash talking.

While neither of us are spectacular basketball players, we both believe in playing close, aggressive defense. Which doesn't work out well if we're on opposing teams and have to guard each other. Passes get stolen, shots get blocked, people get hurt. Mostly my room mate. He jokes that he has to call fair catch before going for a rebound against me.

What can I say? Football is my first love.

But even we draw the line when it comes to blocking the shots of people who obviously shouldn't be blocked in an aggressive manner. Like six year olds. Unless you are also of a single digit age, you should never think that it's cool to block a little kid's shot. Especially to the point where you knock him to the ground. I'm not going to go into detail about this, but let it be known that we know a girl that we call "Lebron" in memory of her rage blackout style play against a little kid.

"And give me your juice box while you're at it."