Stare of the Southerner

Dear Southern Lady,

What is with the Wal-Mart obsession in the South?

Department Store Diva



Dear Diva,

The Southern Lady has a British friend who called her up after his first visit to an American Wal-Mart. The Lady will never forget the excitement in his voice when he exclaimed "You can buy beer, bullets, and guns all at the same store!" This is the essence of why Wal-Mart appeals to the Southerner. If one isn't impressed with beer, bullets and/or guns, one's social life in the South will be nonexistant.

Eclectically yours,
SL

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Dear Southern Lady,

I'm from Vermont. While visiting relatives in the South I noticed that people like to stare a lot. Why is this and how can I fix it?

Center of Attention


Dear Center,

The Southern Lady can sympathize with being the center of attention. Unfortunately, the South can sometimes be a boring place and so its denizens are interested by anyone or anything new. To make matters worse, we cut our teeth on stories of that strange foreign species called "The Yankee", i.e. anyone living outside our small collection of Southern States. To compound the matter, there are two types of Southerners...those with manners and those without. You can tell the difference by their accent...the former's is lilting and honey toned while the latter's makes even the Southern Lady cringe. While a mannered Southerner wouldn't dream of staring at a stranger and would instead make him or herself extra ingratiating, your average redneck doesn't have the social skills or the vocabulary to do so...so he does the next best thing. He stares.

With Undivided Attention,
SL