Southern Hospitality in Coldlanta.

Here I am in Hotlanta--which is freezing cold, by the way--and I am just begining to understand the difference between northerners and southerners. The difference is southern hospitality. People in the south feel that everyone should take an interest in each other, that everyone should be polite, courteous, and talkative. As a yankee, I find this very annoying. I've realized that I don't want to tell strangers how my day is going and I for sure don't want to have to feign interest in their lives.

Yesterday, the hotel was inundated with the National Foster Parents Association and I stupidly assumed that they were talkative and engaged because they are incredibly giving people who have to spend most of their time with misguided little shits.

This morning I woke up, thankful that the replacement parents are gone and expected to have a calm day with less invasive questioning by people I've never met and will never see again. But, it turns out, it wasn't the foster parent-ness in them, it was the southern-ness. Southern people apparently feel that they are entitled to command your attention and ask for personal details about your life whenever they feel like it. I reconciled myself to the fact that I was going to have to answer questions about my hair, my clothes, my family, my job, my personal life, and my political and religious views. I was salty about it but when in Rome....

Then things took a turn--a lady was passing, stopped and told me how my job is "the life" because I get to sit here all day. And then tickled my shoeless foot!!!

This goes behind the hokie friendliness of the south. I don't care if you are from below the mason-dixon, the deep south, or the south pole, it is never appropriate to touch a strangers foot after you've basically told them that a monkey can do their job. Even if a monkey could do my job, I'm sure the monkey would also take offense at being tickled by a stranger.

Now, I realize that this southern hospitality is considered a good thing about the south--like sweet tea and relaxed sobriety laws--but I am taking a hard stand against it. Therefore, I'm issuing this warning to the south: Stop talking to, touching, laughing at, smiling at, and especially tickling me. I'm a yankee, and god only knows when I might strike back. You're just lucky I'm not a monkey--They throw poo.