A Southern Life

I'm a born and raised south Florida girl, so I've had my fair share of run in's with tourists and Yankee's throughout my life. If you live in Florida, you know that we have a love/hate relationship with northerners. We love the people who come to our great state for vacations or to live here half of the year because they're such a large help to our economy. But that's really where the love list ends.

 

I've never been more of an angrier person until I drove on US 41 in Naples in December. I grew up in Sarasota, which was plenty a tourist town, but Naples is a whole other level. Here, we don't only have tourists, we have the snowbirds. The snowbirds are the worst. I'm pretty sure that, driving home from work the other day, I broke my curse word record. I LOVE driving, but I love a steady flow where I can set my cruise control to 6mph over the speed limit, roll down the windows, crank the music, and cruise. There's not a single bone in my body that wants to be stuck behind a senior from New York in a brand-spankin-new-Cadillac who is driving 32mph in a 50mph speed zone. Thank the sweet Lord that Florida recently put into act a law that if you're driving 10mph below the speed limit in the fast lane, a cop can pull you over and issue you a ticket. I hope they truly do it.

Anyways, where I was getting at is this: While I was driving home all frustrated the other day, I was thinking back to my old boss, Greg. Greg was from Ohio and he had been living in Florida for quite a few years. We were in the business of selling construction equipment and, if you've ever done it (though I doubt you have) you know that it's not easy. Especially if you work for Fastenal, in the south.

 

Down here, we like our neighbors. We like grilling out with them, having a drink on the porch with them, and even doing business with them. Greg used to whine, constantly, about how "the good ole' boys only want to do business with the good ole' boys, not who can give them the best deal," and ain't that the truth? When someone is family, whether they really are or aren't, we want to help them out, even if it puts us out a little bit.

 

Greg used to complain a lot that we did a lot of things slow down here, and we do. But isn't that the appeal of Florida? Isn't half of the reason you all come here is because as soon as you cross that Florida-Georgia line, you inhale that sweet salty-air and you instantly become relaxed and wait to just kick back with a margarita? So why do you complain about it? I used to have to tell him all the time that he was being a whiny-Midwesterner.

 

I guess what I'm trying to get at is this: Yes, we do things a lot slower in the south, but the one thing we don't do slow is drive, so get the f*** out of my way, jerk.

 

I mean, bless your hearts.