I went to do that "You know you're from X if ..." meme, but I didn't find anything in Google for either my hometown or my current town. So I had to make them up.
You know you're from North Carolina if ...
1. Your one-year-old knows whether he's a Pack fan or a Heels fan.
2. Your two-year-old can dribble competently. (If you're from the mountains, she can also clog.)
3. You define 'pervert' as a boy who likes girls more than basketball.
4. You've ever added a modifier to the word 'y'all' to capture a shade of meaning. "Glad we ran into y'all two! Now we want all y'all to come for Thanksgiving, remember."
5. Even if you work in a law office, there's someone in your building who can play the banjo.
5a. Unless you work in one of those buildings where everybody but you is from New Jersey.
6. If you order tea, you don't have to specify iced, but you do have to specify if you want it unsweetened.
6a. Only you don't say 'unsweetened'; you say 'unsweet.'
7. The stuff they call 'barbecue sauce' has nothing to do with barbecue, though it's not bad on chicken.
8. Banana pudding isn't a pudding.
9. You know whether or not you like collards. Your grandmother, on the other hand, still thinks you'd like them if you'd only try them one more time.
10. Most of your cuss words have two syllables. (Dayum! Sheeit! Hayell!)
11. You have to specify 'a straight pin' or 'an ink pen' because 'pin' and 'pen' are pronounced exactly the same way. (And they have two syllables.)
12. You've ever said "might could," "might would," or "might should."
13. As a kid, you had an ongoing battle with your dad, because he wouldn't turn on the air conditioner until April, no matter how badly you needed it in March.
14. Some years you go to the Fair in shorts. Some years you go to the Fair in a down coat.
15. They close school if there's a flake of snow in the air. You've attempted to build a snowmean out of snow so light you could still see grass through it.
16. Tobacco paid for your college. It also killed your granddaddy.
Edited to add more:
17. You can explain the difference between a first cousin once removed and a second cousin.
18. You've ever eaten watermelon-rind pickle, picalilli, or homemade ketchup.
19. You own more than one cake stand or pieces from more than one set of sterling silver flatware. Bonus points if you can explain your exact blood relationship to the original purchaser.
You know you're from Central Illinois if ...
(I'm not actually from Central Illinois, so I don't know those all-important things you learn when you're twelve, but here goes.)
1. You've run the heat and the air conditioning the same day.
2. You've watered your lawn and run your sump pump the same day.
3. You think that anybody who can't drive in six inches of snow is a wuss.
4. Anyhow, you know snow is easy compared to freezing rain.
5. More than half the year, the weather forecast is the same: Sunny and windy, with a 40% chance of thunderstorms.
6. You know what day of the week they test the tornado sirens.
7. You own four different weights of coats, and you wear all four in a single year.
8. Your town, inexplicably, is prouder of Dan Fogelberg than of Richard Pryor.
9. If you move away, the "hometown food" you miss the most is baba ghanous.
10. Every six months, your town takes a beating in one of those "Most Livable Places" surveys.
10b. The next day, there's an editorial in the newspaper on "Why those idiots at the Places Rated Almanac don't know nuthin'."
11. Every performance of any kind, no matter how bad it is, gets a standing ovation.
12. The nearest professional baseball teams are a hundred and fifty miles away, but you know which of your friends are Cubs fans and which are Cardinals fans.
13. Any time a controversial movie comes out, the national media will send some people out to your town to see "how it plays in Peoria."
14. You don't think your town has a racial problem, but you don't know any nonwhite people to ask.
15. You don't know the name of your neighborhood (though it probably has "bluff" in it), but even if you're not Catholic, you know what parish you live in.
16. Cat is not an animal.
17. Somebody routinely brings deer sausage to your company potluck.
You know you're from North Carolina if ...
1. Your one-year-old knows whether he's a Pack fan or a Heels fan.
2. Your two-year-old can dribble competently. (If you're from the mountains, she can also clog.)
3. You define 'pervert' as a boy who likes girls more than basketball.
4. You've ever added a modifier to the word 'y'all' to capture a shade of meaning. "Glad we ran into y'all two! Now we want all y'all to come for Thanksgiving, remember."
5. Even if you work in a law office, there's someone in your building who can play the banjo.
5a. Unless you work in one of those buildings where everybody but you is from New Jersey.
6. If you order tea, you don't have to specify iced, but you do have to specify if you want it unsweetened.
6a. Only you don't say 'unsweetened'; you say 'unsweet.'
7. The stuff they call 'barbecue sauce' has nothing to do with barbecue, though it's not bad on chicken.
8. Banana pudding isn't a pudding.
9. You know whether or not you like collards. Your grandmother, on the other hand, still thinks you'd like them if you'd only try them one more time.
10. Most of your cuss words have two syllables. (Dayum! Sheeit! Hayell!)
11. You have to specify 'a straight pin' or 'an ink pen' because 'pin' and 'pen' are pronounced exactly the same way. (And they have two syllables.)
12. You've ever said "might could," "might would," or "might should."
13. As a kid, you had an ongoing battle with your dad, because he wouldn't turn on the air conditioner until April, no matter how badly you needed it in March.
14. Some years you go to the Fair in shorts. Some years you go to the Fair in a down coat.
15. They close school if there's a flake of snow in the air. You've attempted to build a snowmean out of snow so light you could still see grass through it.
16. Tobacco paid for your college. It also killed your granddaddy.
Edited to add more:
17. You can explain the difference between a first cousin once removed and a second cousin.
18. You've ever eaten watermelon-rind pickle, picalilli, or homemade ketchup.
19. You own more than one cake stand or pieces from more than one set of sterling silver flatware. Bonus points if you can explain your exact blood relationship to the original purchaser.
You know you're from Central Illinois if ...
(I'm not actually from Central Illinois, so I don't know those all-important things you learn when you're twelve, but here goes.)
1. You've run the heat and the air conditioning the same day.
2. You've watered your lawn and run your sump pump the same day.
3. You think that anybody who can't drive in six inches of snow is a wuss.
4. Anyhow, you know snow is easy compared to freezing rain.
5. More than half the year, the weather forecast is the same: Sunny and windy, with a 40% chance of thunderstorms.
6. You know what day of the week they test the tornado sirens.
7. You own four different weights of coats, and you wear all four in a single year.
8. Your town, inexplicably, is prouder of Dan Fogelberg than of Richard Pryor.
9. If you move away, the "hometown food" you miss the most is baba ghanous.
10. Every six months, your town takes a beating in one of those "Most Livable Places" surveys.
10b. The next day, there's an editorial in the newspaper on "Why those idiots at the Places Rated Almanac don't know nuthin'."
11. Every performance of any kind, no matter how bad it is, gets a standing ovation.
12. The nearest professional baseball teams are a hundred and fifty miles away, but you know which of your friends are Cubs fans and which are Cardinals fans.
13. Any time a controversial movie comes out, the national media will send some people out to your town to see "how it plays in Peoria."
14. You don't think your town has a racial problem, but you don't know any nonwhite people to ask.
15. You don't know the name of your neighborhood (though it probably has "bluff" in it), but even if you're not Catholic, you know what parish you live in.
16. Cat is not an animal.
17. Somebody routinely brings deer sausage to your company potluck.
(no subject)
Date: 6/22/04 02:01 pm (UTC)(And what's cat, if it's not an animal?)
10. Most of your cuss words have two syllables. (Dayum! Sheeit! Hayell!)
Oh, I love Southern accents so much. Whenever I finally come up with the time and the money to get out there myself, I'm going to spend the whole time listening to people talk with a dreamy smile on my face.
(no subject)
Date: 6/22/04 04:15 pm (UTC)A cat is a type of machinery. CAT, though I don't remember what it stands for. They're everywhere because North Carolina can't finish one project before starting another one. I-40 will NEVER be finished.
::grins:: And you have to go to small towns to hear accents that are that bad. Or get those of us who know how to ennuciate around family. lol, my own gets so much worse around family, that friends who have called me, didn't recognize my voice.
(no subject)
Date: 7/1/04 03:13 pm (UTC)But turnip greens I can eat all day long.
Cat is short for Caterpillar. The company that makes the ubiquitious yellow construction machinery is based here in Peoria. (Though, oddly enough, some of their most active factories are in ... North Carolina.)
(no subject)
Date: 6/22/04 02:02 pm (UTC)12. You've ever said "might could," "might would," or "might should."
HA! I am redeemed!
(no subject)
Date: 7/1/04 03:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 6/22/04 02:14 pm (UTC)Dayum. Sheeyit. Hayell. That says it all.
(no subject)
Date: 6/22/04 02:26 pm (UTC)I could add: "Your first crush was on someone well over six feet tall, who wore shorts and tank tops in bright colored nylon between late November and early April, and probably either had a wicked three or a smokin' dunk."
(no subject)
Date: 7/1/04 03:16 pm (UTC)I was ten years old in 1974 when N.C. State won the ACC and the NCAA. The church I grew up in used to have a Parade of Saints for the kids on All Saints Day, and they let the kids dress up as any admired person, even people who weren't officially saints. But that year, they had to change the policy, because too many kids wanted to dress up as "Saint David Thompson" and "Saint Monte Towe"!
(no subject)
Date: 7/1/04 03:35 pm (UTC)I, too, was 10 years old in 1974 (which means happy 40th to you and me!), but I didn't pay any attention until I saw Mitch Kupchak and John Kuester, whereupon I fell like a ton of bricks. My adoration of ACC ball began with the 1975 ACC Tournament, and has yet to waver.
Thanks to my ideas of ideal, I never dated a boy under 6' tall (which might explain why I didn't date until college...hmmmm...), and my idea of sexy is sweat on the back of the neck.
But after all that, I married a Duke fan; we say we have a mixed marriage.
I live in SEC country now, but we get ACC games twice a week thanks to Fox SportsNet and ESPN. It's better than nothing, but not the 10-12 games per week we were used to when we lived in NC!
(no subject)
Date: 7/2/04 06:26 pm (UTC)If you tell me you went to Broughton, I'm going to be very, very scared.
(no subject)
Date: 7/3/04 06:55 am (UTC)Chapel Hill High, baby. :)
(no subject)
Date: 6/22/04 04:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/1/04 03:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 6/22/04 04:09 pm (UTC)"That's not sad. That's not even damn sad. That's DAYUM sad."
(no subject)
Date: 7/1/04 03:17 pm (UTC)Oh, now, I love this. This is going to enter our family language now.
(no subject)
Date: 7/1/04 05:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 6/22/04 07:35 pm (UTC)The tobacco thing is only half right for me -- but it's because my education was paid for by Yankee industrialists, and I got one hell of a culture shock when I arrived in New England for college, ordered iced tea at a restaurant, and got this stuff in a can (this was in the pre-Snapple era).
(no subject)
Date: 6/22/04 10:02 pm (UTC)And, uh, I'm from Ohio.
(no subject)
Date: 7/1/04 03:21 pm (UTC)In their defense, though, it does get complicated with big families, where 'generation' in the sense of distance from a given ancestor doesn't necessarily correlate with 'generation' in the sense of age. My dad is on the younger end of an enormous family, so I have a first cousin once removed who's a little older than I am.
(no subject)
Date: 6/22/04 08:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7/1/04 03:22 pm (UTC)(Well, to a lot of people in Illinois, North Carolina is an exotic other country ...)
When my favorite aunt from Rocky Mount learned that I was in love with a guy from California, she said thoughtfully, "Well ... it ain't like he's a real Yankee ..."
(no subject)
Date: 7/2/04 09:03 pm (UTC)