Southern Hospitality

When we bought the house we are living in now, we were on a serious real-estate high. For the price of a small one-bedroom broom closet in London, we purchased a five bedroom Edwardian manse sitting on a huge piece of land in a beautiful old Southern town. Each night before we moved in, we would excitedly discuss how lucky we were to live in the land o' plenty, to raise The Princess on good ole' American values and apple pie. The apple pie seemed mandatory.

Not an hour after the movers left on that fateful day there was a knock on the front door. Standing on the porch was a sweet looking little old lady holding a traditional Southern "Welcome Basket" full of tasty-looking baked goodies. Explaining that she was a neighbor, she came right on in. As she introduced herself as "Miss Maggie", we smiled smugly to ourselves, aglow in the knowledge that, yes, we had made the right decision to move here, to this old Southern town that obviously had lovely people living in it! Lovely people just like us!

Miss Maggie proudly presented her basket and said, "Oh, my land, we sure are glad that YOU folks moved in". We all looked at each other, puzzled as to how we already had a good reputation so soon. Sensing our confusion, Miss Maggie elucidated further: "You know, you're not a bunch of n*ggers. They getting everywhere these days. The last family that lived here even let their daughter DATE one".

Nig...wha?

I am ashamed to admit that I was absolutely speechless. As I stood there dumbfounded and witless, all of my semi-repressed memories of what it was REALLY like to live in a small Southern town came flooding back.

The apple pie sat a little heavy on my stomach that night.