Guns N Snow

There are two things Southerners get pretty crazy about. Like hide yo kids, hide yo wife crazy about.

Guns. And snow.

I'm pretty sure if it was snowing and you took away their guns, their macaroni-battered hearts couldn't handle all that mess.

Just the talk of snow flurries in surrounding towns has everyone at the office clinging to weather.com for the latest scoop. I think I see it myself until I realize that it is a foggy, steak-scented mirage being emitted from Ryan's Buffet next door.

Everyone is focused. Everyone is on a mission. Everyone efficiently works to stay alive.

Where, my friends, is this urgency the other 365 days of the year?

Northerners get a bad rap for their fast-paced, no nonsense way of life. I'm probably going to get my Cracker Barrel card revoked for this, but I wish people in the South would be in snow mode all the time. This is what that world would look like:

• K-Mart Kathy would scan your items in record pace. She wouldn't tell you a story about each item or make you wait for 17 feet of receipts. "Oh, honey, my lane is open. My light is on and today it means I am checking people out. And I'm happy about it."

• No-blinker Bob would actually think twice before cutting in front of you. He would drive cautiously and at a reasonable speed. And he would remove all of his Christian bumper stickers-- because life is too short to be a hypocrite.

• The revenue office ladies suddenly realize that they in fact can handle the issue you are there for and that cooperating...and sort of smiling...makes things go by more quickly.

• Miss "Cheeseburger plain have a nice day come back and see us" from the Burger King drive-thru doesn't make you pull forward and wait for your special order. She realizes there is more to life than wearing a tongue ring and not using verbal punctuation.

• The frat boys that congregate around the only chest press talking about their beer intake will decide that hurrying to the next machine is efficient and allows others to finish their workout on time. Move it out, Testosterone Club.

• The lady who tells you her life story will summarize utero through college in two sighs and a foot tap.

• The sous-chef wannabe at the table next to you will realize that maybe, just maybe, he can live with ice in his cup. First, that poor waitress is 16 and trying to pay for her car. Second, just wait a few minutes and your cup will have no ice.

Despite what this may sound like, I am not abandoning the land of Dixie. I'm not. I am simply proposing that we live every day, work every day, interact every day as if we are protecting the world from freezing rain.

Only then will I get out of Wal-Mart and pretty much any parking lot in this town with some version of sanity.