This week I thought I would take a break from the commandments to tell you a little bit about my recent experience with Southerners.
Correction: not "Southerners"...TEXANS. Anyone below the Bible Belt could explain to you the difference.
Twenty-five years of living in St. Louis has apparently earned me the title of "yankee" here in Texas...even though St. Louis is hundreds of miles away from anything truly "yankee". (Carpetbagger anyone?)
They make fun of the way I say "apple" and "mom", and pretty much any other word where I happen to pronounce a very flat sounding "a". And even though I've owned and worn a pair of cowboy boots for a number of years pre-Texas, if I wear them down here I'm a poser. They are wary of my driving skills because I have not affixed paraphernalia to my 
vehicle that is related to any of the following; the Republican Party, the Texas state flag, the Dallas Cowboys, cowboy boots, cattle, any mascot or acronym associated with a Texas or otherwise Southern university.
I think there are more people here than in any other place who have the silhouette of their state tattooed on their body somewhere. I also can't recall the last time I drove by a house with a Missouri-state-flag-mailbox. (see photograph) And they put their fucking name on EVERYTHING! You can buy margarita mix down here called "Texarita mix"...and not regular barbecue chips, but "Texas BBQ" chips. Texas toast, Texas-sized portions... anything with "Texas" on it is subsequently either larger or spicier.
It's true, everything is bigger down here. Like their ego.
Example: It's about a 9 hour drive from St. Louis to Dallas...11 hours if you drive slow. The first time I drove down here I called my friend once I crossed the state line (exiting out of Oklahoma). At this point I'm about an hour and 20 minutes from downtown Dallas. My friend replies, "Oh, well you probably have about another 2 1/2 or 3 hours left to go!" I immediately start to panic, because if I have to spend more than one more hour in that car I'm seriously going to have a nervous breakdown. (those last 2 hours in OK are horrifically boring) I reply, "How?! I've been in the car for almost 8 hours now." Their argument? "Well, hunny, Texas is like...a really big state!" Ipso Facto, 1 mile in Texas must be equal to about 5 miles in other states. You learn something new every day, I guess.
During one of my visits here back in March I mentioned something about one of our favorite homegrown celebs, Nelly, to a Dallas local and their response was, "You mean that band-aid guy?" Wow. Another person didn't know what toasted ravioli was..."Is that like regular ravioli, but...like...toasted?" And speaking of local flavor, I can't recall the last time I pulled up to a stoplight with a car that was blasting bass-heavy rap instead of brass-heavy mariachi.
My favorite moments have occurred during meals with my boyfriend; who has lived in New Orleans, small-town Alabama, and Dallas - in that order. We have extremely opposing views on how to prepare and eat food. Backstory: I LOVE to cook. I brought a crock-pot, aka 'slow cooker' with me when I moved. He had no idea what it was and immediately decided that it must be "a yankee thing". I do not put jelly on my eggs along with onions, peppers, and 6 different types of seasonings...so my plain scrambled eggs with just milk and cheese mixed in are also "yankee". I do not feel that half of a jar of 
rosemary is necessary when making spaghetti sauce, aka "red gravy". I do not eat bread with EVERYTHING...so that, too, makes me 'weird'. We also have very heated debates on the existence of "Tex Mex".
Regardless of my superb "northernism" in a town full of transplants like myself, Dallas has greeted me kindly...but in the way you greet a newborn baby after it comes out of the womb; you love it even though it resembles a slimy alien. People truly are friendly and hospitable down here. So much so, in fact, that despite being an extremely polite person myself I've been called 'rude' on more than one occasion. I guess I'm not as affectionate? My family just interacts much differently than most families down South. I don't think either way is right or wrong - it's just different.
But here's what KILLS me...
Texas has taken liberties that it has not earned. It has hijacked the one thing that is most beautiful to me about my hometown and completely bastardized it! For those of you who are not aware, what you are about to see to the right of this paragraph will both shock and disturb you...
Believe me when I say that the first time I saw this I was sickened. Do other states do this?! Every time I order a bottle of Bud here, I immediately scratch off the Texas star! I don't know what I'll do if Bud heavy converts to using the plastic labels, but I believe a match or lighter will be involved.
However, despite all of its "yankee-ness" St. Louis boasts quite a few things that Dallas can not. Better Italian food, absolutely. A phenomenal football team? Not so much. (Although I do take pleasure in reminding everyone here about the Rams/Cowboys game on October 19, 2008...they love it.) On the plus side St. Louis doesn't use toll roads, which cost me over $2 per day here. That doesn't sound like much, but multiply that by 365 days. We also aren't stuck in the middle of some bizarre identity crisis; there are all sorts of stupid mixed-up names down this way. Texarkana, Texoma, Texanna, Okla-toha-utah-tex-ana-bananarama...what?! And more than anything else our town is much more rooted than theirs. If you ask someone in Dallas where they are from, 80% of the time the answer is not going to be "Texas". St. Louis is a completely different story; most people who live here were born here. We have history and traditions that date back for decades. All-in-all we're a more tightly knit town...and it's a better feeling.
Don't get me wrong...I don't dislike it here in Dallas. I came here for a number of reasons, most of them personal, and I'm here because I want to be! I just have to vent my annoyances to someone...and who better than a hometown audience? However, only time will tell if I can survive down here.
I guess for now I will continue to alter my bottles of beer, eat my food the way it was intended, refuse to pick up any sort of accent, and take advantage of any opportunity I can find to shout "ROMO'S A SCRUB!" to passersby.
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