Wednesday, March 03, 2010

What? Are you CRAZY?!?!

A little confession.


I'm from the South. I LOVE being from the South. I LOVE my Southern drawl (except for the time someone said the pothole commercial made them think of me). I LOVE my Southern manners. I LOVE my Southern food. I LOVE my SWEET tea. (Please note, all you Yanks, that this is NOT the same thing as tea with sugar stirred in your cup.)


Now, I don't always love the image non-southerners sometimes have of us. I hate that when people hear my accent, they sometimes assume I'm a moron. I hate that when people know I'm from the South (and a small town at that), they assume I'm small-minded and anti- (anti-anything but southern, christian, white people).

And I CAN'T STAND the way the Yanks make fun of the South and our snow!!!


Yes, I realize that in the South, generally, we freak OUT about snow. We empty the bread and milk aisles of the store. We close down EVERYTHING at the mere mention of flurries. I know to those of you who live for months on end with feet of snow on every surface near you, this must seem ridiculous!


But we don't have salt trucks. (Even the city of ATLANTA - a thriving metropolis - only has 3 for the ENTIRE metro area!) We don't have chains for our tires or snow tires. We don't have snow boots or snow coats or snow gloves. VERY few of us own long johns or wool socks. We simply don't have snow often enough to invest in the things that help you survive real snow.


The other BIG difference? We VERY rarely get SNOW. We get ICE!!!!. It falls looking like snow, but when it hits the ground, it melts then refreezes and becomes sheets upon sheets of ice. There's never enough real snow for snowmen or snowball fights (without deep bruises and small concussions from the ice-balls you'd be throwing). Our stuff isn't powdery and lovely and soft. It's crunchy, hard, and WET!!!


But the snow we got yesterday (at least to BEGIN WITH) was REAL, FLUFFY, POWDERY snow!!! The kind that makes you WANT to start a snowball fight and build a snowman and...


MAKE SNOWCREAM!!!!!


So we did.



And while I was sitting on my couch holding an ice-cold bowl of snow flavored with the yummiest mixture of milk, sugar, and vanilla you've ever tasted, I got to thinking (as I lost feeling in my left hand and began to shiver)...



ARE WE CRAZY?!?!

WHY, when it's 32 degrees OR BELOW do we feel the insane need to make ICE CREAM, hold it in a cold bowl and shovel it into our freezing little mouths?!?



To me, this rates right up there with, "I think this milk has soured. Taste it and see what you think."



You are already FREEZING!!! You KNOW icecream is made of ICE, right?!?



I guess maybe we Southerners ARE NUTS when it comes to snow. haha!



What things in life do you do AUTOMATICALLY that afterwards you think, "What? Are you CRAZY?!?"



Love & Shipoopies,

Leslie

6 comments:

Whitney said...

I have the "am i crazy" thought every time i am on a road trip and we stop for gas and i allow my kids to get some small candy from the store for good behavior. Kids+ candy+ enclosed in a car for long periods of time= "What? Are you CRAZY?!?!" HA! And i still do it every trip. :)

Brandie said...

Whitney I'm so guilty of the same thing. I also feed my kids cokes on airplanes...Sounds dumb right? Wrong...I can't possibly carry all our junk and TWO sleeping kids, so I dope them up on caffine and PRAY that one is awake at landing.

My crazy thing is cleaning/organizing the playroom. Why even bother?

Brandie said...

and snow icecream is sooo worth it!

Camily said...

I, too, am a southerner. And proud of it! I know, I know . . . snow cream--we are crazy! But a happy kind of crazy, right?

Rebekah said...

Love this post!! I made Snow Cream yesterday too!!!

leah bell said...

oh yes - snowcream is the best. i remember making it with my neighborhood friends when i lived in tennessee! its just so great! : )