If you visit the South, please keep the following in mind...

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[TheBigB]

If you are going to live, or visit in the South, you need to know the rules. In an effort to help outsiders understand the rules of the Southerner's mind, the following list will be handed to each person as they enter a Southern State.

1. That farm boy you see at the gas station did more work before breakfast than you do all week at the gym.

2. It's called a "gravel road." No matter how slow you drive, you're going to get dust on your Navigator. Drive it or get it out of the way.

3. The red dirt - it's called clay. Red clay. If you like the color don't wash your car for a couple weeks - it'll be permanent.

4. We all started hunting and fishing when we were seven years old. Yeah, we saw Bambi. We got over it.

5. Go ahead and bring your $600 Orvis Fly Rod. Don't cry to us if a flathead breaks it off at the handle. We have a name for those little 13-inch trout you fish for - bait.

7. Pull your pants up. You look like an idiot.

8. If that cell phone rings while a bunch of mallards are making their final approach, we will shoot it. You might want to ensure it's not up to your ear at the time.

9. No, there's no "Vegetarian Special" on the menu. Order steak. Order it rare. Or, you can order the Chef's Salad and pick off the two pounds of ham and turkey.

10. Tea - yeah, we have tea. It comes in a glass over ice and is sweet. You want it hot - sit it in the sun. You want it unsweetened - add a lot of water.

11. You bring Coke into my house, it better be brown, wet, and served over ice.

12. So you have a sixty thousand-dollar car. We're real impressed. We have a quarter of a million-dollar combine that we only use two weeks a year.

13. Let's get this straight. We have one stoplight in town. We stop when it's red. We may even stop when it's yellow.

14. We eat dinner together with our families. We pray before we eat (yeah, even breakfast). We go to church on Wednesdays and Sundays and we go to high school football games on Friday nights. We still address our seniors with "yes, sir" and "yes, ma'am," and we sometimes still take Sunday drives around town to see friends and neighbors.

15. We don't do "hurry up" well.

16. Greens - yeah, we have greens, but you don't putt on them. You boil them with salty fatback, bacon or a ham hock.

17. Yeah, we eat catfish, bass, bream and carp. You really want sushi and caviar? It's available at the bait shop.

18. They are pigs. That's what they smell like. Get over it. Don't like it? Interstate 65 goes two ways - Interstate 40 goes the other two. Pick one.

19. Grits are corn. You put butter, salt, and maybe even some pepper on them. If you want to put milk and sugar on them, then you want cream of wheat - go to Kansas. That would be I-40 West.

20. The "Opener" refers to the first day of deer season or dove season. Both are holidays. You can get pancakes, cane syrup, and sausage before daylight at the church on either day.

21. So every person in every pickup waves? Yeah, it's called being friendly. Understand the concept?

22. Yeah, we have golf courses. Don't hit in the water hazards. It spooks the fish and bothers the gators -and if you hit it in the rough, we have these things called diamondbacks, and they're not baseball players.

23. That Highway Patrol Officer that just pulled you over for driving like an idiot - his name is "Sir," no matter how young he is.

24. We have lots of pine trees. They have sap. It drips from them. You park your Navigator under them, and they'll leave a logo on your hood.

25. You burn an American flag in our state, you get beat up. No questions. The liberal contingent of our state legislature - all four of them enacted a measure to stop this. There is now a $2.50 fine for beating up the flag burner.

[TheBigB]

Got this in an email--searched and didn't see it. Laughed a lot. :)

[Tijeras_Slim]

Got no problems with any of these! :)

[Arpege92]

LOL

[TheBigB]

Worth a humor ping? :)

[Quilla]

Reads like the truth to me!

[Prime Choice]

You burn an American flag in our state, you get beat up. No questions. The liberal contingent of our state legislature - all four of them enacted a measure to stop this. There is now a $2.50 fine for beating up the flag burner.

Sweet. Is there a group discount? : )

[Hegemony Cricket]

mmmmmmm - Grits!

[Modernman]

23. That Highway Patrol Officer that just pulled you over for driving like an idiot - his name is "Sir," no matter how young he is.

I prefer "jackass," but that's just me.

[BenLurkin]

If you visit the South, please keep the following in mind...

They are pigs. That's what they smell like.

[Aeronaut]

I'd like to see most of these installed "up north."

[sticker]

I only disagree with two of them. I was born and raised in the south and I like to trout fish and I like sugar with my buttered grits.

[netmilsmom]

I swear, on my parents grave that I did not know grits are corn, but I do love greens even as a Yankee. Unless I can convince my sister to get out her "Greens Pot", I am left wanting.

[HenryLeeII]

More "Rules of the South" ping!

[cannonball]

26. Body piercing? That's what happens when you get crossways with a mean bull. Only idiots do it on purpose.

[Lysander]

The south will rise again....

...git a beer and sit back down.

[Palmetto]

If your last name is "Kerry," "Dean," or "Kucinich," and someone offers to take you fishing down by the creek, just you and him - politely decline. There are things in that swamp you haven't seen on any nature show.

Heck, even if your last name is "Edwards" and you have a southern accent, don't go. You sound too girly.

[BenLurkin]

"No self-respecting Southerner uses instant grits." "They take pride in their grits!"

[Quilla]

I've heard of trout, they're on the menu at that there Red Lobster. ;-)

Deer season ends Saturday, hubby's takin' me crappie fishing Sunday. I'll fry 'em up and serve 'em with cheese grits.

[Jokelahoma]

I'd disagree with the grits one, too. Sure, grits are corn. So are corn flakes. I don't butter and pepper my corn flakes. If I want to put butter and pepper on it, I eat it as hominy (which is also corn, just lye-washed). Other than that, I think these all fit pretty well.

[IYAS9YAS]

With a few minor word/food item replacements, this could be rural Idaho.