Possums sleep in the middle of the road with their feet in the air. There are 5,000 types of snakes and 4,998 live in Tennessee. There are 10,000 types of spiders. All 10,000 live in Tennessee, plus a couple no one’s seen before. Squirrels will eat anything. Unknown critters love to dig holes under tomato plants. Raccoons will test your crop of melons and let you know when they are ripe. If it grows, it sticks; if it crawls, it bites. A tractor is NOT an all-terrain vehicle. They do get stuck. Onced and Twiced are words. It is not a shopping cart, it is a buggy. Fire ants consider your flesh as a picnic. People actually grow and eat okra. Fixinto is one word. A tank is a dirt hole in the ground that holds water for irrigation, watterin’the cows, swimming, or a weekly bath.
There ain’t no such thing as “lunch”. There’s only dinner and then there’s supper. Tea is appropriate for all meals and you start drinking it when you’re 2. Backards and forwards means I know everything about you. “Jeet?” is actually a phrase meaning “Did you eat?” You don’t have to wear a watch because it doesn’t matter what time it is.
You work until you’re done or it’s too dark to see. Darn near everyone knows 5 or more cloud types (guess they got to be look’n out for them there ternayders-(translation: tornados) You measure distance in minutes. You’ve ever had to switch from “heat” to “A/C” in the same day. Stores don’t have bags; they have sacks. You see a car running in the parking lot at the store with no one in it, no matter what time of the year. You use “fix” as a verb. Example: I am fixin’ to go to the store. All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit, vegetable, grain, insect or animal. You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked. You carry jumper cables in your car … for your OWN car. You know what “cow tipping” is. You only own four spices: salt, pepper, ketchup, and Tabasco. The local papers cover national and international news on one page but requires 6 pages for local gossip and sports. You think that the first day of deer season is a national holiday. You find 100 degrees Fahrenheit “a little warm.” You know all four seasons: Almost summer, summer, still summer, and Christmas. You know whether another Tennessean is from east, west, or middle Tennessee as soon as they open their mouth. Going to Wal-Mart is a favorite past-time known as “goin wal-martin” or off to the “Wally Mart!” You describe the first cool snap (below 70 degrees) as good chili weather. A carbonated soft drink isn’t a soda, cola, or pop … it’s a Coke, regardless of brand or flavor. Example “What kinna coke you want?” Fried Catfish is the other white meat. You understand these jokes and forward them to your friends from Tennessee. You can never do the same thing twice, only something similar
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