Page 45 - Discover Fall 2021
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Charlie's Chatter
A Helpful Guide For Y'all
By Charles Alexander
Like many others, I am not a local order to gracefully exit a conversation.
native. I came down here from the
If you order tea, it will be cold and
dreaded north. If you relocated from
sickeningly sweet, unless you ask for
a more northern urban or suburban
“unsweet”. If you want hot tea, you
setting, you’ll benefit from the
must specify “hot tea”, often followed
following list of things that I wish I
by a strange silence as the other person
had known before I moved down here:
processes this information.
People who don’t know you will
When ordering a hamburger, it is
wave to you as you drive by. It’s OK.
often necessary to ask them to hold the
They’re just being friendly.
mayo. A subsequent
There is no request for ketchup
such thing as could potentially
saying something raise an eyebrow.
in passing. The HARLIE’S Natives will never
conversation isn’t C ask you for a pen.
over until the other HATTER
They WILL ask you
person decides it’s
for an “ink pen”
over. This often
leads to something • “Y’all” means
akin to a Mexican standoff. If you “you”, both singular and plural
speak to someone, you have just
• “Y’all’s” means “yours”, singular
committed yourself to an indefinite
period of conversation. In extreme • “Y’alls’s” means “yours”, plural
cases, people have been known to feign
If you return someone’s call,
illness or even fake their own deaths in
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