20 Signs You Grew Up In The South

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  • “Lightning bugs” are not just insects, they were your summertime curfew.
  • Going on vacation “to the beach” meant pretty much anywhere on the Gulf Coast, and your friends didn’t need you to be more specific.
  • In the summer, didn’t have to put shoes on if you weren’t going past the stop sign.
  • Speaking of bare feet, you knew the exact temperature when it was okay to walk barefooted on white cement, and when it was okay to walk on black cement. Putting your soft little kid feet on black cement in the middle of summer in the South is a kind of trauma you never forget.
  • Your parents were way more into cliques and more judgmental of your friends/their parents than you and your friends were.
  • Seeing even one, single snowflake was cause for celebration because you knew without a doubt that school was cancelled at least for one day, probably too. And you knew your mom would make sure your house was going to be fully stocked with food “in case you got snowed in” like that ever happened ever.
  • You grew up referring to so many extended family members as “cousins” even though, looking back, you’re sure they were not technically your cousins.
  • If you were going outside to play and your mom had not specifically talked to someone else’s mom whose house you were going to be at, you knew your limit for how far you could wander off was “within hollering distance”. And if your parents had to holler for you more than twice before you got your butt in the door, you were in trouble.
  • There were a million people at your family reunion every year and you could identify maybe 20 of them. But you didn’t care because so much food.
  • You have very strong feelings about college football: Either you’re a huge fan of one team, and/or you fiercely hate another team. Or you were the only person in your entire family who didn’t give a fuck and they actually judged you for not caring.
  • Sports rivalries were not a joke. If you were from, say, a UGA family and you had a friend who was from an Auburn family and you wanted to invite that friend over? The two of you had a very serious talk beforehand about how you were absolutely not going to mention your friend’s affiliation.
  • Even if you weren’t into wearing camo in everyday life, you definitely knew a lot of kids who did.
  • But as common as camo was, when guys from your high school talked about actually going “shooting”, you were like *jaw drop* “Don’t kill Bambi!”
  • You knew exactly how to hold your thumb over the end of the hose so that it sprayed in a perfect fan of water, which you gloriously soaked your friends with.
  • You had pastimes that involved catching and releasing the following: lightning bugs, tadpoles, crabs (at night, on the beach, duh), and coquinas (during the day, at the beach, duh.) You would also hold all of these a little too close to your mom’s face until she screamed before releasing them back into the wild.
  • Everyone was on a neighborhood swim team during the summer. Everyone.
  • Your school had that one college where just about everyone went. Maybe you had two colleges. If you decided to go elsewhere, or – even more insane – leave the South for college, you were considered a rare pioneer.
  • And if you did leave the South, you never stopped craving Chik-Fil-A. Never.
  • You never heard anyone call it “sweet tea”. It was just called “tea” and it was made with a lot of sugar, and it never occurred to you that it could possibly be prepared any other way.
  • If you’re a girl, you got at least one thing that was monogrammed with your initials every year for Christmas.