Where the Sun Shines and the Snow Don't Fall, Y'all
When Seattlest was 19, we decided it might be fun to leave our small southern town to head north for college. We chose a random school in Buffalo, New York, because it seemed like it would be a total change of pace—the second largest city in one of the largest states in the union, lots of Rust Belt charm, different weather patterns. Our sister sent us a story called "A Southerner Moves North," which talked about how the first couple weeks of snow were delightful and charming, magical, fun. By the end of the winter, the "southerner" is cursing the gods for their uncaring wrath and the evil that is the Snowplow Man.
We've enjoyed hearing that scenario played out over the past few days, as our friends back home in Seattle have gone from reporting about their frolicking adventures to commenting on how Seattle isn't supposed to snow, and they wish it would just fucking stop already.
We're totally bummed the snow waited until the day after we headed back south for the holidays, but we have to say waking up to this scene out the back window of our sister's house in Cumming, Ga., delighted us today:
We share it with you not to rub it in your face that we're off having fun in the sun (it's actually going to get down to 18 degrees here tonight, so we're not avoiding the cold), but because it's good to remember now and then what the sunshine looks like. We also wanted to share with you a few choice items we've spotted since we've been here in Georgia this weekend:
- A billboard from an adult toy store called Love Stuff, with a "Support Our Troops" message on it. Consecutive billboards for the same place revealed that they have a "pet area" and free coffee, and that they're going out of business. Seventy-five percent off everything in the store. Anyone want anything? We can stop by on our way back to Florida.
- A place called Cumming Singles Club.
- A billboard quoting the bible...very loosely: "Hell...I'd almost forgotten about that." This was attributed to the book of Matthew, and somehow we wonder what words were in the space marked by that ellipses.
- A dude in a coffeeshop in our Florida hometown, making a statement about Mexican and African-American people being inherently lazy (although he used more "colorful" language).
