Another damn disclaimer: Anything I say in this post is not, I repeat IS NOT, a criticism of Alabama or the South in general. It is different to me because this was not how I was brought up.

Part 1 of the story is here. Part 2 of the story is here. Part 3 of the story is here.

As a native Midwesterner, moving to Alabama has been a bit of a culture shock. Having lived in Knoxville, TN for several years, I’d had a taste of Southern culture. However, this is the Deep South and it’s different from anywhere I’ve ever been.

When you first meet most people here in the South, the first question they ask you is, “Where do you go to church?” I’ve come to realize that this isn’t meant to be a rude question, since this is NOT something you’d ask someone back home. People are generally just trying to be friendly and if you say you don’t have a church home, they invite you to attend their church. This has become less and less awkward as time has passed and I’ve learned to tell people that we attend church at St. Notgoingtosaytherealname Church (which isn’t a lie exactly, we do occasionally attend).

As for church, it is a way of life here. People speak openly of being “blessed.” Many stores and even some restaurants aren’t open on Sundays. Not to insinuate that we Midwesterners are heathens by any stretch of the imagination, it’s just that our entire lives do not revolve around church. I definitely think that this has been a factor in our difficulty making friends here in Alabama.

Another thing that I’ve learned is the way to properly address adults. Titles such as Sir, Ma’am, and Miss are expected, most especially when it’s a child addressing the adult. I often forget to say these things myself, so I worry that my kids will be outcasts if I don’t teach them the proper Southern way to address adults. I grew up calling acquaintances of my parents either Mr/Mrs. Lastname or by their first names. It’s custom here for children to call their parent’s friends Miss Firstname. Since it isn’t something I expect, it always seems odd when I’m addressed as Miss Jennifer.

One of my favorite Southern sayings is “bless her/his/your heart.” It’s the Southern way of getting away with talking about someone behind their back. If you want to talk about your neighbor who is cuh-razy and going through a nasty divorce with her beer swigging husband, you are absolved of any wrongdoing if when you’re gossiping about her you end your sentence with, “bless her heart.”

I’ve learned that the cart in the grocery store is called a buggy. Lunch is called dinner and dinner is called supper. Instead of saying “alright then” people say “aight den.” I know there are many, many more but I’m having trouble thinking of anymore.

To end this post, I’d like to leave you with several sayings Tate has heard at work that make me laugh my ass off. These certainly aren’t things most Alabamans say, but I’m including them here since I’ve never heard them outside of Alabama. Hope you enjoy.

Doesn’t that make you so mad that it makes you want to spit chicken shit out your teeth?

Looks like you brushed your hair with a firecracker this morning.

I need your help like a dead man needs a coffin.

How you feeling today? Like I’ve been ironing in high heels all day.

When referring to a tall woman…Looks like she could stand flat-footed and shit in a dump truck.

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Thanks for your well wishes yesterday. “Installation” of the Mirena went well. If you would like more details, just email me, mkay?

Disclaimer: Before I go any further in my story, I feel I need to clarify some things. Please don’t judge the entire state of Alabama on my bad experiences. Things have been very difficult these past two years, but they may or may not have been as difficult if we were living in Idaho or North Carolina or Iran. I promise to tell stories later of good things about Alabama.

Part 1 of the story is here.

Tate’s company arranged a house-hunting trip to Alabama. Upon visiting, we were very excited about the move. Tate was eager to start his new position, I was excited to be so close to the beach. We bought a house that was not our dream home, but it was nice. The only problem we found with moving at this point was the distance from home.

One nice thing about the move, was that Tate’s company arranged to have a moving company take care of packing and transporting all of our stuff. This was our second move with the company and we’d had a good experience the previous time. Unfortunately, this moving experience could not be classified as “good.”

Since there was a lapse of several weeks between the closing of our home in Illinois and the closing on our new home in Alabama, our stuff had to be put into storage. The morning the movers were to arrive, I had gone out to buy the movers drinks and snacks for the long day ahead. The movers were to arrive at 8 AM according to a representative of Allied Van Lines, but did not arrive until noon. In fact, the person we kept speaking with at the storage facility (Coleman Moving and Storage) tried to explain that the movers may or may not in fact arrive at all on the scheduled day. Also, the truck carrying our items had supposedly broken down on the highway en route, so they didn’t know when they would actually arrive. We were told that we should feel lucky that the movers arrived at all.

Whatever.

To say that our movers were incompetent is the understatement of the year. I spent a good deal of the afternoon in tears, seeing so many of my favorite items broken and not in boxes. Remember I was about 24 weeks pregnant and very weepy. Seeing a treasured birdbath broken in half and watching the movers drop boxes made me cry even more.

Sometime that afternoon, I suddenly felt this overwhelming urge to check my wallet. It was sitting in my purse, which was sitting on a barstool in the kitchen. Not sure why I felt this strong urge, but my intuition told me that something was amiss. When I looked in my purse, my wallet was missing. I immediately panicked, thinking back to when I’d shopped for snacks that morning, wondering if I’d accidentally left it at the grocery store. I knew it wasn’t possible, as I had stopped and gotten gas on the way home and remembered having my wallet then.

This is where the pregnant girl (me, duh) went cuh-razy. I knew one of these jackass, sumbitch movers had stolen my wallet. I immediately ran outside, screaming that they’d robbed me. Tears were streaming down my face as I called the movers every name in the book. Tate, attempting to keep the peace and sort out what was wrong, tried to calm me down. We double-checked my car, but I knew they had robbed us. My cursing continued as I told them I was calling the police. The movers, of course, denied knowing anything about my wallet and acted offended that I’d accuse them of such a thing.

Since our phone wasn’t turned on yet and our cell phones didn’t work this far in the sticks, I ran up the street like a crazy woman knocking on doors, still hysterically crying, trying to find a phone to use. I finally found someone home and they allowed me call the Shitty Town Police Department. I also used this time to call the bank, the credit card company, credit reporting agencies, and social security office to report the theft.

Two officers from the Shitty Town Police Department arrived and took my report. The officers never even spoke to the movers. In fact, they insinuated that I was just a crazy pregnant lady who’d lost her wallet. Nothing (besides being robbed) makes me angrier than being dismissed as an idiot.

Meanwhile, the movers had finished unloading the truck and were waiting on their boss to arrive. Just prior to the boss’s arrival, Tate used the bathroom and flushed the toilet. When the toilet bowl filled with brown liquid, Tate realized he’d found the wallet. He lifted the lid off the tank of the toilet and there was my wallet. I felt somehow validated, as this proved I didn’t misplace my wallet. I may have been an emotionally unstable pregnant person, but I certainly didn’t accidentally leave my wallet in the tank of the toilet. The $4 in cash (heh), credit card and debit card were missing. We called the police who told us to let their boss handle it.

When the boss arrived, he practically strip searched his men, looking for my missing cards. He searched around the house, under our deck, shone a flashlight down the storm sewer. It wasn’t until several days later when I was unpacking boxes in the baby’s nursery that I found my cards behind the boxes.

Allied Moving Company apologized profusely, buying me a brand new wallet, paying to have it shipped overnight, and pledging to revoke their affiliation with Coleman’s Moving and Storage. The latter never happened.

So to review:
1. Coleman Moving & Storage robbed me.
2. The Shitty Town, AL Police Department didn’t take my robbery report seriously.
3. My neighbors’ first impression of me was as a screaming banshee running up the street.
4. Moving to Alabama so far sucked donkey balls.

Coming up next: The Shitty Town, AL Police Department is makes yet another appearance in the story.

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Check out Blog Talk Radio Wednesday night at 8:00 CST, when The B.O.O.B.s discuss Bill Maher’s recent anti-breastfeeding comments, and discuss the controversy over nursing in public.