Yankee Doodle dalliance
For the first 21 years of my life I lived in Connecticut. This, I suppose, makes me a Northerner, though I never would have thought to refer to myself that way until I moved to Virginia to attend graduate school four years ago. Really, even later than that. I went to school in a liberal city, and mostly hung out with people within my program, so I really didn’t have much exposure to “real” Southerners, and never really thought too much about regional differences. At least not those within this country.
Cut to me, a couple of years later, dating Y Chromosome, a North Carolina native. Who grew up on a farm. Who, when first we met, called me a “Yankee.” And did you know that his punishment for bad behavior in grade school was to be ushered to a back room and spanked by his teacher? Did you know this?? DID YOU?
Surely you did, because when he told me, my jaw dropped so far that I’m pretty sure it made a couple of circuits around the globe and killed millions of innocent people. Sorry about that! Contact my lawyer! She’s waiting for your call.
So, the first time Y Chromosome kissed me, a bit of my hair fell forward, between our lips. Y Chrome paused, tucked the hair back behind my ear and said, in his slow, deep, Southern drawl, “I reckon that’s the problem with having long hair.”
I smiled and leaned in to kiss him again, though all of my brain cells started running back and forth and into the side of my skull, flailing their little muppety arms over their heads, screaming, “DANGER, DANGER! WE’RE GOING DOWN! ABANDON SHIP! YOU’RE KISSING SOMEONE WHO SAYS ‘RECKON.’ THAT’S PROBABLY NOT EVEN LEGAL FOR SOMEONE WHO HAS A DEGREE IN ENGLISH.”
And then all of my brain cells ran into each other burst into flames, like a fleet of Ford Explorers fresh off the lot. Eventually, they were all destroyed, save for one lone brain cell. He quietly chirped, “Hey, give this a go.”
And so I have, and it is just wonderful. Better than I had ever imagined life with any man could be, regardless of his Mason-Dixon orientation. That could be the lone brain cell talking, but, really, I don’t mind.
But my diplomas are still hidden under my bed.