It’s been almost four years since I moved from South Carolina to Ohio. Today I realized that I’m starting to lose one of the last vestiges of my Southern upbringing when I called the Coke machine at work a “pop machine.” Normally, I would only say something like that to help others around me understand what I was saying; it’s something that’s usually painful for me to do. Today, however, it just rolled right off my tongue, and only later did I realize what I’d done. (I love this map that shows the divisions around the US of what people call a soft drink, from Coke, to pop to soda.)
I’ve never had an accent to speak of, so I hold onto the South’s little colloquialisms like “y’all,” “fixin’ to” and “Coke” as one last bit of rebelliousness against the Northern culture. I find that the longer I’m here, though, the more those things slip away; and that seemingly little thing has been one of the hardest parts of making the move up here.
Today some idiot broke into Amy’s car while she was at work. He took her purse, which had her wallet in it. Luckily, the genius left the iPod that was sitting right next to it.
