Archives for April 2007

Alex spent part of this morning and afternoon with Martha, and apparently when she fixed him a delicious homemade lunch of carrots, green beans, and rice, he proceeded to tell her that he doesn’t really like those things, thank you, but he does, however, like brownies.

So I think it’s pretty much a given that he’s in Official Spoiled Rotten Mode. Which is perfectly fine by me.

When Mama went by Martha’s house to pick up the little man later this afternoon, Martha mentioned to Mama that she would really like to come visit D. and me. She still hasn’t seen our new house because for the last six months she’s had her hands full taking care of D.’s grandmother, and Martha told Mama that she’s “dying! just dying! absolutely dying!” to come visit.

Since Mama and Daddy are planning to meet us in a couple of days (if in fact Alex decides that he’s ever coming home again), Mama suggested that Martha should hop in the car with them and instead of meeting us halfway, they’d just come straight to our house and spend the night. That way Martha could have a little time away from home, she’d finally see the house, and she’d have even more time with Alex.

Martha replied – AND I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP – that unfortunately Wednesday won’t work for her because that’s the day she’s planning to take her recently widowed friend Rubena to eat fried catfish at the church.

I’ll pause for just a second so that you can really soak up that last sentence.

There’s a whole lot of Southern in there, my friends.

And I have laughed my head off all night long as a result.

Really, y’all, I almost feel like Martha has laid down some sort of gauntlet in terms of Terribly Southern Ways To Decline An Invitation.

And, as any good Southern girl would do, I’ve spent a good bit of time tonight trying to rise to Martha’s unintended challenge.

So here are a few of my own, though I think it’s pretty clear that I have a lot to learn from my mother-in-law…and for those of you playing at home, you can preface each one of my polite refusals with this phrase:

Oh, Sugar, it’s so sweet of you to ask, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to join you because I…

I could go on and on. But I won’t, because I want to hear from y’all.

Now granted, Martha may have taken the grand prize what with working a recently widowed friend, fried catfish and church into hers (it’s like a Southern etiquette trifecta, really), so we’ll just consider her the standard-bearer and have ourselves a little contest.

So if you’re a Southern girl – or even just an observer of the South – come up with what you think is the epitome of a polite refusal, Southern style. Make up as many as you want, in fact, and post them in the comments.

I’ll take all the “entries” that have been posted by 6:00 pm Tuesday night (and that’s CENTRAL TIME, THE OFFICIAL TIME ZONE OF THE DEEP SOUTH), and I’m going to get three friends to judge them. I won’t announce those friends’ names until after the fact because, well, I still have to ask them to do this and all, but I’m sure they’ll be more than willing because my friends are sweet like that.

After they pick the “polite refusal” that they deem the most Southern, I’ll send the author of the comment a copy of this book:

Of course, I haven’t actually read this book, but I thumbed through it this past weekend in Mississippi and it looks absolutely adorable. You can read more about it here.

And in the meantime, I’ll get my friend Lea Margaret to tell me ALL about it, because one of the authors is from Greenville, Mississippi, and quite frankly there’s not a soul in Greenville that Lea Margaret doesn’t know.

As Martha would say, this is going to be more fun, y’all! Just more fun! We’ll just have more fun!

I may have to eat me a little fried chicken to celebrate.