Southern Accent

6/14/13
So I had no idea my southern accent was bad or even there at all... Until I came to California that is. I stopped counting after the 4th day of being here how many times someone stopped in the middle of our conversation to ask "Where are you from?" or "You must be from the south". In four days one of those statements or questions was asked 19 times. That made it pretty clear to me that I must have a southern accent. We worked in this outreach on Tuesday night at a church around Agoura Hills. It is called friendship class where children with disabilities can come to hang out with friends and have a Bible study. One of our friends that came was named Amanda. We introduced ourselves to each other and began just normal conversation. She stuck her hand in the air to pause me in mid sentence and say "Wait, is that accent you have British or something?" hahahaha I died laughing and told her that was the nicest compliment I had received since I had gotten out here. One can only wish for that British accent, but last night Kathleen and I found out that the southern accent was all we needed. I don't remember if I have told ya'll but Kathleen is from Alabama and went to Auburn so we are each others little bit of the South right now. Yesterday, we decided that we were really missing the southern culture and hospitality, so we decided half way through the day that we would go rent The Help from the red box at the grocery store right next to the hotel and if they did not have it we would walk right across the street to Walgreens and get it. Well Ralphs, the grocery story, didn't have it so we headed to Walgreens desperate to find this movie. We struck out there so we headed back for the hotel. As we were walking and discussing how much we wanted to watch this movie we developed this plan of how we would talk very nicely with a very southern draw to the front desk guy at the hotel and just hope that he would drive us on the hotel van (which you have to reserve 24 hours in advance to go anywhere) to target. We started talking and explaining how we really just needed this little bit of the south right now and one of the guys was about to get off but said he would drive us. We got to target and ran through there in search of the movie. WE FINALLY FOUND IT! We yelled like we had just won the amazing race. People were stopping to see what happened. I mentioned that the only thing that would make this just that much more southern was if we had some sweet tea to drink while we were watching, so what did we do? We headed to the drink isle. On the way  we realized we should get the van driver (Ryan) a treat for taking us so we took a poll, that consisted of one guy that looked to be about Ryan's age. "What kind of candy if you can have any kind would you choose?" The answer "Butterfinger" We grabbed a gallon of sweet tea and headed to check out to grab a Butterfinger and head out. As we were walking to the cash register something caught our eye on the end of an isle. It was like it had been placed there on purpose just for us, like a sign that we needed it. Mason Jars. Perfect to make our sweet tea taste a little better and more southern. Of course we had to, so we grabbed them and headed out. We made it back to the hotel and left the desk workers some sweet tea in a mason jar. (they acted like it was the coolest thing they had ever seen) and then realized we didn't have a DVD player. ha..... so we asked them and they gave us a player but took us to get a cord that was missing first. We got to the room it was suppose to be in but it was no where to be found. He hands me the key card and says, "Here yall can just have the Hollywood Suite to watch the movie in" WHAT?! so we ended up in this massive suite with a massive TV, The Help, and some sweet tea in mason jars. Needless to say it was a great southern night and our accents might have helped us out a little bit.