"If they were flocking for grits and hamhocks you might have just grounds for complaint, but it looks to me like they're just reclaiming and enjoying their own contribution."
Like my sister-in-law once said, "Have you ever noticed that you have to wait in line at the deli for half an hour if you're behind a Yankee? They buy up every kind of meat in the case."
I don't think the origin of the food has anything to do with it.
"And they laugh at you behind your backs, so I guess everybody's even."
And why would they do that? They come down here, criticize the South, try to tell us how to run things, and they laugh at us? Maybe we should just shut up and smile?
No.
"I do have to wonder if the Yankees aren't a scapegoat. Maybe upcountry and downcountry would get on each other's nerves a lot more if there weren't convenient newcomers to blame."
Not in my experience.
If you think Yankees are a scapegoat, you're not a Southerner who's had to put up with one.
I sense a high level of internet butthurt.
Why honey, bless your heart. I'm sure you're just the soul of patience.
I spend 4 years in a small Texas town that used to be famous for matresses, saving the largest local company from itself. When I got there they had over 3000 trucks on their front yard that they couldn’t get the Army to accept. Their ‘solution’ to the engineering problem was wrong as it wasn’t a strength, but rather a stiffness issue. The in house engineers who knew the problem were ignored because they were Chinese ethnics (who used computer aided modeling, which management didn’t find persuasive as they didn’t understand resonance). Every manufacturing station was racially segregated.
And for saving the company in 6 months, I was called by management, in front of the assembled company, a ‘carpet bagger’ and I and my black wife were routinely refused service in local restaurants. Local judges were corrupt.
On the other hand, gun stores were well stocked, and I rally enjoyed my range time.
After 9/11 I returned to California and went back to work on better ways to kill people. Its a living.
They've probably had to spend plenty of hours waiting in line while cashiers chatted with the patrons in front of them, so once again, you're more or less.
A year or two ago I was trying to check some books or movies out of my local library. The librarian was chatting -- she had a pronounced Southern accent -- with the patron in front of me for what felt like a good long time.
Finally, the patron took her items and moved away from the desk. I pushed my items across the counter to the librarian, expecting them to be checked out.
The librarian goes on talking to the patron for a while longer, and when she finally checks out my items she says, "That was so rude! I was talking to her. Do you know how rude you were?!"
I wanted to say something, but figured I'd better let it go. I couldn't think of anything on the spur of the moment anyway.
Looking back, maybe it has to do with multi-tasking. A librarian or store clerk or cashier in the North might want to carry on a long conversation with a friend or coworker (if they were young and undisciplined enough), but she or he would probably be able to take care of another patron while this was going on.
The librarian in my case, probably thought she was being kindly and devoting her whole attention to one patron, even if it meant inconveniencing people in back and making them wait longer than they had to.
Anyway, if you think Northerners are rude or pushy, consider what they may have to put up with if they've moved South.