It appears that all of my life-experience for the past 50+ years has led up to the task at hand: which currently is finding a house for my family in Texarkana. For those of you who aren't aware, I'm fluent in Southern--which is coming in handy. I'm also a licensed real estate agent--which is coming in kinda handy. But trust me when I tell you, being able to speak Southern is much, much more important.
It isn't just translating "all'y'all" and "I'm fixing to..." and the like. It is understanding that when my Texas agent says she is, "fixing to..." what she really means is sometime in the next four days I will get an e-mail answering the banal question that I ended up figuring out myself.
Speaking Southern means translating my loan officer's kind and cryptic message when he said, "Well, people do live on the Arkansas side of Texarkana, but you may want to think deeply about that before you take the plunge over there..."
I haven't gotten a, "bless your heart," yet. But I've come super close to firing off the one I keep chambered. It happened right after my agent said she was excited that I would be joining her real estate brokerage. Nowhere in my chatting with her about the fact I am weeks away from being homeless did I say I wanted to jump in, become licensed in Texas and Arkansas and sell homes. Instead, I gave her my big city, "I am not sure what I'm going to do when I get settled." She countered back with, "Oh... we'll be talking," which is Southern for, "We will be discussing your career for the next six years or until you agree to come join my brokerage."
Did you know if you clench your back molars together you automatically smile? It also keeps you from being able to talk when you want to say something you may regret. That's something else I learned in my former Southern experience.
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