Because nothing said “get your ass up and on that schoolbus” like clapping about Noah, elephants, kangaroosies, and floody-floodies for eight-and-a-half freakin’ minutes.
What you’d say: “I’m going to my cousin’s beach house in Florida. His parents aren’t going and he’s 21, so we’re getting tons of booze and gonna get really high the whole time.”
What you’d mean: “That week is church camp.”
Unless it was over 100-degrees, there was never a time when the “caviar of the South” bought from a roadside farmer wasn’t the equivalent of juicy, cajun crack. But when the temperature rose over 100-degrees? That was when you tossed those babies in a cold, glass bottle of Coke and reveled in some sweet and salty euphoria.
Not that your dad even knew of any “manner schools,” but you were smart enough not to risk it by mouthing off with a casual “yeah” to anyone ten years your elder.
“I’m fixin’ to turn this car around if you two can’t get along.”
“I’m fixin’ to get supper started, so you better wash up.”
“Did you just get smart with me? I swear, you’re fixin’ to get a whoopin.’”
Because nothing felt more like summer in the South than being barefoot and surrounded by cicadas chirping while catching lightning bugs on a thick and humid night.
It didn’t matter if you got a new PlayStation or a recycled birthday card from your Aunt Ethel who never got your name right, thank-you notes were — and still are — a non-negotiable requirement.
And dangling it in your siblings’ faces to freak them out.
Which would later make you question where the camels and goats were while pumping gas elsewhere in the country.
Forget Disneyland. Your vacations were spent salivating to the dry-rubbed smells of the Barbecue & Bluegrass festival, busting your eardrums during the fireworks display at the Great American Summer, or stuffing yourself silly at Aunt Granny’s All-You-Care-To-Eat-Buffet. Sure, you never ran into Mickey Mouse outside Cinderella’s Castle, but you were guaranteed to be mesmerized by Dolly Parton’s — er — hair when you’d catch her outside the line for the Tennessee Tornado.
Which you would pick any day of the week over your mom dropping the dreaded “I’m fixin’ to take you outside if you don’t start behaving” bomb.
Because when your dad was posted up on the sofa with his shoes off, who was the one he always asked to bring him the TV clicker? Yep, you. And you owned it.
But no matter how many times you felt the flames of hell searing the back of your legs as you sizzled your way down the aluminum slide and onto the woodchips of perpetual splinters, you powered on like the badass eight-year-old you were. 