11 Things Tennesseans Do That Baffle Everyone Who Moves In

Think you can spot a Tennessee driver on a back road, no license plate required?

Watch their fingers. Two lift off the steering wheel for every oncoming car.

These are the everyday habits that give away a Tennessean that baffle everyone who moves in.

1. Ordering Hot Chicken “Hot”

Nashville’s hot chicken started as revenge in the 1930s, when Thornton Prince‘s girlfriend loaded his fried chicken with cayenne to get back at him for running around.

He loved it anyway.

So he opened a hot chicken shop of his own.

That original stand still stands.

Visitors have stumbled over the ordering ritual it created for generations.

A transplant walks up to the counter at a Nashville hot chicken joint and treats “hot” like a garnish word, picturing something close to buffalo wings.

Big mistake.

Regulars order “hot” or “extra hot” the way other people order a coffee size.

Then they say nothing while a transplant orders the same thing, watching the regret arrive a few bites in.

White bread and pickle chips show up on the plate.

They aren’t a garnish.

They’re the only thing standing between a first-timer and real regret.

2. Sweet Tea, No Asking

A newcomer orders “just tea” at a Franklin diner, out of habit, expecting water with a lemon wedge floating in it.

What lands on the table is closer to dessert.

Servers set sweet tea on the table before menus even arrive at many diners and meat-and-threes across Tennessee.

Ask for “just tea” and a server asks which kind.

“Tea” alone means sweet across much of the state.

That’s on purpose.

Cooks have sweetened tea at the pitcher for generations, stirring sugar in while it’s still hot so it dissolves all the way through.

Order it unsweet.

You’ll get a perfectly polite version of a strange look.

3. Two-Finger Wave

A newcomer waves with a whole hand at every oncoming car for the first few weeks after moving to rural Tennessee.

Too much.

A full wave out on a backroad reads like a parade float.

Two fingers lift off the wheel instead, a wave that costs nothing and means “I see you.”

Outsiders notice it first in East Tennessee, where a driver waves at every single car and expects nothing back.

So newcomers learn to dial it back to two fingers instead.

Nobody taught this in an orientation.

Everybody already knows the rule anyway.

4. Wine at the Grocery Store

A transplant loads a grocery cart with a bottle of cabernet, then goes to reach for a bottle of bourbon on the same shelf out of habit.

The bourbon isn’t there.

Grocery and big-box stores in Tennessee can sell wine, not liquor, so the cart still needs a second stop at a package store for anything stronger.

That catches shoppers coming from states where the wine aisle and the liquor aisle share the same building.

Tennessee didn’t let grocery and big-box stores sell wine at all until July 1, 2016, after years of fights between liquor stores and food retailers.

Before that, wine meant its own trip to a package store too, on top of the trip for groceries.

Older shoppers still bring that up unprompted, wine glass in the cart, like it’s recent news.

Longtime Tennesseans treat the wine aisle at Food City like a hard-won privilege.

They earned it.

5. Crossing a Dry County

A transplant plans a dinner party in a rural Tennessee county and sends a guest out for wine on the way over.

The store two miles down the road doesn’t sell it.

Drive across some Tennessee county lines.

The rules for buying a drink change with the sign.

Tennessee started dry by default, county by county.

Each one had to vote itself wet before liquor or wine could legally sell there.

Some counties still haven’t.

Others allow beer but ban liquor and wine outright, so a store two miles from your hotel might carry only one of the three.

Ask a local which county you’re standing in before you ask where the liquor store is.

6. Mac and Cheese as a Vegetable

A transplant scans the vegetable list at a meat-and-three and finds mac and cheese sitting right next to green beans and squash casserole.

That’s not a typo.

A Tennessee meat-and-three runs on one rule: Pick one meat, then pick three sides.

The sides are the whole point.

Meat-and-threes count mac and cheese, and sometimes a scoop of rice, as a vegetable because the label means “side,” not “grown in the ground.”

The format’s exact origin is still an open argument among food historians, even though its Nashville roots aren’t in question.

Some point to boardinghouse-style lunch counters that fed workers on tight breaks.

Other historians call that theory shaky at best.

A transplant who orders “a vegetable plate” expecting something green gets a plate that’s mostly carbohydrate.

They love it anyway.

7. Camo Season

Camouflage turns up at grocery stores, gas station counters, and school pickup lines every autumn in Tennessee.

Nobody blinks.

A transplant heads out for a Saturday hike on a wildlife management area trail during opening weekend of gun season, dressed in the same greens and grays she wears every other week.

A hunter waves her off the trail before she's gone half a mile.

Public land doubles as hunting ground once deer season opens across Tennessee.

Blaze orange, not camouflage, is what keeps a hiker visible out there.

Deer season pulls hunters out of the woods and straight into everyday errands too, still dressed for the tree stand.

It's a uniform.

Rural counties treat the opening weekend like an unofficial holiday.

Many hunting camps fill with entire families for it.

A transplant who books a big meeting for opening weekend in a rural county learns to reschedule the following year.

8. Orange Takes Over Saturdays

Fall Saturdays turn parts of Tennessee entirely orange, whether or not the person wearing it can name a single player in the starting lineup.

University of Tennessee football fills stores, church parking lots, and driveways with orange shirts, orange flags, and orange coolers.

Orange wins by default.

Newcomers who don't follow football end up wearing it anyway because that's easier than explaining why they don't.

Neyland Stadium in Knoxville seats more than 100,000 fans on a single Saturday, one of the largest crowds in the country for any sport.

A transplant who asks what happens when the Vols lose gets the same answer everywhere: Nothing good, so it's best not to bring it up on Monday.

9. Calling Her Just "Dolly"

A new hire at a Pigeon Forge gift shop refers to her boss's boss as "Dolly Parton," full name and all, during a staff meeting.

Nobody says a word for a beat.

Around Sevier County and most of East Tennessee, she's just "Dolly," the way you'd say a family member's name and expect everyone to already know exactly who you mean.

That's not just fandom.

Dolly started the Imagination Library in Sevier County in 1995, mailing a free book every month to enrolled kids until they turn five.

The program has since spread to thousands of communities, Tennessee included.

A parent signs a child up expecting some kind of bill to show up eventually.

There isn't one.

Locals talk about her like she still lives two roads over.

In their eyes, she basically does.

10. Pulling Over for a Funeral

A funeral procession rolls through a Tennessee town.

Cars along the route pull onto the shoulder and stop, even though nothing in state law requires it.

Tennessee's actual rule only makes other drivers yield the right-of-way to a marked procession, not stop and wait it out.

Newcomers who keep driving through aren't breaking any law.

They just look like they didn't grow up in the state.

Pulling over is a custom passed down behind the wheel, not a statute.

It's stuck around long after most drivers forgot the difference.

11. "Yes Ma'am" to Everyone

Answer a question in Tennessee with a flat "yeah."

You'll likely hear "yes ma'am" or "yes sir" come right back, even from someone younger than you.

The habit isn't about age.

It's just how people were raised to answer, full stop.

It doesn't fade once someone's an adult talking to another adult.

Strangers strike up conversation in checkout lines like they've got nowhere else to be.

"Hey" replaces "hi" almost everywhere you turn.