Waffle House’s yellow sign glows over I-85 outside Kannapolis at 2 a.m., and a first-time visitor studies the menu like it’s written in another language. It basically is. Three regulars down the counter already have their coffee topped off without asking, before that visitor even places an order. These are the Waffle House mistakes North…
Minnesotans didn’t pick up their accent from the movie Fargo. Fargo’s writers borrowed it from them. A century of Scandinavian settlers around the Iron Range and the Twin Cities left behind a vocabulary that still confuses visitors at the gas station. These are the things Minnesotans say that baffle the rest of the country. 1….
Ask a Floridian what makes them a Floridian, and they’ll rattle off having the guts to handle hurricanes, gators, and humidity before they’ve finished their coffee. True, and also not complete. These are the habits Floridians develop without ever realizing it. 1. Checking the Radar Before the Sky A Florida sky can turn from clear…
Think you know every lighthouse standing on the North Carolina coast? Even lifelong beach walkers get a few wrong. National Lighthouse Day falls on August 7, marking the 1789 act that first put America’s lighthouses under federal control, and here’s a two truths and a lie game to mark it. Each round below hands you…
A kid in a Dayton classroom repeats what they’ve heard their whole life about the state, word for word. The teacher doesn’t correct it. That’s how a wrong fact about Ohio outlives the person who first said it. These are a few of those facts, tested against a $28 billion factory, a presidential head count,…
A kid in Sumter grabs a bike the minute supper’s done and doesn’t turn back until the streetlights buzz on, no phone in a pocket and no check-in call home. Nobody’s mother worries. That was an ordinary August evening across South Carolina, decades before a run of new laws, closures, and rule changes caught up…
A shopper stands at the Aldi cart corral in Marietta, patting down every pocket for a quarter. Nobody warned her. She isn’t the only Georgia shopper caught off guard on a first Aldi run this week. These are the moves that still catch new Aldi shoppers off guard. 1. Bring Your Own Bags Aldi doesn’t…
Some Market Basket changes still sting. Others just make longtime shoppers feel old, in a good way. These are the Market Basket changes Massachusetts shoppers still aren’t over. 1. Six Weeks Without Deliveries Market Basket customers still bring up June 23, 2014, the day the board fired Arthur T. Demoulas as president and two other…
Think tick season winds down once the kids go back to school? It doesn’t. Virginia Cooperative Extension researchers say adult blacklegged ticks stay active clear into the winter months, right as most people put their bug spray away for the season. These are the moves that keep ticks out of a Virginia yard before that…
A tourist orders breakfast at a diner outside Covington, and the waitress sets down something the menu just calls “goetta.” They ask what’s in it. The waitress just says it’s better if you don’t ask twice. These are the Kentucky foods that make the rest of the country do a double take. 1. Burgoo Families…
