A Waffle House regular slides into a booth off I-65 outside Birmingham, orders the usual, and has coffee poured before he says a word. He’s sure he has this place figured out after all these years. He hasn’t got it all figured out, though, and neither has almost anyone else who loves this chain as…
The average host’s patience for a houseguest runs out after six days, according to a survey of 2,000 Americans. Nothing in the data suggests an Ohio host gets a longer clock than anyone else. About a third start dropping hints once that clock runs out, and one in five will just say it outright. These…
No U.S. city has been named America’s most mannerly more often than Charleston, South Carolina. So what happens when a relative gets a fact dead wrong over rice and gravy, in the state that’s supposed to have manners down to a science? Here’s what the research shows, once your plates are full and your whole…
Only 63.6% of adults in Florida visited a dentist in the past year, a rate that ranks the state 40th in the country. But even people who get their teeth cleaned regularly often make dental mistakes. These are the things dentists wish Floridians would stop doing. Note: This is general information, not dental advice. Guidelines…
North Carolina packs a mountain more than a mile high into the same state as over 300 miles of Atlantic beach. That kind of range breeds a particular kind of stubbornness. Ask a North Carolinian why they do something a certain way, and the answer arrives without a flicker of doubt. These are the habits…
Ohio flies the only state flag in the country that isn’t a rectangle, and state law spells out how to fold it. Growing up around that kind of state pride leaves marks. These are the signs you grew up in Ohio, no matter where you live now. 1. Answering O-H Without Thinking Somebody shouts O-H…
The Zaxby’s closest to Clemson’s Memorial Stadium starts backing up almost an hour before kickoff. Regulars already know their order by the time they reach the intercom. Everybody else is still reading the menu board. These are the habits that separate a South Carolina Zaxby’s regular from a first-timer. 1. Ordering the Big Zax Snak…
An English king once settled a personal debt by handing over an entire American colony instead of paying cash. That colony was Pennsylvania. King Charles II owed the debt to William Penn’s father, and the payoff changed who got to put a name on a map. Pennsylvania’s European place names trace back to one overlooked…
A kindergarten supply list in Duluth runs 15 lines, and one of them asks for two reams of printer paper. Nobody in Gwinnett County was buying the copy paper in 1992, and the list has only gotten longer since. These are the back-to-school essentials Georgia parents never had to buy in the ’80s and ’90s….
In Indiana, a family that comes up short on rent doesn’t call a state agency. They walk into a township office and ask an elected trustee. Nobody in Indiana finds that strange. Try describing it to a friend in Arizona and watch their face. These are the everyday Indiana habits that stop being normal the…
