Melanie Wilkes' Less Intelligent Sister

I went through this earlier, with my friends, about how the nurse at my kid's school sounds like some sort of cartoon character southern belle. I did the accent around work a few times today, and people died laughing.
But this got me to thinking.

I live in ATLANTA. I actually live OUTSIDE of Atlanta by 40 miles. Up where the mountains are starting to be hilly and forests crop up (I live by one). Southern Belles abound here - ALL AROUND ME.

Not one of them sounds like this. 

Where "I" is "AH" and "Okay" is "O KAYEEEE YEEEYEE".  Who talks like that? NO ONE.

Yes, there are accents. Some people say I've picked one up but I don't hear it. But maybe I have. This though, it truly was like Carol Burnett herself was pretending to be Miss Scarlet, too pronounced, too much drawl.

It makes me a bit nuts. I am not sure if people realize that, just as east coasters with sharp tone and fast rate of speech seem RUDE to those from the south - when in fact they feel they are just being efficient with their words, this slow make believe southern drawl makes you sound like, well YES Melanie Wilkes less intelligent sister.

We decided today then, that this would be Simpleton Hamilton. And we're not surprised because we all know that they marry their cousins.

So that explains it all, then doesn't it?

Don't marry your cousins people.

It never ends well.
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