Chew tobacco, chew tobacco, chew tobacco, spit!

I’d like to preface this post by saying that although I wrote it over 1o years ago…my six year old showed me living proof that you can’t always take the country out of the person, so I decided to re-write it. It seems that this lesson is timeless.

I decided to treat my boys to a mini vacation in Raleigh about two weeks ago and also took them to an old favorite restaurant of mine, located in downtown. What was once a very small, FREE parking lot back in the day, was now a PAID parking garage. I guess they wanted to squeeze some profit out of that quarter acre, but whatever.

 

We parked in the garage and just as soon as he exited our vehicle, he hocked a big one by the tire and then wiped his mouth with his arm and kept right on trucking. The very-well dressed lady that parked beside us had very pretty eyes, as I saw every pixel of them. Of course, he also “adjusted” himself, but that is one habit that I have given up on. I just stared at him and asked him to remember one of our lessons about spitting in public and he answered: “What?! You would rather me spit on the sidewalk in front of the whole city? Or did you want me to spit in the truck?” Point taken. Small steps is what we aim to achieve. Anyway, back to our lesson.

Maybe it’s because North Carolina is famous for tobacco or that kids are given their first dip to help break their bottle, but spitting is just a part of country life. Cowboys, rodeo stars, men’s softball players and rednecks getting ready to fight just really enforce this habit throughout our lives.  And spitting kinda saves lives back home. When a kid gets a bee sting, someone just spits a big blob of tobacco on the spot, rubs it in and we continue on. So, it’s really not our fault, but with that said – we still shouldn’t spit in public…at least while in the city.

When I graduated college and transitioned from the college bars to the downtown bars known to cater to my age group, is when this lesson was learned. (Pretty much anything is accepted in a college bar on dollar night, so don’t stress about a little spit.) So my BFF and I (she is from Podunk, Idaho) decided to try our taste at one of the more fancy bars and of course, we were all dolled up in our dresses and heels. A gentleman opened the door for us with a smile on his face and we both instinctively spit before entering.  We did smile back at him and say thanks.

Needless to say, he didn’t buy us a single drink, but the looks of pity were free.