Southern Hello Comes with a Recipe

Yesterday, I hobbled across the parking lot into the Harris Teeter at Rivertowne, focused on getting from my car to a scooter cart.

Behind me, a gentleman older than I am said hello. He wore jeans, a T-shirt, and a large checkered long-sleeve shirt, which struck me as a lot of clothing for the temperature. I was already working up a sweat just watching him.

Naturally, I said hello back.

It’s the South. You say hello. What you don’t always realize is that you’ve just agreed to attend a presentation.

“I love Bojangles rice and red beans,” he announced.

No introduction. No transition. We went straight from greetings to side dishes.

Great! I hadn’t known he didn’t like them, but I was pleased we’d cleared that up.

I kept hobbling. He kept talking.

He explained that he buys the family size.

This man really loves his rice and beans, I thought. We hadn’t even reached the store, and I already knew his preferred restaurant, his preferred side, and his purchasing strategy.

Then he said he keeps them for a few days.

Then he said he doesn’t.

At this point, I wasn’t sure whether we were discussing leftovers or taking sworn testimony.

What he does, he explained, is put the rice and beans in a pan. Then he cracks an egg into it, scrambles it, and mixes the whole thing together.

And that, friends, is where he lost me.

“I don’t eat eggs,” I told him. “Eggs are gross.”

Now, I could have stopped there. A person with a functioning conversational brake pedal probably would have.

Instead, I explained that I think of eggs as chicken menstruation. An unfertilized egg. Yes, I know that’s not a technically accurate description. It is, however, the description my brain has committed to, and my brain is not accepting public comment.

He had offered me a recipe. I had responded with poultry reproductive concerns.

Neither of us had asked for any of this.

By then, we’d made it to the produce section—the whole-food portion of Harris Teeter, where a banana could simply be a banana without either of us cracking an egg over it.

We parted ways among the fruit.

“It was nice chatting with you,” I said. “Have an awesome day!”

And I meant it.

He went off to do his shopping. I hobbled off to do mine, now carrying a recipe I would never make and more information about a stranger’s rice-and-bean habits than I have about several members of my own family.

That’s the South.

Sometimes “hello” means “hello.”

Sometimes it means, “Walk with me. There’s something you need to know about Bojangles.”