Last week an ABC salesman proposed to me. This is the first of several signs I may have overstayed my welcome in Durham. In an instant, that shameless Southerner melted my dreams of white damask tablecloths, half-empty glasses of Chateau Lafite and an emerald-cut Harry Winston into a linoleum countertop and a handle of Rebel Yell. Boo. Too much of a good thing. Thus, without further ado: 12 ways you know you’ve out-Durham-ed yourself:
1. You were proposed to in an ABC because you’re a chick who drinks bourbon straight. Three-and-a-half years ago, you couldn’t tell the difference between whiskey and Everclear. This explains a lot.
2. Bill the Bouncer tells you so.
3. Your signature tribal beer-rain dance not only caught on, it spread faster than Soulja Boy circa fall ’07.
4. You still request “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” whenever the coast is clear, assuring the DJ that “it’s for the kids!”
5. You swear there are some days you would give your first-born for just one more Francesca’s chicken marsala.
6. Horace doesn’t give you high-fives, you give high-fives to Horace.
7. You finally unlocked the secret to a Saturday night booth at Red Lobster. You never used all your food points anyways.
8. Grabbing the bull by the horns isn’t just an idiom. It’s a Saturday night reality.
9. You shrugged and continued to enjoy your breakfast after the Waffle House waiter informed you the razor blade “wasn’t [his].”
10. You have graced the pages of The (Raleigh) News & Observer as both sinner and saint. All publicity is good publicity, right?
11. If the State Fair fries it, you’ll eat it.
12. Shooters has been there on the sidelines of your football games, for your debut into society, there for your first arrest and will be there for your last. Let’s be honest, it isn’t just a place, its your family. Might as well just say “I do.”
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