3 Southern Belles

I love the horn on my car. It is a strong sounding horn-- a proud "honk" rather than a timid 'beep'. As I honked my horn on the way to work this morning at a car that so rudely turned in front of me moving slower than fog off cow manure, I couldn't help but chuckle. How good that made me feel. What a passive-aggressive way to cheer me up on a day I completely dreaded - 2 days before Christmas break with 5th graders. (Too old to anticipate Santa, write him letters, color him pictures and so on, and too young to expect much from them during the pre-holiday madness.) It also made me chuckle, because I know the recipient of my hearty honk probably cursed me up and down. Down here, at least in small-town world where I live, no one honks their horn. From what I can tell, it seems to be somewhat of a southern thing, not honking your horn. I can say that with a fair amount of certainty as I recall a few years back when we were riding in the car with a friend (born and bred in a city not far from here) and we used the good old horn to get someone moving. The friend didn't even hesitate before he announced "Just like a Yankee." (Can't tell you how many times we've heard that phrase/been called that -- and by people who don't mean it with the best of intentions, though they pretend they're joking...) So, that just makes me enjoy honking my horn that much more.

What was amazing was that, the other day someone actually did honk their horn at me. I was completely absorbed in singing "Jingle Bells" along with the radio and my 3 year old in the background and didn't even notice the green light. As I pushed on the gas and gave it a little extra oomph to make up for my lack of attention I wanted to call to the person and say "Good for you! Thanks for honking, it told me that I needed to go. GOOD JOB." I did give a little hand wave in my rear view mirror to let him know I was sorry. Now we could both move on with our day, both figuratively and literally. Of course, down here in this resort town, that person probably was a "yankee", not knowing I was one of his own.

So honk on people! Whether you are a Yankee or you appeared in the world south of the Mason-Dixon line (didn't know until I moved down here that that IS still a modern day point of reference for many people) HONK ON! Let me hear you beep -- and no, not to say hello, or to pick someone up from their house -- a real honk. Tell someone to get moving, go faster, don't cut you off, look out -- you get the point. Just honk.