when I moved to north carolina, I invited my department for a barbq at my house, just told them bring whatever you wanna drink. biggest confusion, it was like a bunch of babies at a topless bar.
I bought a small plastic tub, filled it up with ice and as people where coming with their own beer, i grabbed it and put it in the ice. the southern people looked at me kind of strange, the californians started looking at the beer and said, oh I never had that. I mean everybody brought whatever beer they preferred to drink. but they started just grabbing whatever beer they never tried before. big confusion.
then I put some flank steak on the grill along with some really good chicken. then it got even weirder. the southern people started asking me when I was gonna start the bbq, I said it's on the grill, should be ready in 10 minutes then I'll put some more, normally we let children eat first then women then men. they were still confused what about the barbq, I was confused, it's on the grill, we got meat and chicken. they asked about bbq sauce, I said, I dont have any. even more confusion.
and that's when east meets the west. some guy said hey, all my beer is gone, I said no problem, store is one block away, we'll go get some more. and that's when we all started understanding each other. at least around where i grew up bbq means put something on a grill, to southerners it means something with bbq sauce. around here bring whatever you want to drink means you probably wont drink it as we like to share beers and most likely you'll only get one and feel free to grab somebody else's beer.
we all had a lot of fun, I had a pool, californians jumped in with their clothes on, southerners said we didnt bring a swimming suit. didnt matter we all ended up in the pool. had a good time and understood each other a little better. we had no tequila or hard liquor, we had just moved there and didnt know about the abc stores.
semp