WI vs. LA

Here are some things I've noticed that are different down here in Louisiana...

parish - they don't have counties here, they have parishes. In Wisconsin, all places are denoted by what county they're in. So, if someone mentions a town and you don't know where it is and ask, your answer will start with something like, "It's up in Ashland County near..." I know that Louisiana and Vermont aren't like this. Must be a Wisconsin thing.

jet system - a.k.a. - a septic system. The realtor sprang this one on me. I thought she was talking about a water softener at first.

bodies of water - my new house sits on a peninsula that juts into Sibley Lake, not Lake Sibley. Plus, a body of water flows through the center of town that's called Cane River Lake. Explain that one to me.

washateria - better known as a laundromat. This one stumped me for a while as I heard it from a hot blonde coed when I was asking for directions to the coffee shop so I wasn't paying strict attention - to her words.

"It's just up the street from the washateria."

"A washateria?"

"You know what a laundromat is? Same thing..."

telecopier - now I found this one to be really funny as it made me think of Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. My lawyer has this on his business card instead of "fax". I wonder if he has an autogyro...

rues - yeah, I know this one is obvious but I had to throw it in. There's even a Rue St. Denis just like in Paris.

I've told several people that I'm from Wisconsin and, judging from their responses, it seems that folks here consider Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin to be the same thing. It goes something like this:

Me: "I live in Madison, Wisconsin."

Them: "Oh, I've been to Wisconsin before. I visited Minneapolis."

Me: *rolls eyes*

Whether or not the pecan trees are in bloom is the "true" indicator of the arrival of spring.

People here are hyper-friendly and courteous. I haven't been called "sir" so much in ages.

The cheese selection at the grocery store is horrendous. On the other hand, every possible part of a pig is readily available. The amount of shelf space given over to cuts of pork is sinfully large. Gas stations have pickled pig's feet on the counters in these huge jars that look like they've been there since the 1960s. And I swear that every restaurant allows you to add bacon to anything on the menu. This town is definitely not kosher.

Despite the small townyness, it does have most of the modern amenities of larger cities. For instance, everyone has a cell phone and talks on it while driving. There are also plenty of people whose car trunks are completely taken up by a sub woofer and they go around cranking really bad hip-hop up for everyone in a 5 miles radius to hear.

While I don't know what % of the town is of what color, I do know that most black folks live on the west side of town. I don't recall having seen one interracial couple. While I haven't seen nor heard any blatant racism, I can say with a fair degree of certainty that my lawyer was a plantation owner in a former life.

Property taxes. My dad got a homestead exemption and paid no property taxes. My lawyer said that a $150,000 home would incur about $500 in property taxes. Compare this to the a**-raping in Wisconsin.

That's all I can think of at this point. Hopefully more will come to me before I leave.