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  I am from Tennessee. Despite what the media would like you think I do not live in a rusted out trailer in the backwoods surrounded by "Do Not Trespass" signs and dogs of various parentage. I have electricity in my home; high-speed internet and good cable even. I do not cook things up in various pots in the backyard nor do I have a moonshine business running illegally anywhere on my property.
 I don't like country music, except for Patsy Cline and, if I'm feeling somber, Johnny Cash. I have only two children and I was legally married when they were conceived (okay, to be totally fair, my first husband left me when I was pregnant. But still). My children have shoes. I graduated from college. I read, I write, and I think. I've never, ever, been on Jerry Springer. Granted, my husband leaving me while I was pregnant and hooking up with a chick with a Billy Ray Cyrus haircut and an inner-thigh tattoo could have qualified me for the program. But I didn't go on.
I'm not like that.
Years ago I worked in a call-center and people from all over the world would call in for customer service and credit card applications. A lot of them, especially men, would comment on my accent. Making fun of me and how I said my words.
Did I make fun of them for saying things like, "Yous guys"? No. Did I make fun of them for using the word "caught" as though it's pronounced "cot"? No. Did I say, "It's ABOUT not ABOOT!"? Not even once.
Because actually? I'm not like that. Most people I know are not like that.
 And honestly? It has nothing to do with being from the South. People can be jerks no matter where they live. People can be stereotypes no matter what state they reside in.
We all can choose who we are. We all can choose who we present to this world.
So if people go on television and say things like, "I'm from Tennessee and I love Coon huntin' and drinkin' and fishin' and once my mama slapped me so hard I felt like a dog that fell off a meat wagon!" well, that's okay. That is that person's experience. It is not my experience. Just like every person who lives in New York doesn't work in the family's Italian restaurant. Not everyone who lives in California is blond and shallow and has parents who used to be hippies. Not everyone who lives in Wisconsin loves cheese. Some of them, I would venture to say, are lactose intolerant even.
And it's okay.
I know there are people who will think I'm stupid because of the way I pronounce "Sprite". I know that there are people that still, today, wonder if people in Tennessee have things like trash pick-up and grocery stores. I know that since I didn't go to Yale or Harvard or M.I.T. there are some people who think my education isn't as good as theirs. There are people who expect me to know who or what a Rascals Flatts is, and I just don't.
Bless their hearts, really. They know not who they judge.
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That Chick
