Oh the places you'll go

Seven days and counting until I am back in my homeland.  Oh, how I can taste the sweet tea already.  I can smell the freshly glazed Krispy Kreme doughnuts (that's right, you can thank Winston Salem, NC for the invention of one of the most heavenly, melt in your mouth, confections ever created).  I can almost feel the warm sun on my pale, borderline transparent, Ohio skin.  Oh.  Did I not mention I have been living in Ohio for the past 5 years?  And let me say, it has been 5 years too many!  Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Cincinnati.  In fact, had I not lived here I would never have learned the following:

1. Chili is not something you eat out of a bowl.  It is something you pour on top of a pile of spaghetti then cover with a mountain of cheese.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is known as a 3-way.  To the 99% of you whose mind just went there, get it out of the gutter. 

{Cincinnati chili via whatscookingamerica}

2. If you hear someone yell "Who Dey," do not automatically assume they have turrets.  This is indeed the cheer of a Cincinnati Bengals fan.  "Who Dey" refers to the chant "Who dey! Who dey! Who dey think gonna beat dem Bengals?"  While I better understand its origin, 5 years later I still think it sounds like it was composed by a 6 year old.  And let's not even get me started on Chad Ochocinco (if you are going to change your last name to something so ridiculous at least figure out the correct Spanish spelling of 85....epic fail).

{Cincinnati Bengals via}

3. If you are dining in a restaurant and ask for a "soft drink" your server will stare at you as if you had just asked them to solve for the square root of an imaginary number (I'm studying for my math education class...math is on  my mind).  Apparently the moment you cross over the Ohio River soft drinks and sodas become pop.

4. Finally, a game in which you attempt to throw bean bags into a hole cut in a board is not as silly as it sounds.  When I first moved to Ohio I saw this game in bars and it amazed me that grown men were so intense about making a bean bag into a hole.  Cornhole had not made its way down to North Carolina so I was dumbfounded as to why people were so into this game.  All it took was one invitation to play and I completely understood.  As players around you are making their bean bags into the hole, and you are not, a sense of desperation overcomes you and you MUST MAKE BEAN BAG GO IN HOLE!!  Since I was first introduced, cornhole has made its way down south and I will be confidently packing up my mad skills (insert sarcasm) and taking them down there with me.

Seriously, how cute are these boards?

{Cornhole boards via topcornholeboards}

So thank you for the life lessons Cincinnati.  It's been great, but my my heart is in another place.

Let's be friends.

It's not you, it's me.