Pace yourself

One of the things that can frustrate you beyond your ability for rationale thought is the slow pace of southern life. Coming down here to Georgia from Illinois you expect things to operate at about the same pace. They don't. No amount of pushing, encouragement, complaining or any other action you can think of will speed things up in the least. It will happen when it happens. It will get done when it gets done. I've tried lots of things, even trying to help people who are delivering furniture or appliances to our house, in a hopeless attempt to speed up the process. The end result is me being tired and frustrated. You can't get angry at true southerners. They are just too damn polite. They just are going to do things at their pace. You have to adjust.

 I thought I was doing well until last week. I made an appointment with a national car service chain that sells tires as well. I'm not going to name them. I had an appointment to change the oil in our car. The appoinment was for 10:00 a.m.  I arrived about 10 minutes early and checked the car in so they could start on time. They got the car in and 90 minutes later I was done. Nothing else was done. No tire rotation. No tuneup. No wash or wax. Oil change. Simple, straightforward, common, oil change on an American made popular vehicle. I didn't complain to them. No point. Wouldn't have changed a thing. Didn't fuss about it till this post.

 We will head back to Illinois on Saturday. The pace of life will pick up. Things will go faster and the locals will be less civil. When we return to the south for the winter I will work on adjusting to their pace and enjoy their seemingly endless politeness. Maybe slower is better but it takes time to adjust.