southern hospitality; minnesota nice

"You'll miss it down here, " they* said, "the people up north aren't as nice as in the south."

(*They being the same people that felt compelled to remind me that it gets cold up north.)

I disagree. And to prove my point, here's a story:

---

This is the face of a murderer:

Well, an attempted murderer. Last weekend, Ike half-killed a mouse. He plucked it out of the bushes, carried it across the yard, dropped it, and stared at it. Because I have a terrible habit of personifying my dog can communicate with Ike, I know that he was innocently wondering why isn't it playing with me?

At this point, the mouse was pretty much dead. In fact, I thought it died. So I went to a yoga class, and decided I would deal with it later.

Sidebar - my shavasana was completely ruined. All I could picture was that poor mouse.

When I got back, I ran immediately to where to mouse had died. It was gone! It had lived! It was a miracle!

And then I realized it had managed to crawl a few feet away and dig itself a hole in which, I'm assuming, it could die peacefully. It was pathetically sad. Also, the mouse was still alive, gasping for breath.

I knew I had to put it out of its misery, but I couldn't do it. Luckily, my neighbor was outside.

"Excuse me," I called over my fence, "Ike half-killed a mouse. I don't know what to do."

My neighbor wrinkled her nose. "I hate mice. Bash its head in."

"I can't," I admitted meekly. "I can't do it."

Before I could make sense of what was happening, she was in my backyard with a shovel and the mouse was dead.

I will not hesitate to give this woman a cup of sugar should she need it.

A similar thing happened in Shreveport. A few differences:

1) it was a squirrel,
2) I maintain to this day that Ike found it already half-dead and did not participate in the killing, and
3) our neighbor let Y borrow a gun to finish the job.

My point: Minnesotans are just as nice as Louisianians, but with fewer weapons.