Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Day 30

Right Lane Must Turn Right.

--Or must it?

I turned 40 earlier this month. And I started thinking about what I have done with my life. And I realized that I've made a lot of right turns just because the sign said so; not necessarily because it was the direction I wanted to go.

I've found myself caught in that right turn lane a lot, doing what other people expected me to do, doing the "proper" thing, making other people happy by going with the flow. Not that other people always imposed right turns on me. I usually imposed them upon myself. I have always been a pleaser.

Not that it was always the wrong decision to go right. It brought me here, of course, and there are many, many things I like about my current parking space on my journey of right turns.

I guess what bothers me is that I've never fully considered all my options when I've found myself inadvertently stuck in the RIGHT TURN ONLY lane:

1) Do the predictable, comfortable thing and turn right.
2) Ease beyond the right turn, into the intersection, and try to unobtrusively sneak back into the left lane.
3) Put on my left blinker, turn the steering wheel in the direction I want to go, and wave my way into the left lane; even stop traffic in the right lane, if I have to, until someone lets me move over.

So what if horns honk. I've got choices! We've all got choices, and it doesn't mean that we're impolite if we take a moment to consider them. It doesn't mean we're unladylike if we choose not to turn right.

I'm 40 years old. I don't intend to travel the next 40+ years going around the world to the right. I want my course to meander, to zig left, to zag right, to make U-turns (even when the sign says I can't), to merge, to travel divided highways, and to take me places I'll never arrive at if I always make right turns.

TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT: On a yellow or white Post-it Note, write your own sign and post it on your dashboard or your steering wheel.

My sign for today says: CAUTION CURVES AHEAD

The New Faux Pas

Back in Mama T's day, that's my late grandmother, smoking and walking was about the tackiest thing a woman could do. Going in public without lipstick ran a close second. Unlike the lipstick oversight, in which unkempt lips was the real error of her ways, in the walking and smoking travesty smoking had nothing to do with the transgression.

A woman could sit and smoke until her lungs fell out and she croaked like a midnight catfish and not a soul would bat an eye. A woman could chat on the party line and inhale enough creosote to pave a road from Georgia to Montana and no one would think the lesser of her. She could even drive carpool with the windows rolled up and her children choking pneumatically in the rear seat and who in the world would dare accuse her of behaving un-ladylike.

But as soon as she began the long, unvirtuous walk from her car to the doors of the grocery store with a tobacco stick dangling from her lip or squeezed between two fingers with painted over yellowed nails, the Junior League president would be on the phone with the Garden Club president. Her UDC and DAR ribbons would be stripped from her lapel, and she would never again be asked to make her lemon squares for the UMW bake sale the Sunday after Easter.

Of course, now that smoking itself has fallen out of favor and walking has gained great strides in the health and fitness world, we've had to search high and low for a way to distinguish quality folks from the undesirables. But sitting on Charlotte's front porch swing on Tuesday, I figured it out, the standard we've been missing. Some savvy socialites already apply it, but they've jumped ahead of the curve.

The new litmus test for judging character and self-worth is where people park their cars when they get home from a long day at the grind stone. Front yard parkers, who leave their cars on lawn or dirt (same as putting the car on blocks as far as their neighbors are concerned, even if the car is a Jaguar) for all the world to see, couldn't get an invitation to join the Colonial Dames if they descended straight from the Jamestown settlers.

A proper lady tucks her car at the rear of her domicile and enters through the backdoor, so that her premises will appear undisturbed, pristine, and desolate, just as a realtor or HGTV host would have it. She will never mar the beauty of her home by sitting on the front porch, allowing her pets to frolic in the front yard, or letting her children toss a ball where someone might see. No one wants to view an old lady tottering to her front door or sprawled on the steps with a broken hip. It's uncouth. Folks simply can't bear to watch a young mother tote groceries into the house. How degrading.

Walking and smoking no longer the downfall of genteel living, it's the misparked car that will bring civilization to a hallelujah-halt in the south. Untinted lips, however, still run a close second.