Quote - A Snapshot of the South

“If there was anything I knew about the South, it was that everything in the South was slow. People ate slow, talked slow, and walked slow. Heck, people even thought slow.

For example, Mr. Poppleberry, who ran the pharmacy on Second Street, was the slowest thinker I knew. If I asked him where he kept the quinine, he’d put a finger to his chin and say, “Hmm…” for about a minute, and then he’d say, “Miss Jessilyn, I think it’s on aisle three. No…no. I moved it last Friday. Or was that Wednesday? Couldn’t have been Wednesday because I closed up early on Wednesday seein’ as how my back was actin’ up. And it couldn’t have been Friday, neither, seein’ as how I spent Friday afternoon talkin’ to Digger Thompson about his grasshopper problem.”

Finally, after I’d heard about every day, he’d figure out which day it was by saying something like, “Now, that’s it, Miss Jessilyn. It was Tuesday. So it was. And it was about three o’clock because that was when Mrs. Sykes came in for her heart pills.” About five minutes in, I’d finally be shown to the quinine. And that was how it went when I wanted foot soak for Momma or bandages for Daddy’s blisters or anything.”

from Fireflies in December, by Jennifer Erin Valent