Southern Charm? More like Southern Harm.

The hubs made me watch a preview for a show about some horribly tacky people that live in the same town as we do.  I watched exactly 17 minutes, mouth agape at how absolutely horrible these people were behaving.  Enraged, it made me.  Here we are living in literally the best place in America and this is how we choose to carry ourselves.  Shame!!!! Shame on you Charlestonians!!!  Can’t believe you would allow this nonsense on television!  We would have been better off letting that MTV show film here!  At least, then we could all just sit back and say, “well, you know MTV had to buy that house and the one next door and both on the battery so there was money pumped into our economy, but they are not FROM here…they just shoved some kids in a fancy house and gave them a lot of booze, we can’t really be to blame”…But, we allowed this network to come in and film. This isn’t the network’s fault.  Hell, it’s great for them, they are laughing all the way to the bank.   But you know who it’s not great for…us, South Carolina.  We are showing the rest of the country that we are a bunch of boozey douche bags and spoiled whores.  Great job!  We will surely keep that top spot if we keep showing a bunch of 20 somethings drink during the day at the fucking polo club…which BTW, rest of America, is WAY more glamorous on the television show than it is in real life.  In real life, it’s a field.  Looks just like the ones we used to hang out in and have bonfires and drink beers when we were kids.  Please tell me ya’ll know that “reality” TV isn’t real…

One of the kids (I say kids, cause you know, I’m much older and wiser) comes from a very fancy Charleston family…I can’t believe his mamma would let him drag their name through the mud like that!  The horror!!  At least you can blame the way these loserballs act on being young and stupid.  But, then wait, what’s this?  A 60 year old woman on camera sitting at her vanity bragging to her house boy about the Birkin she just got in the mail!!  Are you kidding me right now??? 

Let me be clear on a couple of things…

1.  I’m not from Charleston.  Nor is the hubs.  He moved here at 11.  I moved here after college.  I was born in Oklahoma and moved to Darlington at 8 months of age and I have remained in SC except for my boarding school education in Tennessee.  My dad went to med school  here and my mom taught at Meminger.  My brothers were born at MedU.  But I am not a Charlestonian…saying that you are a Charlestonian when you in fact are not is like saying you are from the south when in fact  you are from Ohio.  It’s just not done.  Some would even argue that my brothers aren’t true Charlestonians because they weren’t born at the old Roper (which these same folks would pronounce “Ropa”).
2. I am by NO means rich and/or fancy.  I do, however, have the reincarnation of Emily Post for a mother and though I don’t always show it, I know manners, and etiquette. 
3. NO TRUE classy southern woman, especially a Charlestonian, would endorse this absolute nightmarish version of our beloved town.  That’s right, I called it ours.  The hubs went to Blessed Sacrament and BE and my folks have had a house on Wentworth since I was in school (albeit the less than fancy end of Wentworth, but non-the-less).  I have earned the right as a southerner and as someone who LOVES this town to call us out on our terrible behavior! 
4. We drink a lot in Charleston, but come on!  These kids look Wastey McWasteron 24/7.  No wonder.  I recently saw on TV that another show about drunken kids in SC, the kids are only getting 500 dollars an episode!  Seriously???  People are going to think you are the biggest redneck, drunken, slutty fool for 500 dollars a week?  Nice work.  I’m sure your parents are SUPER proud!  That show is filmed on a small little inlet up near Myrtle Beach.  Had I been a homeowner in their neighborhood, I would have rioted in the streets!!!  No  way!  Not on my watch buddy!  At least this Charleston based show has these idiots spread out all over town in their palatial estates as to make the douche bag concentration only high when before they all get drunk as hell and go off to their respective homes and have sex with each other in a drunken stupor.  Again, nice work kids.  I hope as part of your contract you get a collector’s edition DVD set so that one day you can show your kids how much Jaeger you can slam before sleeping with your best friend’s girl.  I’m sure your friends and neighbors and coworkers will always be super impressed with   your ability to put on a 600 dollar tie and judge people whilst never having lifted a finger in your entire life for anything.  Values.  Hey, rest of the world; look at how entitled and fancy we are here in the Holy City.  We went to college on mommy and daddy’s dime and they whored us out to some Kappa Sig so that we wouldn’t ever have to think for ourselves, we’ll just spit out some babies and join the junior league (please note, I have friends in the junior league who are neither stupid nor whores, but they don’t make up the whole lot). 
5. A show about folks who live in Chucktown has/had the potential to be awesome!  And hilarious, as we have a lot of characters here.  There’s a guy who lives down the street from us who gets dressed up in a 3 piece pin-striped suite complete with hat and drives his dune-buggy to church on Sundays.  We have a boat on the side of the road that people just randomly paint with random messages, sometimes marriage proposals.  Men regularly wear kilts and we don’t live in Scotland.  That dude who is super famous for his Obama poster grew up here as did a bunch of other cool ass people.  Why aren’t we making shows about them?  I’d watch the chef from Husk and McCradys for an hour a week cooking some delicious foods and having beers with other cool Charleston chefs.  So much untapped potential!  I mean, come on, look at how funny I can be and I’m just a poor ole gal who works 60 hours a week and drinks cheap wine on my deck.  Come film me for 2 hours on a Saturday night, I promise you will be more entertained and less horrified than watching these ass-clowns run around the peninsula drinking bloodys and chasing residents out because you INSISTED that the shot of you walking into the hip new bar that everyone who is anyone goes to 11 times because you just didn’t look fucking douchey enough.  Trust me, you look just as douchey on the 1^st take as you did on number 11.  You have the kind of doucheiness that you just can’t hide.  It shines right on through your Dumas suit.
6. If this show is accurate, that we CERTAINLY aren’t the most polite people in America, as previously thought.  Polite people don’t sleep with their friends’ significant others or not remember knocking someone up.  Polite people don’t loudly tell their equally as vapid friends how much money they spent on anything…unless it’s about a bargain, southern women LOVE to tell you how little they spent on something.  I’m wearing a shirt right now that I bought at Target for three dollars! Three dollars!!  Do you know how excited that made me?  Hell yeah I’ll tell you about that clearance sale!  I don’t want you to think I walk around wearing jeans that cost more than a car payment…it’s just tacky.  If you can afford jeans that are more than a car payment, good for you!!  I wish I could, but even if I could, I wouldn’t go around bragging about it.  Polite people don’t look down on others who aren’t as lucky as to be born with a silver/gold/platinum/titanium spoon or whatever the fanciest of the fanciest of spoons in their mouth.  Polite people are charitable, kind, love our city, talk it up, give tourons (for those of ya’ll that don’t know, a “touron” is a cross between a tourist and a moron) directions and smile about it!  Hell, we will even recommend a local joint that no travel guide will tell you about.  Polite people, don’t however, shut down Broad Street so that we can ensure that the entire country sees that we drive a super expensive convertible that some dude who is 50 years older than us got for us in exchange for what I can only assume is charming personality and companionship.  Not something horrible like sleeping with a grandpa for a car.  Polite people’s mothers raised them better. 
7. Speaking of mothers…no classy southern women would allow their child, especially a daughter, go on television, get drunk and whore themselves out for fancy vacays.  My mother would DIE.  Absolutely DIE.  She gets mad when I curse in public and is constantly telling me I need to go to church more.  I can’t imagine her or any of my childhood friend’s mothers  endorsing this behavior.  Can you imagine the scandal at bridge club???  The horror!  I can just hear it now…”Luanne, was that your daughter with the Mohawk I saw on TV the other night with a dress so tight she’ll be rendered barren, licking crème burlee off of a 70 year old’s finger while downing something she referred to as “red headed slut”? How delightful, you and Morrison must be so proud.”  I’m sure that now my mother wishes she had some modicum of control over me, but back in the day when I was still on “the pay roll” as my daddy used to say, this behavior would not be tolerated.  Sullying the family name wasn’t an option in my house. 
8. And while we are on the topic of parents.  Where are these girls dads???  My dad is a pretty cool guy, but I’m fairly certain that had I brought home at 21 a man who was older than him, we’d be having a little C to J (that’s a “come to Jesus” for those of you who don’t speak off kilter belle) before supper even started.  A conversation that would never happen because I didn’t know that men in my father’s age group where appropriate to date.  We called those men pedios and we stayed the fuck away from them.  No 21 year old girl with ANY dignity should be sleeping with an elderly man because he can take you to Paris for the weekend.  Can he also buy a sugar scrub at Stella Nova long and thorough enough to wash the stink of whore off of you?  Probably not.  Not to mention, do you think he cares about you?  Gonna marry you and grow old with you is he?  Oh wait, he already is old.  And if Anna Nicole taught us anything, it’s that a young, hot girl marrying a geriatric for his billons doesn’t always work out as planned, God rest her poor soul. 
9. Not all boys from Charleston wear bow ties and deck shoes and searsucker suits.  That only works on a few select fellas, the rest of the fellas dress like normal men.  Like when they aren’t at work, they are wearing jeans and a shirt and likely flip flops (it is Charleston after all).  Please don’t get me wrong.  My brothers look great in the above outfit and do don searsucker on occasions like, church or weddings.  Time and place fellas, time and place.  Going to grab a bite for Saturday lunch doesn’t require a suit, contrary to what folks are starting to think about Charleston boys. 
10. And finally…Charleston really is the best city in the nation (in my humble opinion).  We have: fantastic architecture, culture, restaurants, beaches, history, gardens, views, decommissioned battle ships, Civil War sites, hell-we even have a Civil War submarine here for God’s sake!, naval weapons station with dolphins that can detect maritime mines, the oldest synagogue in the nation, plantations, plantations, plantations, Timbo the peanut man, Bee City honey, Bowens Island, the first flush party at a tea plantation, sweet tea vodka, polar bear swims, a place called Poe’s Tavern, sweet grass baskets and those sweet grass flowers that the kids sell on King Street,  little flags that get thrown down so you know to avoid the horse poo until the horse poo people come around and clean it up, sunsets that will take  your breath away, best seafood this side of the Mason Dixon…and SO much more!  Even our sewer grates are awesome…people pay to have casts made of them, not kidding, look it up.  But the best part about Charleston, is our folks…we have the best folks…too bad they’re not the ones your watching on TV.