I have also discovered that I live close to a joyously delicious Mediterranean place, and as I type this I am eating stuffed grape leaves and pita bread for dinner.  Of course when I went out to get the food, I took the longest possible way round and arrived there feeling aggrieved and un-air-conditioned and out of temper with my new surroundings.  When I got there and had stood gazing at the menu for a little while, the guy said sharply “Come on, you made up your mind yet?” and I said “Do y’all take credit?” which caused his face to stop looking cross and start looking the way people’s faces look when you are showing them a video of an adorable kitten (although qualities I share with adorable kittens pretty much end at the fact that me and adorable kittens both yawn a lot, and also that me and adorable kittens are both very fond of my hair).  “Where are you from?” he said, and I told him Louisiana and it was nice to be here with the cool breezes for the summer, and he made adorable-kitten-video face some more and gave me free baklava.

After I’d paid I said “Y’all take care now, hear?” which, okay, I will admit that is not something I would ever, ever say in real life.  But the guy gave me baklava for free.  I am not necessarily positing a causal connection between my accent and the yummy free baklava that is currently making my fingers sticky; but I confess that this is not the first time I have been given free food after saying “y’all” to food vendors in non-Southern parts of the country.

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