IF A MAN HAS A NAGGIN’ WIFE, THAT IS a vicious cycle. Which came first—the naggin’ wife or the man that needs naggin’? They probably both need Jesus and a clean slate to stop the chaos.
I’ve (almost) never been a naggin’ wife, but I have been a mouthy one. There is nothing wrong with a woman being a little mouthy. Mouthy women aren’t afraid to stand up for themselves and others, and I come from a long line of mouthy women—my favorite being my late mother-in-law! Her level of mouthiness can be summed up by one single action.
She was a naval nurse from Upstate New York who met a marine from Biloxi, Mississippi, while he was stationed on her ship. They fell in love, and he brought her home to meet his family. Everything was going great, except on this trip, he lost his Southern graces and started bossing her around. Trying to impress his family that he’d found a woman that would cater to him, he started telling her to fix his plate or take his plate. By the second day, she’d had enough, and when he told her to fix him a glass of milk, she did just that. She fixed him by filling a glass with ice-cold milk and pouring it right on top of his head for all of his family to see.
The room erupted in laughter, and the Yankee girlfriend got the Southern seal of approval. They were married soon after.
I recently asked Tim if there was ever a time in our seventeen years of marriage that I have nagged him. He said, “This feels like a trap, and I refuse to answer on grounds that I know better.”
“I promise it’s not a trap. Can you name a time that I’ve nagged you?”
He went on to remind me of the time I tried to get him to start a donut truck because there wasn’t a good donut shop in town. Then he remembered the time I started a photo-booth business and almost worked us to death one Christmas. But what he truly loved was reminding me of our first Christmas, when I had to go out to a tree farm, and I wanted the biggest Christmas tree on the farm. He tried to convince me that it was too big for the den, but I was relentless. He let me learn the hard way that he was right. That tree gave the Griswold-family Christmas tree a run for its money.
“First of all, I said ONE time. And second, I wasn’t naggin’ you; that was just being mouthy. Being mouthy and nagging are two completely separate things!”
“Spoken like a true naggin’ wife,” he joked.
Whether you call it mouthy or naggin’, it should never be confused with tacky! Tacky might be the most horrible thing you can call a woman in the South. “That’s downright tacky” or “You’re acting tacky” or “That looks tacky” are the kisses of death. We avoid tacky at all costs. There’s a thin line between mouthy and tacky, and the best Southern women ride it well.
Tacky is one of those words that are hard to define but easy to spot:
• Not pulling over for a funeral procession is downright tacky. I don’t care if you are on the interstate. Someone has passed away, and we pay our respects by pulling over (and turning down the radio).
• Taking food to a widower too early is plain tacky. Ladies, I know good men are in short supply, but please do not show up with a casserole and bad intentions until the grass has grown over the burial plot. I saw this happen with my father-in-law. I think the ladies waited a week before they started bringing him food. It beat all I’d ever seen. You couldn’t keep ’em away.
• Not inviting everyone to a party, and this includes weddings. Every Wednesday we would check the local paper for wedding announcements, and every single one ended with “No local invitations are being sent; friends and family are invited to attend.” You would also post the same thing in your local church bulletin. I read an advice column that responded to the question, “How do I not invite my uncle’s family?” The writer really wanted to know, “How do I keep from having kids at my wedding?” In the South, just give it up, ’cause Uncle Earle and his eighteen kids aren’t missing a good party. They will be there with bells on and tell EVERYONE who listens, “I’m on the bride’s side.” If you are lucky, only his current wife will show up and not his three exes.
• Asking for an RSVP—I know you want a head count, but you aren’t getting one! I’m from Mississippi, and we are very noncommittal about our comings and goings. We feel more comfortable saying, “We’ll be there if the creek don’t rise.” Meaning, if nothing else comes up, then we’ll be there.
RSVP: Yes
RSVP: No
RSVP: If the creek don’t rise
To counteract the lack of RSVPs, we have the most stunning buffet tables you’ve ever seen. I’m talking fruit-and-cheese displays that are three feet tall and ice bowls overflowing with peel-and-eat shrimp (it has to be peel-and-eat; otherwise, somebody is going to just stand there like it’s the first time they ever saw shrimp). I remember the first time I laid eyes on the buffet at the Beau Rivage casino in Biloxi and thought, Now, this is a buffet fit for a wedding. It’s not tacky to use store-bought food. Some of the South’s best fried chicken can be found at a roadside gas station, and the best meat and three1 is usually at the grocery store, but you still want to give it a nice presentation. If you don’t have time to cook, that’s fine, but it has to look good! Take the store-bought food and put it on a pretty platter, and for the love of all that is precious and holy, take the price tag off!
• Bringing food to a party when the hostess didn’t ask you to. Everyone says, “What can I bring?” when being invited to a party. If the hostess says, “Just yourself,” then you show up with your sweet self and a hostess gift.
• Asking a woman when she’s having a baby, or when she’s having another baby, or when she is due. Just smile and nod, and you will be made aware of baby news when it’s time for you to know.
• Wearing white after Labor Day to church isn’t technically tacky, but why would you want to have precious time wasted on having people debate your clothes? Trust and believe that the conversation will be behind your back and you’ll never know it, but it might open other transgressions. “Well, you know she did dance on those tables while she was at Auburn, and I heard she also wore black shoes on Easter Sunday,” and all of this comes up because you wore white after Labor Day. Transition to winter white and let it be. The only exception is a whiteout football game, but this goes out to all of the athletic departments—telling ladies what to wear to a football game is tacky! We won’t tell you that your team needs to run the ball, and you don’t tell us what to wear.
• I learned the hard way that not owning a copy of Southern Sideboards is very tacky. The beloved cookbook was published by the Junior League of Jackson. Mississippi native Wyatt Cooper, who was an author and screenwriter before he was known for being Anderson Cooper’s father, wrote the beautiful foreword that describes food and life in Mississippi.
When I first moved to Jackson, I worked at the Everyday Gourmet, which was co-owned by Ms. Dorothy (Dero) and her daughter Carol. Ms. Dero Puckett was everything you ever pictured when you thought of a classic Southern lady. When the Jackson Symphony League was hosting Martha Stewart for their annual fundraiser, they needed someone to open their home, and everyone was scared to do so. Not Ms. Dero. She gladly opened her home and made a lifelong friend. I can remember after Hurricane Katrina, seeing Ms. Dero on Martha’s television show talking about the devastation to her home in Pass Christian, Mississippi.
One day, we were looking at cookbooks, and I naively said, “Oh, I don’t have this one,” when looking at a copy of Southern Sideboards.
“I’m sorry—what did you say?” Ms. Dero exclaimed.
“I don’t think I have this cookbook,” I repeated, and she quietly whispered to me, “Don’t ever let anyone hear you say that, and don’t be caught with a brand-new copy of Southern Sideboards. Go run over it a few times with your car and make it look old, but never get caught with a new one.”
I relayed the story to my mother. She was horrified. “Ellen! I have two copies of Southern Sideboards at my house. One is mine and the other is yours for when you are smart enough to know how to take care of it.”
I relayed this back to Ms. Dero, and she was relieved. “I was surprised, as you seemed to have a very good raisin’. That is a good mama you have,” she confided.
I’d love to tell you that this is a definitive list of all things tacky, but spotting tacky can be just as difficult as telling the difference between naggin’ and mouthy. Truth be told, as soon as you think you’ve written the full list of all things tacky, someone will up and propose at their best friend’s wedding.
1 “Meat and three” is what you call a restaurant that serves your pick of meat and three vegetables at a fixed price. You also get a roll or cornbread and sweet tea.