Sean of the South By Sean Dietrich: New in town

Sean and his wife Jamie moved to the Birmingham area in March 2022. This is a column he wrote on his fourth day in his new town.

Day Four. We have been living in Birmingham for four days and I am lost. Hopelessly lost. Right now I am in interstate traffic and I have no idea where in the Lord’s name I am.

Also, it’s colder than a witch’s jogbra in this city. The temperature last night was 37 degrees and I couldn’t feel my digits.

Before you accuse me of being a weather wimp, I must remind you that I come from the Panhandle, where the median temperature is 103, and our hurricane season lasts from June to the following June.

So I was not ready for the freezing temps a few nights ago. My entire little family slept in one bed to keep warm, and whenever it got cold, my wife threw on another dog.

But that’s what you get here in the foothills of the Appalachians. Because when I asked the guy at the hardware store if it would ever warm up, he explained the weather like this:

“This is Birmingham, dude. You git what you git, and you don’t pitch a fit.”

Which reminds me: I know all the hardware store employees on a first-name basis now. I’ve been spending a lot of time at Home Depot lately.

Since we are still busy moving into our house, my wife has been sending me on random hardware errands for items such as felt chair pads, shims, sink stoppers, and (don’t ask) pitchforks.

I go to the hardware store four or five times per day, sometimes more. Sometimes I don’t even buy anything, I just wander the aisles wearing a helpless look, glancing at my wife’s list in a way that causes concerned employees to sidle up to me and ask if I need a chaplain.

Then an employee leads me to an aisle where my item is located and I am forced to choose between an infinity of options, colors, and denominations.

Do you want the one with the five-eighths angled grommet, or the eleven-sixteenths one with the reinforced brackets? Do you want galvanized or powder coated? Or would you like the three-quarter nodule with the all-weather defibrillator and the reverse coupling ribbed flange?

Nothing is easy in the hardware store anymore.

Take lightbulbs. Used to, buying light bulbs was a snap. Your mom bought them at the supermarket. She simply tossed a box of bulbs into her buggy with her non-smoking hand and kept on trucking.

Back then, you had three kinds of bulbs to choose from — which were all the same bulb, but different wattages. The whole process took maybe 4 seconds.

Today, however, the hardware store has a lightbulb aisle that’s roughly the size of Newark. There are bulbs with different “lumens,” “finishes,” “contours,” “hues” and “shapes.”

You have incandescents, compact fluorescents, halogens, light emitting diodes, tubes, candles, globes, floodlights, spirals, Edisons, capsules, track lights, cool lights, white lights, warm lights, menthol lights, Miller Lites, etc.

And God help you if you buy the wrong bulb, because your wife will send you back to the hardware store. This is very embarrassing. When you re-enter through the pneumatic doors again, you immediately make eye contact with the same employees you saw a few minutes earlier, and you feel much like a neutered dog.

Then, one of the employees usually attempts to make you feel better by saying, “Listen, it’s not easy, shopping in this store, it’s overwhelming.”

Which makes you feel about as manly as a guy dressed in a Hello Kitty costume.

But hey, this is all part of the moving process. Moving means learning how to adjust to new situations, new experiences, and new highways.

Speaking of highways. I’m still driving, and I still have no earthly clue where I am.

So far, I’ve been learning how to navigate this foreign city with a sociopathic GPS that often tells me to “turn right here” while I am speeding over a bridge.

I’ve had to pull over and ask random pedestrians for directions three times this morning. Although, I have to admit, the residents in this city are extremely accommodating.

A few minutes ago, for example, I asked a guy for directions who I met in a parking lot near a Mexican restaurant. He was Latino, and more than happy to help.

This kind hearted man took nearly 15 minutes of his valuable time to tell me, in painstaking detail, exactly where I should go, where I should turn, and how long it would take me to get where I was going. At least I assume that’s what he was saying because he didn’t speak one lick of English.

In fact, the only English words he apparently knew were, “It is what it is, man.” He must have said this phrase 2,193 times.

“Thank you for your help,” I said as we shook hands and parted ways.

“It is what it is, man,” he answered.

Which, I suppose, roughly translates into, “You git what you git and you don’t pitch a fit.”

Sean Dietrich is a columnist and novelist known for his commentary on life in the American South. He has authored nine books and is the creator of the “Sean of the South” blog and podcast.