Only in the South

Quite possibly the strangest thing to ever happen to me... happened to me today.

Had to drive to the big city for a story (actually, a feature on gas price gouging). On the way back to the NewsMobile, the security guard has me sign out, thanks me for visiting, and...


And...


...and offers me a bite of his fried shrimp.

No, I say, that's all right, I don't want to take your lunch. I don't say that I don't like shrimp and that I've been fighting a stomach bug which makes fried food especially abhorrent at the moment. The nice little man with the badge doesn't need to know that.

Then he insists. No really, take one!

No thanks, I say.

No... really, he says, getting pushy now, take one.

To make a long story short, I took his shrimp. But I didn't eat it. (It is currently in a grassy median somewhere between my town and our state capitol along interstate 64.)