WELCOME TO MICHIGAN
First, the West Nile fever season here is really, really short. Ditto, malaria and any other dread disease carried by mosquitoes. The bad news is that you'll have to grow accustomed to hash brown potatoes. Grits end at Chillicothe, Missouri. You no longer have to say "y'all", the most worthless expression in the English language. When you call your dog, for instance, just say "come". You don't have to say "y'all come".
As mechanics, you'll have a field day taking care of your car from now until spring (late spring, that is, for early spring is not spring, it is really late winter). Remember that old weather adage, "April showers bring May plowers."
Sell your car.
A Georgia car will not survive here.
Your car will freeze to death before Halloween. Buy a used car. If you buy a new car it will look like a used car before they can dig it out of the display lot at the car dealership.
At first, you may think snow is pretty. Snow is not pretty. By December you will feel as if you are living in a black-and-white movie. And there is a lot of snow. Deep snow. Deep snow that doesn't go away. The reason Northwest Airlines paints the tails on its planes red is so they can find the damned things.
You'll find new loves here. One of them will be underwear that goes all the way down to your ankles. Any underwear above the ankles is considered lingerie.
A few things you may not know:
Beer freezes.
A constipated dog is a good dog.
Ice fishing is a form of mental illness.
Sunrise and Sunset are roughly an hour apart.
Jumper cables make an excellent wedding gift.
You'll look forward to slush.
Kleenex is covered by your medical insurance. Y
ou must be aware that, contrary to southern cuisine, there is no Michigan cuisine. If it's dead, eat it. When you pack to come to Michigan, you need only to bring one short-sleeved shirt and that's only in case you want to fly back home for vacation. Short-sleeved shirts are handed down here from generation to generation. The short-sleeved shirt season here begins July 26 and is pretty much wrapped up by 3:30 on the 28th.
You will have to change your allegiances to professional sports teams. Doing the tomahawk chop simply will not play here. People will think you're merely scraping your windshield. We play a game here called hockey as well. Hockey coaches will kidnap your children before they even start school, so beware. They'll return them in April. As for baseball, we never know if we have a team or not. Neither do we care.
WELCOME TO MICHIGAN
