Southern Girls: "Laura Ashley" With a Little "Texas Pete"

Southern Girls:  “Laura Ashley” With a Little “Texas Pete”

When my girls were little, they carried a stuffed animal everywhere.  I guess it made them feel secure to hold something from home.  Later they brought along Build-a-Bears to sleep-away camps. 

Likewise, when a girl goes away to college, she takes all her belongings (including fifteen new Lilly Pulitzer sundresses for game day at the Grove) with her because she must recreate in her dorm the same cozy environment in which she did not study at home. 

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First, she and her roommate must meticulously plan a color scheme during the summer on Twitter and Instagram. 

They’ll send each other Laura Ashley fabric samples and coordinate polkadot dust ruffles, drapes, and area rugs to pull their project together.

Then there’s Monogramming.  Everything.  Gabby Lee’s mama must purchase a monogrammed duvet, headboard, and a slipcover for GL’s desk chair at Ole Miss because that’s just what Southerners DO.  Now if she went to college in the North, . . . bwaaahaha, I kill me!  

To make the boudoir complete (BTW - we Southern girls like to say “boo-dwaahh” because it makes people think we hail from somewhere exotic, like the French Quarter), GL will create a corner “reading” nook.  A velvet loveseat, surrounded by softly draped charmeuse hanging from the ceiling and a string of white lights casting a soft glow on her spray tan.  A quiet place for “courting” because a Southern girl can’t sit on her bed with a boy ‘cause mama WILL find out.  It’s a studious retreat in case a Sigma Chi wants to come over and get . . . tutored.

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For inspiration, she’ll have a Motivation Wall with a poster of a fluffy kitty proclaiming, “Don’t let anyone dull your sparkle!”  She can see it every morning when she wakes up and peeks from under her bed tent of tulle and sweet rosebuds.

Getting practical, mama will make sure she has shower shoes, and a monogrammed shower caddy, bath towels and bath robe so she’ll never have to walk to the shower in her coed dorm wearing just her monogrammed boxer shorts and skin tight tank top, showing, “Oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, WHO knows what?” 

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Over her desk, she’ll have a bulletin board covered in a sweet Vera Bradley “Va Va Bloom” pattern that matches her flat iron pouch.  It will display pics of her sorority sisters  giving air kisses and a plethora of boll weevil pins, or whatever their freakin‘ mascot is.  

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After mama pulls safely out of Oxford and out of sight, GL will take down the fluffy kitty poster.  Her Motivation Wall will then display a 30” x 60” poster of a six-pack of Abercrombie and Fitch Lust, wearing a cowboy hat, boots and . . . a grin, with an inspirational message, “If you want to conquer fear, don't sit home and think about it. Go get busy.”  Signed, “Love Pete.”

GET BUSY. . . . . . . LOVE, PETE

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(OK, YEAH..... I DID ENJOY LOOKING FOR THIS PICTURE.  SUE ME)

Really, her mama can’t blame her.  Because she feels food is a metaphor for life, her mama’s philosophy is simple.  

Always own a deviled egg platter ‘cuz you never know when there’s gonna be a funeral.  And when you cook baked beans, stir in a heap of brown sugar, and to fire it up . . . add an extra-hot dose of Texas Pete.