Country Rules for City Girls. (1 thru 6)

 l. Never leave your slippers on the floor by the side of the bed. Keep them on your night-table or on a footstool.  If the slippers are right on the floor, it makes life much easier for the scorpions--- they like to climb into shoes for naps.

 2. Always turn your shoes/boots/slippers upside down before you put them on your feet. Scorpions and spiders like to hide inside them.  And, if you leave your shoes or boots outside on the porch, then you have to turn them upside down and smack them against the porch to make sure nothing has crawled up inside them.

 3. Never leave your car windows open when the car is parked in the driveway or the garage.  Wasps, flies, bees, dragonflies.... they'll fly in and then not know how to get out so they'll be sitting on that ledge near the rear window.... and then when you drive off, out they will come, heading towards the windshield because they think they're flying into the sky.  Ever try to drive while a wasp is flying around in your car?

 4. When you walk around your property, wear boots. Not cute high-heeled boots, and not short ankle-top boots.  You want boots nearly up to your knees.  And the boots are going to get grass-covered and dusty and dirty... so dirty that you'll rinse them off with a hose and not cringe because the leather is getting wet because you wouldn't get caught dead with these boots on your feet anyplace other than your property where no one else sees you anyway.

 5. Keep your city-shoes and your high heels in your closet... you won't be wearing them much.  You'll be wearing flat shoes wherever you go because you just never know if you'll be walking on gravel, stones, hay-covered dirt, lawns that need mowing, fields decorated with cow-poop, or grass that's a mine-field of fire ant mounds.  If you're certain that you can get out of your car and walk on smooth, clean pavement to your destination of choice, then by all means wear those pretty city shoes...... but be prepared for dozens of country women to be looking at your high heels and thinking "There goes a city girl..... she must be lost."

 6. When you walk on grass, no matter how short or how long it is, keep walking.  Do not stop to smell the roses, watch a bluebird, or pick up a pecan.  Stopping in that grass will give every fire ant, spider, scorpion, beetle, and snake the opportunity to make friends with you.  And unless you want to be on speaking terms with creeping, crawling, and slithering things, just keep on walking. And for goodness sakes, if there's a solid paved path, you shouldn't be walking on the grass anyway.

...... And so concludes the first six rules..... I have to stop typing now because the fire ant bites on my ankles are beginning to itch terribly. (That bluebird was just so darn cute.)