I am open-minded, but what’s a Southern Living Party doing in a place like Wisconsin?

I got an invitation to a “Southern Living At Home” party. From what I can tell, you go to it for the purpose of socializing with like-minded people and acquiring “beautiful accents” for your home. I imagine the accents are somehow “Southern,” even as the attendees are themselves very “Northern.”

My impulse was to put this aside. The invitation has frothy lemonade in polka-dot glasses on it and candles and flowers in assorted containers. It’s just not me.

But then I thought: how rigid on my part!

And so I rejected the invitation NOT because it threatened to introduce Southern Themes into my home or office, but because I am done with looking at/procuring adornments. At some point one has to get to the substance of things.