Annie, if we tease you for your use of the word "y'all," it's at least partly because you're not from the South yourself! The little bits of accent that you seem to have picked up from all over this fair country are great fun to poke fun at!
As for Maryland being a southern state... certainly my part of Maryland isn't. I'm still recovering from my visits to places where people actually trust you to pay for gas if you're allowed to pump before paying. But have you ever visited Southern Maryland? (No, DC is not "southern Maryland.") It's like its own little world, more similar to Georgia in some places than neighboring regions of Maryland. And they talk like Georgians, too.
I have friends who would actually eat grits at the dining hall when I was at school. I always thought it looked rather like oatmeal, but I declined to try some myself. *shudder* I don't think they put anything on them, though, just ate them however the dining hall served them.
