Southerners are always being accused of being narrow-minded and over critical when it comes to those who come from north of the Mason-Dixon line. Well, I'm friends - close friends - with three Yankee women, one of whom doesn't own an iron and two who don't shave their legs daily.

I don't know how you could possibly be more broad-minded that than.

Beside proving that chicks of a feather don't always flock together, it also illustrates that those who are born outside of our region are often as astounded by us as we are by them.

"You shave your legs every day?" Carole asked me in wide blue-eyed wonder. Somehow, the subject arose during a weekend beach trip to the Carolina coast.

"Are you serious that you don't?" I replied, matching her astonishment with wide brown-eyed wonder.

"Good heavens, no!" she exclaimed. Andrea piped up and offered that she shaves hers about twice a week, mostly when it becomes absolutely necessary.

Thank goodness for Andrea's sister, Alex, who admitted that she shaves hers every other day and sometimes does it daily. Otherwise I would have felt like a relic left over from the stockings and girdle era.

"You Southern women are sweet but you girls tend to overdo it on some things," Andrea said. "Shaving your legs daily would be one of those things."

As soon as I returned, I called my friends. "Do you shave your legs every day?" I asked the moment I heard each "Hello?"

"Honey, I am a Southern woman and I will not be caught dead without my legs shaved," promised Miss Virgie. "But if I do, it's in my will that the undertaker is to shave them before I'm lowered to my final resting place."

"Don't use my name," said Claudette. "But, no, I don't. I do, however, check down there every day."

Four more Southern friends left me with two "yeses" and two "nos," evenly splitting the field or, in this case, the hairs.

After my scientific polling, I realized that daily leg shaving is not a Southern or Northern thing. It is a persnickety, personal thing.

I was, however, disappointed in my Southern sisterhood. I expect them to always agree with me because it's bad for my business when they don't. With closely shaven legs, we should always stand united.

They did, however, all agree, emphatically, that they own an iron, though Claudette did say that Jack does the ironing in the household.

They were aghast that someone didn't. But someone doesn't.

She is a Philadelphian transplanted to Houston, Texas. Linda is an attorney, which makes the whole thing funnier since I grew up with the impression that "looking like a Philadelphia lawyer" meant dapper and sharply dressed.

I spent the night at her house during a business trip to Houston. "Where's your iron?" I asked the next morning. She turned away from her laptop and looked at me a moment before solemnly replying, "I don't have one."

I started laughing. It was ridiculous. "Stop kiddin'. Where is it?"

It took several minutes but she finally convinced me. "I buy material that isn't supposed to wrinkle but if it does, I wear it anyway."

My Yankee friends, though a bit unruly, tend to be gracious, kind and thoughtful. They write lovely thank-you notes and send flowers. It is unfortunate for them that some belligerent ones have cast a pall across their breed. Of course, on the other hand, we're still trying to overcome the stigma of Ellie Mae and Daisy Dukes.

It's distressing, too, to learn that I have friends who don't shave their legs daily and one who doesn't own an iron. But, at least, I now know that I'm broad-minded.

That's worth something.