College is the time where people begin their real life. You are no longer able to bask in the blissful shade of your parents' shadow, but you are okay with this because you want to become your own person, find your place in the world, and experience as many new things as possible. This means moving as far away from your parents as possible. Or at least as far as they will allow. For many kids who live in the Midwestern suburbs, the cheapest way to evade the all-seeing parental eye is to journey into new and uncharted territory: the non-suburbs. For me this was Grand Forks, North Dakota. Here are the 12 most blaring signs you've journeyed from the Shire that is the suburbs:
1. People have weapons now.
You’re from a magical place called ‘suburbia,' where guns were filled with hot glue and Nerf bullets. The only time you heard of your peers wielding weapons, was that one time Dominick got suspended for accidentally bringing his pocket knife to school in his backpack. Now you are the only person who doesn’t have three different forms of death on their person at all times.
2. People actually choose to listen to country music
You are not from a small town where they drive jacked up trucks down dirt roads, so the countless songs made about these things will not appeal to you, and will annoy the living hell out of you. The same cannot be said about your new community's musical preference. They enjoy two genres of music: country, and western.
3. People wear cowboy hats un-ironically
The only time you’ve ever actually worn a cowboy hat was that one Halloween between the ages of five and ten. Now that you reside in a minimally populated portion of the country, you will come to realize that people have acquired the ability to wear cowboy hats around in public places and, not feel completely ridiculous. You will never develop this talent.
4. People are very conservative
Politically, religiously, and culinarily (it’s a word now). Good luck convincing your new friends that Bernie Sanders is a viable candidate, that god might not exist, or that Japanese food is delicious.
5. Pickup Trucks. As far as the eye can see, pickup trucks
Your car has really only been used for moving people, so why would you get one? The gas mileage of your Toyota Camry is pretty prime, and as long as you could blare your Shady with the bass boosted 5 you were content wit your pint sized sedan. You laugh at how much money the owners of these bulky pick ups put towards their gas bills. Then you get stuck in a deceptively deep pool of water in the middle of nowhere with a dead cell phone. You are about to give up all hope when a friendly pick up owner arrives miraculously on the scene and pulls your dinky vehicle away from its certain death. Thank you kind stranger, I will never call pickups stupid again.
6. People here really like hunting
They’ll look at you like you told them you have never been to McDonalds before when you tell them you've never been. While you thought you were being outdoorsy by having a bonfire, your small town counterparts were patiently waiting in their deer stand for that 8 point buck they saw earlier that day.
7. 'Mudding' is apparently a thing
Unfortunately I still don’t exactly understand the specifics on this one. From what I’ve gathered it is comprised of driving a vehicle through wet dirt in an exciting manner. People can’t believe me when I say I haven’t been 'mudding' before, I can’t believe that people actually do something like that for fun, or at all for that matter.
8. People take Sundays very seriously
9. People are all too familiar with manual labor
And you are friendly strangers with it. You have viewed it from afar, and thought about it every now and then, but never actually spent time with it. You will feel incredibly emasculated when you hear the stories of 12 hour work days on their farms.
10. People don’t know how to read
I’m just kidding; people from small towns know how to read just as well as us suburban folk.
11. The term "shoes" has a different meaning
You wear tennis shoes and high-tops. They wear cowboy boots, and sh*t kickers. Your shoes are good for running, jumping and looking fresh. Their shoes are good for literally everything else
12. So does the term 'big city'
To a person from a town with literally twenty residents, a town of 60,000 seems incredibly overwhelming. To a kid from a metropolitan suburb with a population of a similar number, this same town can be incredibly underwhelming. But with that said it has its own special charm that you won’t find anywhere else, and memories will be formed here that will last a lifetime
