If you asked me, I wouldn’t say I live in the country. I’ve lived on a farm and an island. The luxuries I have now, like home delivery of mail, and a shiny Dunkin’ Donuts in the center of town, seem positively urban to me. However, I’ve had friends visit who have subsequently implied that I live in the middle of nowhere. Unfair, I say. Your town has two measly traffic lights, they point out. Not true, we have three. You missed the one they put in when we got that new-fangled CVS downtown. Then my houseguests stop arguing because they’re laughing too hard at the fact that I seem to sincerely believe my town has a downtown.
Okay, I’ll admit it: I live in a rural area. There are certain aspects about country life that maybe you city folk don’t understand. Here are a few:
1. Takeout, not delivery. Oh, how I envy you people who can call up a pizza place and actually have a pie delivered. If we want pizza, we have to get in the car and drive somewhere to pick up a pizza. There is no Dominos or any other pizza chain to deliver in 30 minutes or less. On the bright side, we save a ton of money, because we’re often not ambitious enough to drive for our food.
2. Wifi, not satellite. Nature’s nice and all, but because of the stupid trees surrounding us, we can’t get satellite television. Again, we save a ton of money, because with no cable or satellite bills, we watch television online. The downside: we have to stay off Facebook on Sunday nights to avoid Walking Dead and Downton Abbey spoilers, because the episodes aren’t available online until the next day. And I would sincerely appreciate it, Peter Dudar and Jeff Strand, if you would wait to post your Survivor comments until 24 hours after it airs.
3. Taco who? My town has no fast food, save the one Dunkin’ Donuts I mentioned previously. If we want McDonalds, Burger King, or Kentucky Fried Chicken, we have to drive thirty minutes. Remember when I complained about having to drive to get pizza? The pizza place is only twenty minutes away, and we can’t even muster up the energy to go there. We eat fast food exactly never.
4. Wildlife 101. When Jason first met me, he could not identify a woodchuck on sight, nor did he know the difference between a fox and a coyote. Now he can identify animals based on their poop, which we find frequently in the back yard. We’ve seen deer, foxes, bobcats, skunks, possum, coyotes, coyotes eating possums, red-tailed hawks, bats, owls, and more. The upside: I have never, ever, seen a cockroach outside of a zoo.
5. What public transportation? I had a roommate in college from the Bronx. She didn’t have her driver’s license because she’d never needed it. Conversely, we were taking drivers’ ed at 15 in my hometown. You couldn’t not have a license. The closest bus station was a 20-minute drive away. Now that I’ve moved one town over, it’s 30 minutes away. So I could drive 30 minutes and take a 30-minute bus ride to work, or I could drive the 40 minutes it takes to get to my job.
Believe me, I’m not complaining. I lived on an island where home delivery of mail or newspapers simply didn’t exist, the gas station was limited to alternating hours on alternating days (and believe me, if you couldn’t make it there between 9 AM – 12 PM on Saturdays, you were walking the rest of the weekend), and where Chinese food was a fancy mainland dish we could only dream of. So I’ll take the half-hour drive to Taco Bell. I may not go there often, but at least I can if I want to. And in my world, that’s as close to city living as I care to get.
Now please excuse me—I have to go feed a taco to the bobcat in the back yard.
Okay, I’ll admit it: I live in a rural area. There are certain aspects about country life that maybe you city folk don’t understand. Here are a few:
1. Takeout, not delivery. Oh, how I envy you people who can call up a pizza place and actually have a pie delivered. If we want pizza, we have to get in the car and drive somewhere to pick up a pizza. There is no Dominos or any other pizza chain to deliver in 30 minutes or less. On the bright side, we save a ton of money, because we’re often not ambitious enough to drive for our food.
2. Wifi, not satellite. Nature’s nice and all, but because of the stupid trees surrounding us, we can’t get satellite television. Again, we save a ton of money, because with no cable or satellite bills, we watch television online. The downside: we have to stay off Facebook on Sunday nights to avoid Walking Dead and Downton Abbey spoilers, because the episodes aren’t available online until the next day. And I would sincerely appreciate it, Peter Dudar and Jeff Strand, if you would wait to post your Survivor comments until 24 hours after it airs.
3. Taco who? My town has no fast food, save the one Dunkin’ Donuts I mentioned previously. If we want McDonalds, Burger King, or Kentucky Fried Chicken, we have to drive thirty minutes. Remember when I complained about having to drive to get pizza? The pizza place is only twenty minutes away, and we can’t even muster up the energy to go there. We eat fast food exactly never.
4. Wildlife 101. When Jason first met me, he could not identify a woodchuck on sight, nor did he know the difference between a fox and a coyote. Now he can identify animals based on their poop, which we find frequently in the back yard. We’ve seen deer, foxes, bobcats, skunks, possum, coyotes, coyotes eating possums, red-tailed hawks, bats, owls, and more. The upside: I have never, ever, seen a cockroach outside of a zoo.
5. What public transportation? I had a roommate in college from the Bronx. She didn’t have her driver’s license because she’d never needed it. Conversely, we were taking drivers’ ed at 15 in my hometown. You couldn’t not have a license. The closest bus station was a 20-minute drive away. Now that I’ve moved one town over, it’s 30 minutes away. So I could drive 30 minutes and take a 30-minute bus ride to work, or I could drive the 40 minutes it takes to get to my job.
Believe me, I’m not complaining. I lived on an island where home delivery of mail or newspapers simply didn’t exist, the gas station was limited to alternating hours on alternating days (and believe me, if you couldn’t make it there between 9 AM – 12 PM on Saturdays, you were walking the rest of the weekend), and where Chinese food was a fancy mainland dish we could only dream of. So I’ll take the half-hour drive to Taco Bell. I may not go there often, but at least I can if I want to. And in my world, that’s as close to city living as I care to get.
Now please excuse me—I have to go feed a taco to the bobcat in the back yard.
Sometimes, we raise our own soup fixins, too.
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