Is McDonald’s the Mecca of your town? Do all of your high school friends live 20 minutes away from you? Do the people around you casually mention the race of a person they’re talking about for no discernible reason? If you answered yes to any of these, you may be living in a small town, and you may be entitled to compensation. For all of you unaware city folk and for the country bumpkins that might relate, I’d like to document here the pains and maybe a few pleasures of small town life.
The Gym
Nearly every man under 40 in a small town has a gym membership, and why wouldn’t they? There is almost nothing outside of the house to become occupied with. The gym is also simply a nice place to get fit, or a place for men under 40 to meet up with other men under 40. I, as a man under 40, am most enamored that the gym still runs cable television. I can’t get that anywhere else these days besides grandma’s house.
While cable these days means mostly just “Big Bang Theory” reruns, Marvel movies and college baseball games, occasionally you get a real programming gem. A few weeks ago I got to watch ESPN’s rerun of the men’s portion of the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. No sound, black-boxed captions and a few 100 hotdogs being eaten—time well spent standing under a mounted television instead of working out. Seeing Joey Chestnut still at his peak is a great pleasure. Muscles atrophy— Joey Chestnut and his 15 belts are forever. The only real stinker about the gym is that because every man under 40 has a gym membership, I inevitably see every dude I went to high school with there, and they’ve all aged 10 years in two years.
The Family Dollar/Dollar Tree next to the Tractor Supply store
A sign for “Family Dollar/Dollar Tree” appeared on a vacant building at the beginning of summer, and suddenly this stupid store was all anyone in town ever talked about. Let me clarify: I am not mad about the existence of such a store in town, but rather mad about the endless banter that has surrounded it. This sort of talk exists in every small town: the discussion of a newly-built but incredibly innocuous chain store (Subway, Autozone, Wendy’s…).
Conversations before the opening of the Family Dollar/Dollar Tree were constant and often more popular than weather talk. It started with, “What’s the deal with the Family Dollar/Dollar Tree? Remember back when there was a Dollar Tree by the Radioshack and the Blockbuster?” As the summer progressed, it became, “When do you think it’s gonna open? Do you think it’s gonna be a Dollar Tree on one side of the store and a Family Dollar on the other side or is it gonna be all mixed up? Do you think it’s ever gonna open?” Maybe the one interesting wrinkle of this debacle is that Dollar Tree and Family Dollar have conflicting business models. Dollar Tree sells only dollar-priced items while Family Dollar will often sell things well beyond that price, but maybe me caring about that is just the small-town nut in me writing.
The Department of Motor Vehicles
This might surprise you, but I legitimately love the DMV. There are very few places on Earth where you can silently study a random sample of the people that live around you. The DMV is very thorough, too, because no adult in a rural community can avoid it. There’s no music. No chairs to wait in. It’s an incredibly sterile place. All there is to do is to stand and stare at the people in front of you. It’s beautiful. I love the DMV. I only had to go to the DMV once this summer, but I wish I could have gone every day.
Motor Vehicles
“Nick,” you might be thinking, “you must really love motor vehicles if you love the DMV so much, right?” Here’s the thing: I hate driving. I hate that I have to do it to get anywhere here. I hate that when I go to get an oil change, the guy pulls the metal skewer out at the end and shows me the oil level and I’m supposed to pretend like that means something to me. I hate parking, unless I can pull through to the parking spot on the other side. My friend Dustin calls that a “princess park” (not in a derogatory way, he very much likes doing it).
Half of the time when I try to park, I will get out of the car, see what I’ve done, and turn the car back on to try again. A 100 percent of the time when I try to park, I get out and look at the lines and I immediately sigh at the results, as if I’ve just spilled a large cup of fruit punch.
I’m paranoid that my poor parking abilities may enrage a stranger at some point. I was walking through the Buffalo Science Museum parking lot with Dustin one time when he suddenly made a big fuss about a car occupying part of an adjacent space. He took out his wallet and pulled out a few paper cards that said things like, “Hey ASSHOLE, your parking is SHIT!” and he put one on the windshield of the car. If I ever found one of those on my car, my self- worth would be crumpled.
Pickleball
I like to think of pickleball as tennis, but if it were actually fun to play. Pickleball isn’t necessarily a rural thing, but I think it’s partially popular here because of the lack of other entertainment.
“Hey Bill, you wanna hit a plastic Wiffle ball around for a few hours?” “Sure, I was just gonna stare longingly at the squirrels through my window all day but that sounds like a blast!” That’s how pickleball was invented, I think.
I played pickleball with mostly 60 plussers, and while that may seem lame to some of you, be assured pickleball will eventually come for you in your old age and if we ever face off, I will have years upon years of practice over you. Every week you aren’t playing pickleball now, my power grows.
Food
If you move to a rural area, expect to eat pizza at least once a week. Want a break from pizza? Maybe try taco pizza this week. The area can’t sustain a Mexican restaurant for more than half a year, so taco pizza is the closest I can get to specialty cuisine. Coincidentally, I live within four miles of two Tim Hortons.
I’m a little bummed that it took me till college to try things like pad thai and ramen, but as much as I complain about the limited selection back home, it’s the same food I will be craving at midnight in my dorm room most nights. I can’t say I’ve longed for Murray’s Chicken this summer.
To be honest, there are parts of all of these small town facets that I will miss at least a little bit, besides maybe the Family Dollar/Dollar Tree. That can be eaten by termites for all I care. Now if they had built a Fuddruckers…
You nailed the small town. In my case, stores and restaurants are always closing. “Did you hear that Taco Bell was condemned? They were cooking meth in there.” (True story) Keep up the good writing!