...One day it is sunny and gorgeous, the next day it is muggy and too hot to stand, the next day it is so windy and cold that you need a sweater to go outside, and then the next day it's pouring rain.
...The mosquito population fluctuates nightly. It's perfectly normal to be bug-free one night and totally swarmed the next.
...You think nothing of fishing frogs, snakes, and spiders out of your backyard pool.
...Even if you detest Twilight, you still brag that Taylor Lautner is from YOUR home state.
...In winter, you alternate between freezing your ass off and opening all the windows because your house is a freaking sauna.
...You run the risk of being burned at the stake for driving a foreign car.
...When you're alone or with others from Michigan, you say "Detroit" like it's a curseword. When you're with outsiders who are trashing Detroit, you defend it as if it were the Vatican.
...You brag about Robin Williams and Tim Allen being from your home state (even though technically, Williams was born in Chicago and Allen came from Colorado).
...You know your state is full of rich history (hello, Henry Ford Museum!) and interesting people (the name "Michael Moore" ring a bell?) but at the same time you whine about being from a small town or, heaven forbid, Detroit.
...By now, you're really, really sick of hearing about Kwame Kilpatrick...so sick, in fact, that you actually prefer the little 'newsflashes' about Lindsay Lohan's jail term to an update on Kilpatrick.
...You've been to Canada, but when someone asks if you've traveled outside the USA you forget and say "No, I haven't" because it took you less than two hours to get there.
...You have had the wonderful experience of freezing your backside off in one of the Great Lakes. In March. Wearing a two-piece swimsuit. And you think this is perfectly normal.
...You can wear t-shirts in February and thermals in July.
...You drive through areas with so many deserted businesses that the phrase "ghost town" comes to mind and not only are you not surprised, but you pretty much expect it.
Well I'm sure you get the point. How many of us can go on and on about our hometowns or home states, usually making ridiculous generalizations? And how many of us, despite all that, love our origins...athough we wouldn't admit it under alien water torture? (Sorry, that was just too good an opportunity to miss.)
I will admit that I can't wait to get the heck out of Michigan. But I think this is more out of a love of traveling than a desire to escape my home state. I love traveling, from day trips to Canada to long, drawn-out, three-days-of-driving trips to North Carolina and Texas. I've been to Vermont, Ohio, West Virginia, to name a few, even New York (don't count that one; it was when I was barely a year old). I'd love to go overseas someday, my top places to go would be England, Germany, and Ireland. My college candidates fall everywhere from California to Boston. I get excited whenever I hear the words "vacation" "packing" or "trip." I go to boarding school and love every minute of it. In my sophomore year I voluntarily went on an eleven-hour drive to Pennsylvania to camp, hike, and whitewater raft with forty-nine of my fellow students.
But for all my complaining that we don't travel enough--and my parents can vouch for me on this--the first thing I say after every trip is, "God, it feels great to be home!"
I'm about to be cheesy for the second time in one post: Home = family. Anywhere you have people you love can be "home" for you, when you really get right down to it. In that case, I have two homes: Interlochen and my silly little housing development. Why? Because at Interlochen are all my friends, all the people I'd go through hell for, and then in the subdivision are my parents, who we all know I love to death.
Do I complain about both places? Yeah. But when push comes to shove, will I always go right back to those places? Absofreakinglutely.
And hey, it's nice when I think about it this way: Whether driving to boarding school or coming back for a vacation, I can always say, "I'm going home."
STOLEN DIALOGUE
Person one: Roadrunner, roadrunner... [singing the Joan Jett song]
Person two: Roadrunner, Coyote's after you [sings theme song from the Roadrunner cartoon]
Person one: No, that's not the roadrunner I'm thinking of. I'm thinking of Joan Jett driving by the Stop'n'Shop with her radio on.
Person two: Oh, she must be driving a...whaddyacallit...a...uh...car.
Person one: Uh, ya think?
Person two: Hey, smartass, there's a car called a Roadrunner. A Plymouth.
Person one: I'm not sure that's what Joan Jett had in mind.
Person two: Look, there's only two roadrunners: The one that goes "Meep meep!" and the kind that goes, "Beep beep."
Person one: Uh...okay...
"I got the little mini chocolate chips. But I didn't mean to. I didn't have my glasses on. For all I know, they could be little rabbit turds."
"I swear, some days I just feel like washing my hair with salami."
Person one [total cookie addict]: We don't need to get cookies if we don't have much time.
Person two: "We don't need cookies?" Are you SERIOUS? Dad, the #1 rule in our family is DON'T EVER TURN DOWN COOKIES!
Person three: You WROTE that rule!
Person two: Yeah, you did! You carved it in stone, sealed it with a drop of your blood, set it in a golden plaque, put it high up on a wall in a sacred tomb guarded by booby traps that end with whoever tries to touch it getting chased out by a huge rolling boulder! What do you mean, "We don't need cookies!" Are you sure you're my dad, or are you an imposter?
Person one: No, I'm not an imposter.
Person two: Then why'd you say "We don't need cookies?"
Person one: Well, it was worth the conversation we just had.
Person one: Are you still a virgin?
Person two: Well, let's just say I have no plans to change my maidenly status anytime soon.
"Oh yeah man. C'mon man. Yeah, dude. Fight the power, man, c'mon."
"That's the third time today I've heard you use the word 'badass.' Do we need to get you a thesaurus?"
Person one: I used to be so cute...what happened?
Person two: You're still cute!
Person one: ...Meh.
Person two: Don't you 'meh' me!
Person one: That's such a midwestern thing to say, isn't it? 'Meh.' Like, have you ever heard a Texan say 'meh'?
Person two: I never met a Texan. Now stop with the subject changing!
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