Soon to be pooping rainbows
May 14, 2007 | Filed under: Comes And Goes, Whoopdie Doo
“You must start with a positive attitude or you will surely end without one.” ~Carrie Latet
Yesterday afternoon I drove through my father’s development in my disgusting, bird shit covered, bumper scratched car. A car in desperate need of a good wash and possibly a shine and a repaint to make up for the number of parking columns I’ve run into over the years.
As I was driving quiet upstate New York suburban development streets, I was greeted warmly by women walking with babies attached to their chests in a bjorn. A man riding bikes with his two children and an older gentleman just walking and a woman with a dog. At every turn, they each smiled and waved as I passed through. Like I lived there and we had been neighbors for years and borrowed multiple cups of sugar and swapped stories about Bob’s awesome tulips. They were all just so damn friendly.
In DC, driving through Dupont, I’m more likely to get a finger waved in front of me or want to do evil things to a family of four who can’t maneuver a simple traffic circle. Yesterday, when someone had the audacity to make a left hand turn, I didn’t have to physically restrain myself from getting out of the car and removing their kidneys with chopsticks. Because people who make left hand turns deserve nothing but awful horrible things. Instead, I sat and waited and smiled and continued on to the car wash. At the car wash where they lost my antenna and once again where I didn’t lose my shit out of fear of missing out on listening to NPR on the drive to work come Monday morning.
Everyone here smiles. They’re friendly. They leave their front doors unlocked and I can leave the sun roof open without fearing that anyone in Clifton Park is going to steal my radio. It’s all so damn peaceful. Even this morning, at work, on my first day, everyone was actually happy to be there. And coming from a place where I threatened to hurl myself off the balcony every other hour and/or wanted to do serious harm to people unable to merge onto 395, I would say that all of this ‘niceness’ will do me some good.
Dagny says:
Ahhhh. The joys of suburbia.
They’re all so god damn happy. I wonder if they’ll be like this when it snows 5 feet in October.
LisaBinDaCity says:
Isn’t it funny after you leave a major metropolitan city how darn friendly people are? Scared the heck outta me at first
So nice! And full of joy! Having never experienced serious gridlock on the Beltway or the BQE. Of course they’re friendly.
mdvelazquez says:
Sounds wonderful.
It is wonderful. Freakishly so.
HollowSquirrel says:
Yay. Glad we haven’t scared you off yet with all of our insane smiling and waving.
ummm no, not yet. What will scare me off is the first snow. Then I’ll be rethinking this move.
heather anne says:
Yeah, I read this morning that DC has, like, the third rudest drivers in the whole world! Atlanta follows closely behind.
I seriously have never given the finger or been given the finger so many times in my life.
GreenCanary says:
I do not understand. What are these things called “happy” and “nice” that you refer to?
Oh yeah…outside of the Beltway, people are both. WTF?
Gin says:
My sister lives in DC and I’m sure she’ll be happy to know that she isn’t the only resident wishing to kung foo the people screwing with the roundabouts. Left hand turning lunatics.
No, there are several hundred of us. We get very angry and possibly violent. Beware.
paisley says:
Wow. It sounds wonderful. It’s too hot here to do anything blissful outside, much less commune with “nature” and neighbors.
Glad you got there safe.
Your ever trusty lurker,
P
Paisley! Where have you been all my life?? Don’t worry I lurk over at your place as well, mostly for the cute baby pictures.