I decided to start this blog on my nth trip from my home in NJ to my temporary residence in Gettysburg, PA. As I screamed at drivers doing 50 in the left lane of a major highway, read countless billboards for sheepskin'd products, saw billboards telling me there's no way I'm making it to heaven with my current views on taxes, and smelled things that may or may not be a government experiment on subtle torture methods, I noticed a common theme.
Pennsylvania sucks. I've known this for most of my life - I live close to PA and have gone to school here for the past three years (minus one semester abroad, and if you're wondering, the rumors are true. Southern France looks JUST like Bucks County). After years of being confused and irritated by virtually everything and almost everyone the Keystone state offers, I've decided to record these thoughts and offer them to you, the sympathetic public. If you visited PA, if you know a Pennsylvanian, if you've driven behind one, or if you even live here, you know I'm not making this up.
It's fitting that I visited the waking nightmare that is Walmart today, it's a nice entrance into the culture. A nice entrance with a mentally retarded man standing near the carts, just waiting to say hello. Walk ten more yards and you can pick up an "OUR COUNTRY ROCKS" t-shirt for $5. I know I'm going to run out of ways to say "disgustingly fat" sooner rather than later, so I'll have to come up with my own nomenclature for the morbidly obese men and women who call this state their home (Tubettes? Rude'n'Plenties?).
One of them is leaning on a cart, a 15 year old boy wearing a "NON-EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH" t-shirt who has apparently eaten the rest of his family. Within the next fifteen minutes I spot a grown woman, missing a tooth and actually using a Scrunchie, wearing the same t-shirt. Pennsylvanians don't know this, but these two diverse demographics were not meant to shop in the same place. That shirt shouldn't appeal to anyone, but of course it seemed like a good purchase to these two people.
A woman walks by, begging for the un-invention of capri pants. Later on, she will yell at me because I picked up THE ONE FREEWEIGHT WITHOUT A BARCODE. She will have to call an associate to find it for her, and she will glare at me when I apologize for being such a careless tramp. She will enter the number wrong four times, and it will be on my conscience. It still haunts me, and I hope she finds this so she knows how heavy it weighs on my soul.
A mother and her two sons walk by; they appear to buy their pants in threes and share them amongst each other. These two boys, with their DC from head to toe, are the reason Rob can afford Big. The younger actively stares at me, and it's days like this that taught me how to ignore people checking me out for extended periods of time. Please don't misconstrue this as 'bragging' - he's deep into the awkward stage, for Pennsylvanians it lasts well beyond their graves. It should also be noted that I'm not special - the women I mentioned above (Scrunchie-Face and Capri-Bitch) were each checked out by at least two dudes as well. It doesn't take much to be a pretty girl in PA, especially if you need something at Walmart.
At some point, "She's Just Being Miley" starts playing on the speakers - only it's not Miley Cyrus singing, it's a sneak preview of the newest KidzBop CD. It's Kidz singing a song originally performed by a kid, and it's disconcerting. I pick out what I came for, trapped in an aisle momentarily as a young mother and her boyfriend/maybe-baby's-daddy/Social Studies partner argue about which candy to get for the two young children with them. "Get the fucking Milky Ways, I don't care if you hate them." Like most other people in the store, they're shorter than people from better places, which is probably a result of a diet heavy in Doritos and root beer. It's not a well-documented fact, but the average Pennsylvanian today is shorter than the average peasant from colonial times.
I think about all of these people as I walk to my car, and I see more of them walking towards the store. Herds shuffling towards the watering hole, with their young, in their Dallas Cowboys t-shirts, trailing behind. They're coming for the carpet cleaner, the Wet'n'Wild nail polish, and the Alli. They need detergent, Cheez-Its and milk. They'll vote for the next American Idol, and they're the ones who keep the "Drive It Like You Stole It!!!" bumper sticker industry in business. They don't get Bravo, and they don't want to. I don't understand them yet, but I can try.
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