Ha! This is PERFECT!
Story time: So my husband and I moved back to the Midwest from CA. There is a lot of reasons to shit on CA, but in the coastal regions they fight pretty damn hard to keep this kind of boring suberian sprawl from happening (I'm talking right on the coast, Ventura, Camarillo San Diego, halfmoon bay, Carmel...not anything East of the 5). Now this is also why it costs so damn much to live there, it's beautiful and not your typical town. So we were spoiled after living coastaly for years.
We came back to Indiana to live near my family and were like, WTF? Every.damn..block is the same. Then we really got a kick out of a few things:
The people on the north side of Indy who honestly believe they are living in a better part of the state. It looks identical to us as every other part of the Indy metro area. It has the same strip malls and same shitty chain restaurants, with no scenery. The only difference is their cookie cutter houses are marked up by like 10%. So my husband jokes, "Oh Fishers, where all the Kroger's face West instead of East"
When my mom gives directions she says, " turn left by the CVS that's across from the Steak N Shake.....that is every damn corner!
When people drive ten extra minutes because they don't go to "that" Walmart (or McDonald's, or Petco, or...insert here).
It's really comical to us because it denotes a sense of somehow things being different....but compared to other parts of the world, there is nothing different about any of it.
Also, we were able to travel completely across the US as a family of four for under $400 because we could stop off at a Walmart for every single need. Bathroom, snack, lunch....there was a Walmart only 15 minutes away no matter where we were at.
Walmart is a big driver for people moving out into rural areas. Once there is a walmart you know you can live there. Antarctica + Walmart = livable.
We try not to shop at walmart but my town has two of them.
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