4. Townies

Not nice
For years, I always attained to become “A Townie”. As an outsider, it was always a goal of mine. I was a college import to this town. A large percentage of my favorite people were what I considered townies. They were smart and crazy and most brilliantly, my friends. Growing up I was never unhappy but I never realized that I could actually get along with others. I was never considered mean or anything. Everyone thought of me as nice but noone knew that I wasn’t actually that nice. It was one of my townie friends who announced, Mary isn’t actually a nice person. And she meant it completely as a compliment. It doesn’t sound right but she just meant that I’m not going to fake you out with politeness and saccharine smiles. Actually I can’t.

Townies
Some of the greatest bands I’ve known were townie bands. Back in the day, the cool people were townies. The smart people were townies. The best fashion was worn by townies. I loved this town.

Cities
I didn’t want to live in big cities because I hated waiting in line. I hated crossing the streets. I hated people walking up to me and asking me for money when I worked in a Fotomat Booth. And then getting mad at me for not giving them any because I didn’t have any. I hated taking a deep breath and ending up on just the wrong spot on the street to get the sewer smell unexpectedly flying up your nose. I hated the much higher percentage chance that someone would take his penis out at you when you really didn’t want that. Humanity in general. Hated it.

Not Townies
So after several years of living in a city, I moved back to this town that I had so wished to be a townie in. All my friends were gone but their mothers were still here so there was a better chance of seeing my beloved townie friends again in this town than any other. And that was good for quite awhile but lately the idea of being a townie isn’t quite so interesting. We are all getting a lot older and a lot less cool. A real townie knows all the latest Wegman’s grocery store and Target rumors. We are going to get a new Wegman’s in such and such location. Target’s coming soon. These rumors never come true but a real townie knows these things. And all my townie friends even though they live in San Francisco and Philadelphia and New York City look at us in disgust, “What you didn’t know about the new KFC?” And we never do.

11/7/03