midwest

Every now and again I forget that I'm living in the midwest. My bosses are from Chicago and the east coast. All my return visits are from Africa. Most of the restaurants I go to are of the Asian style. I listen to radio stations from Seattle, read out of state news papers, watch bbc world news. Really the only part of me that is in the mid west is the physical. Mentally and emotionally too I'm somewhere else. :)

But there are times when it becomes blatantly obvious that I am in the midwest. It happened twice this week. First at the fair sunday evening. In Iowa the fair is serious. Ten days of farm animals, food on a stick and fashion emergencies. I went on the last day so I could pay half price. It was worth the people watching alone. The proud farmers showing off their livestock, the obese preteens eating funnel cakes, and the old timers reliving the glory days all had something very specific to say about the midwest. I'll leave you to come to your own conclusions.

The other revealing moment this week actually happened tonight. Tomorrow we're going camping so I went to the store after meeting. I ended up at walmart. I haven't been there in months. It too had something to say about the midwest and the people in it. How many kinds of bacon do we really need? The overabundance boggled my mind. Anyways after getting everything I thought I needed I headed over to the camping section to see if there was anything I forgot. Turning down one of the aisles I got a knot in my stomach at the sight of guns hanging from the shelves. Not just shot-guns for hunting. Hand guns too. There was more than one aisle dedicated to them. It made me sick to think that you can get it at walmart. I guess it really is one-stop-shopping. Question is, do they supply ski masks too??

Welcome to America.