You Know You Live in a Small(ish) Town When...

[MisterCairo]

...your local paper's headlines include as the banner a recent charitable event, the recovery of a stolen pick up, and the theft of a pick up's tires (as at 2 Mar 16):

http://www.stratfordbeaconherald.com

 

[Lean'n'mean]

......everyone looks alike.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The two things everybody reads in the local paper are the obituaries and the police blotter.

 

[sheeplady]

... when your kid does something bad, you hear about it before they get home and meet them at the front door.

 

[ChrisB]

The school "bus" is a car.

 

[LizzieMaine]

One day the tide goes out and never comes back.

 

[green papaya]

when everybody knows everybody's business, lots of gossip just go to the local barbershop to get the latest news

 

[ChrisB]

Or just ask the mailman.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Or just leave your window open and listen to your neighbors yelling at each other. "YA NO GOOD! I KNOW WHERE YA BEEN! YA JUST NO GOOD! YA ROTTEN ------!"

 

[Lean'n'mean]

......all you wanna do is get out.

 

[LizzieMaine]

They ask you where to get something to eat after 11pm, and you just snicker.

You see a man walk by in a suit and tie and you know he's either the groom or the defendant.

 

[MisterCairo]

The cops ask if you could describe the guy who mugged you.

Your reply: "Ya, Doug."

 

[sheeplady]

...other people know your business before you do.

 

[Nobert]

The board of selectmen, or town council, or whatever, treats an issue regarding safety risks around an old bridge as if it were a matter of national security.
The lady who owns the local convenience store will sell you beer if you're nine. But she won't give you a bag and her store is right across the street from the police station.
You go to an event and run into a girl you went to school with, only her last name is now the same as that of the culturally-challenged, early Cro-Magnon football captain who used to wail on you in seventh-grade study hall.
If you go out to get the mail during hunting season, you wear loud colors.
Hiring the guy down the road to plow your driveway results in a twenty minute conversation because you're the first guy he's talked to in over a week.
Even the poor may own property they don't live on because someone's great-aunt once removed passed on and left it to them.
The coffee of choice is Dunkin or Mickey D's, and women talk about the time they drank red wine without ice as if they had sampled Newfoundland Screech.
It's at least a half-hour's drive to absolutely anywhere.

 

[Nobert]

Small (ish) towns from the past:


Nobody decorated the outdoor yard with holiday lights.

Really? Around here, it's a ritualistic challenge to see who can leave their Christmas lights up until Easter.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It is not an uncommon thing to see the Christmas lights in little quick-mart type convenience stores -- usually a single string run around the beer sign in the window -- left up all year round, and just plugged in during December.

I actually knew a farmer who would paint the word HORSE on the sides of his horse in big orange letters during hunting season. And nobody with half a brain goes outside wearing a white hat, white gloves, white mittens, or anything else white during hunting season, because we all know what happened to that woman upta Hermon.

 

[sheeplady]

...all your parades are agriculturally themed: the dairy parade, the maple parade, the corn parade and the highlight of any parade are the tractors and your village's two firetrucks.

 

[LizzieMaine]

You can say the phrase "Adult Women's Pig Scramble" without it sounding dirty.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

You can say the phrase "Adult Women's Pig Scramble" without it sounding dirty.

Had to google that little gem of rural American entertainment. It kinda makes recent events all the more understandable.

 

[basbol13]

When downtown looks like a ghost town, because everyone's at Walmart.