Sunday, July 26, 2009

How to slow down the fast-paced city life


I can only listen to country music when I'm driving alone--my wife won't let me listen to it when she's in the car. It's not just that she doesn't like country. It's her incessant fear that one day I'll turn out to be a hick, and I guess she thinks country music could increase that chance.

She grew up in a small town and didn't care for the 4-H guys. The dates she hated most were the ones where she was picked up in a camo-colored 4X4 with a gun rack on back. I'm from a small town as well, a farming town, and I used to drive an old truck. To most men where I'm from, a "car guy" is an oxymoron.

My married, male readers will understand that you've got to promise a lot of ridiculous things to get a girl to marry you (e.g., eat less fried chicken, stop wearing a particular shirt, quit cussing). Before we exchanged vows, my wife made me promise to always be a "car guy."

I actually didn't listen to country music growing up, in fact I currently like a lot of rap. And I drive a car. But now that I'm living in a faster-paced city environment, I've come to really enjoy the slower-paced lifestyle found in country music's lyrics.

So my wife putting the kibosh on that genre has been difficult. But, I've come up with other ways--that are harder for her to control--to get life down to a Willie Nelson pace:
  1. Say "I'm going into town to get ____," when speaking of running any errand, even if you already live "in town" and are just walking to 7-Eleven for a churro.
  2. Drive with the window down and your left elbow sticking out the door. Cowboys don't use A/C, and they drive with one hand on the steering wheel.
  3. Use "'ol'" as a prefix whenever possible: "I'm heading down to ol' Buck's place to watch the game," or "I've got to stop by the ol' supermarket after work."
  4. While driving, deploy the four-finger wave whenever you're passing someone heading in the other direction, especially at a 4-way stop. (If you don't know what that wave is, click here)
  5. When talking about any automobile that isn't a Ford, Chevy, or GMC, use the term "foreign job."
I can do all those things and more from a car, so I'm still keeping the promise I made to my wife. You can take a guy out of the small town, but maybe you can't take the small town out of a guy.

4 comments:

Justin said...

You can do all of those things from a truck too. I do.

Kathy said...

Yes Justin, you can do all those things from a truck, but the idea here is to keep one toe in the metro, therefore you have to do it from a car to keep the wife happy.

Sarah said...

I always love going home to Burley for the casual wave from the farmers in their trucks. I think they actually drive with their wrists, though, and lift all five fingers for the wave!

Lindy said...

we is country folk here in Burley (Burr-lee) and we all can show ya how to wave in proper ways now, ya hear? Ain't nuttn wrong with a truck, cars are fur sissies an girl folk trucks are fur we men.