ten things i'm not as fond of...regarding this town

A couple of weeks ago I gave you the good...the ten things I like about this town. This week I'm going to give you the bad and the ugly.

1. The cost of living. Yes, we moved to the north, from the south, and we did expect the cost of housing to be a little higher but this is just strange. Somehow, the market reflects the fact that we are close (??) to DC. It would be a very long commute, at least an hour and a half with no traffic, but evidently there are people who do make that commute so the cost of housing reflects that. Odd....especially given the next nine things.

2. The general lack of tolerance for others, particularly minorities. Again, moving north of the Mason-Dixon line we expected less racial prejudice than in the south. Given the fact that one of the first things I saw on our initial trip to the local pool was a confederate flag bikini (who even knew they made those?!), that hasn't really been the case. The bigotry has been much more obvious, to me, than in other places we've lived. Don't even get me started on the religious ignorance/intolerance. I won't go there. Maybe I will around Christmas time.

3. The size of the town. Through no fault of its own, this town is small. It feels small. There aren't great restaurants. There isn't much to do.

4. The alcohol regulations. This isn't only our town, it's the whole state. You have to buy your beer by the case (unless you want to pay a lot of money and buy it by the six pack in a bar) and you have to buy your wine and liquor in a state run liquor store. Thus limiting your options considerably. Our town can at least call itself home to a "Premium Wine and Liquor Shoppe." Thank goodness.

5. The whole town sometimes smells like manure. There are a lot of farms around here and on some days (pretty much every day in the spring) the smell of manure is overwhelming. Now I don't mind that smell if I'm actually working on a farm but walking around the neighborhood is a whole other story. The funny thing is that nobody talks about it or seems to notice. Aaahhhh, smell the fresh air.

6. Did I already mention that the restaurant options are extremely limited? It need to be stated again. Also, there is only one really stinky mall and one awful movie theater that only takes cash! What is up with that?

7. Strangely enough, many people here don't get irony or sarcasm. I don't know why...they just don't get it.

8. There seems to be some of a "children should be seen and not heard" mentality. I can't even begin to count the number of sideways glances we have gotten when our kids were just being kids. I don't mean running around screaming in a restaurant kids, either, I mean just being happy, fun kids. And sometimes the kids are just being sad kids. Oh boy, you should have been there (and one of you was) when Julian got upset at lunch in a restaurant. I actually had someone come and tell me that she should have brought her earplugs to lunch. And what about the time the lady suggested we put Julian on Prozac. Wow.

9. The weather. I know it could be worse, way worse, but when is spring going to arrive?! I'm usually done with winter about four weeks before it is done with me.

10. Again, not really the fault of the town but living here puts us far away from our families and best friends. And that stinks...maybe worse than the cow manure.