A rumination on local culture lists on social media.

You've seen these posts before.  They're usually titled something like, "You know you're in/from <insert locality here> if..."

I hate them.  Partly because they get posted and reposted so many times that there's rarely anything in the list that you haven't already seen in the past week.  But mostly because the information in them is either far more specific than the title would suggest (for example, in a list of things about Pennsylvanians, claiming that we all call submarine sandwiches "zeppelins"... when almost none of us do) or far more broad (for example, in a list of things about Pennsylvanians, claiming that we all bathe from time to time).  And sometimes the information is just plain inaccurate.

Well, I stumbled upon one that looks fairly original.  I think I might have witnessed the ur-post of one of these lists.  And I'm going to dismantle it point by point right now.


The rules of rural Pennsylvania are as follows:

This should be good.  Let's keep a tally of how many aren't even rules.

1. Let's get this straight: it's called a 'dirt road.' No matter how slow you drive, you're going to get dust on your Lexus. Drive it or get out of the way.

Dirt roads are not that prevalent in rural PA.  They're usually private roads.  If someone from out of town is driving on a dirt road, it's probably because they were originally from the town in which the dirt road is located.  They know that their Lexus is going to get dust on it.  They're driving slow because they don't want to damage their car.  Their car is designed to drive on paved roads, which are the norm in modern civilization.  And since this is most likely somebody's driveway, you're probably saying this to your uncle or cousin on the way to a family reunion.

2. They are cattle. They're live steaks or walking milk bottles. That's why they smell funny to you, get over it. Don't like it? I-80 goes east and west, I-81 goes north and south. Pick one.

You're used to the smell of cattle because you grew up in Buttfuck, PA, and never left.  Maybe if you'd figured out where those interstates went before you saddled yourself with a family at the age of 17, you'd be living somewhere that doesn't always smell like cow shit too.  I'd also like to point out that the fact that we get milk and steak from cattle isn't the reason they smell funny.  They smell funny because they're animals and they poop and fart.

3. Pull your droopy pants up, you look like an idiot.

This is considered sound advice everywhere.  Like, literally everywhere.

4. Turn your cap right, your head isn't crooked. Only losers wear rally caps.

Ditto for this one.  And as far as I know, "rally cap" refers to the superstition of turning your hat inside out in the hopes that it'll help your favorite baseball team win a game.  So what I'm gathering from that second sentence is, "rural PA doesn't have any good baseball teams."  Which is true.

5. So you have a $60,000 car, we're impressed. We have $150,000 corn pickers and hay balers that are driven only 3 weeks a year.

Well.  YOU don't have a $150,000 corn picker or hay baler.  Your farm might, or more likely, your neighbor's farm.  YOU get to LOOK at the $150,000 farming implements.  The people you're making fun of actually get to drive their $60,000 cars every day.

6. Every person in rural Pennsylvania waves. We think of it as being friendly. Try to understand the concept.

Not only is waving not specific to rural PA, it's also not true that everyone does it.  I've waved to someone I thought I knew in rural PA before, and it turned out he wasn't who I thought he was.  He looked at me like I was a weirdo.  People in rural PA can be just as rude and unfriendly as anywhere else.  Example: whomever wrote this list.

7. If that cell phone rings while an 8-point buck and three does are coming in, we will shoot it out of your hand. You better hope you don't have it up to your ear at the time.

Because firing your guns won't scare away the deer.  Also, people who hunt carry cell phones in case of an emergency.  If you don't, you're stupid.  Don't be proud of being stupid.

8. Yeah, we eat scrapple, pot pie, funnel cakes, haluskie, pierogies,shoo-fly pie, apple butter, chow-chow, and schnitz un knepp. Don't like the sound of them or the names freak you out because you never saw a "Bon Appetite" article on them? Great, more for us!

It's spelled "Bon Appetit."  And no, we don't all eat all of those things.  Scrapple is disgusting, and even I had to look up schnitz un knepp and I was raised in a PA Dutch household.  And no, they're not all exclusive to rural PA.  They're Amish and Polish dishes, and there are Amish and Polish people all over the place.  You'll get apple butter literally anywhere they grow apples.

9. The 'opener' refers to the first day of deer season. It's a religious holiday held on the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Heh.  That's actually pretty true, except that most hunters in PA would get super pissed if you seriously tried to tell them that deer hunting was their religion.

10. We open doors for women. That is applied to all women, regardless of age.

Yeah, no we don't.  Not as a rule.  No more so than anywhere else.  If someone is following me into a building, I will generally hold the door for them regardless of gender, but I assure you it's not a common thing.

11. No, there's no 'vegetarian special' on the menu. Order steak, or you can order the chef's salad and pick off the 2 pounds of ham & turkey.

Wait, wait.  There are no vegetarian options, so literally order a slab of meat?  And anyone who wants a salad without meat can just say, "I'll have the <insert salad name here>, no meat."  Restaurants will totally do that.  Because they want your money, and leaving off the meat shaves like 80% off the cost of a salad.  What happened to your "great, more for us!" attitude from #8?

12. When we fill out a table, there are three main dishes: meats (includes fish), vegetables, and breads. We use four spices: salt, pepper, hot sauce, and Heinz ketchup. Oh, yeah...we don't care what you folks in Jersey call that stuff you eat. It’s not real chili.

I do consider fish to be a meat, but Catholics don't, and there are a LOT of them in rural PA.  I've never heard of New Jersey style chili being a thing, so that last part was pretty weird for me to read.    And if you only put salt, pepper, hot sauce and ketchup in your chili, THAT'S not real chili!  (Side note: I suspect that specifying Heinz ketchup was meant to be a point of pride for rural PA, but not only is Heinz the number one ketchup brand worldwide, the Heinz company is based out of Pittsburgh.  So, urban PA.)

13. You bring 'coke' into my house, it better be brown, wet and served over ice.

Pennsylvanians are no more or less concerned about others bringing Schedule I controlled substances into their homes than anyone else.

14. You bring 'Mary Jane' into my house, she better be cute, know how to shoot, and have long hair.

I know a LOT of people in rural PA who smoke a LOT of weed.  Hell, they grow the stuff.

15. College and high school football are as important here as the Penn State and Eagles and a lot more fun to watch.

Penn State is college football, dipshit.  And high school football is popular all over the country.

16. Yeah, we have golf courses. But don't hit the water hazards---it spooks the fish.

You're not supposed to avoid the water hazards for the sake of the fish.  They're called hazards for a reason.  And if you're fishing in a golf course's water hazard, you're about to be kicked out of a golf course.  It spooks the golfers.

17. Colleges? We have them all over. We have state universities, community colleges, and vo-techs. They come outta there with an education plus a love for God and Country. They still wave at everybody when they come home for the holidays.

Vo-Tech schools are high schools, not colleges.  State universities and community colleges are tax-supported schools, and therefore can't legally teach a love for God.  We also have private universities where they can, but you specifically didn't mention those.  And "home for the holidays?"  Don't you mean Christmas?  ARE YOU WAGING A WAR ON CHRISTMAS?!

18. We have a whole ton of folks who have been in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard - PA has one of the highest percentages of veterans in the entire country. So don't mess with us. If you do, you will get whipped by the best.

PA has one of the highest percentages of veterans in the country because we have the second-highest population of retirees.  After Florida, we are apparently the most popular destination for old people to go to die.  Or maybe our elderly still haven't figured out where I-81 goes and don't know how to get to Florida.

19. Turn down that blasted car stereo! That thumpity-thump-thump stuff is not music anyway. We don't want to hear it any more than we want to see your boxers. Refer back to #3

Turn down that blasted pickup truck stereo!  That yee-haw-steel-guitar stuff is no more or less music than the thumpity-thump-thump stuff, and hard as it may be for you to believe it, there are a lot of us who don't want to hear that either.  Folks blasting their music of choice in their cars is not exclusive to rural PA, and you can get a ticket for it in most urban areas.

20. Four inches isn't a blizzard--it's a flurry. Drive like you got some sense, and don't take all our bread, milk, and toilet paper from the grocery stores. You’re not in Alaska . Worst case you may have to live a whole day without your croissants. The pickups with snow plows will have you out the next day.

Having worked in grocery stores for a decade and a half, I can tell you with 100% certainty that the people buying up the bread and milk when the forecast calls for snow are--without exception--the locals.  And they do it when they're calling for even less than four inches.  AND who are you to complain if people from out of state come and buy lots of stuff in our stores?  Do you think PA doesn't need their money?  PA drivers are notoriously bad at driving in the snow--I've been hit by someone who didn't properly weight down their pickup truck twice, and the driver was a rural Pennsylvanian both times.  Furthermore, four inches--a flurry, by your reckoning--is often enough to fuck up our roads for that long precisely because the snow plows are woefully unprepared to do their goddamn jobs.  One final point: fuck you for your implied disrespect of croissants.  Croissants are delicious.

A true Pennsylvanian will send this on to others. Everyone else can leave town.

Only a true, dyed-in-the-cloth, semi-retarded asshole would send this on to others.  I'm a true Pennsylvanian, and I take issue with almost everything in it.  The final tally of "rules" that aren't even rules, being generous, is 7/20.

Your list is bad, and you should feel bad.

Seriously, fuck GameStop.

So, remember how I said I canceled my preorder from GameStop after they sent me an email about the price going up?  That email said that if I wanted to keep my order, I didn't have to do anything.  If I wanted to cancel I could do it on the website or by replying to the email.

Well, I wasn't able to do it on the site, so I replied to the email to cancel it.  Today, almost a week later, I got a response.  "That order has already been canceled, sorry for any confusion."

So what if I had wanted to keep my preorder?  I'd have sat on my thumbs and never got the game I wanted because they canceled the order... even though they specifically told me they wouldn't.

Fuck.  GameStop.