Stereotypical Cities

Airports needn’t (woah- there’s a contraction you don’t see every day) bother putting the destination city on the electronic boards above the gate. All airline passengers need to do is take one glance at the group seated in the surrounding area, as they tend to be a pretty good sample group of the city’s population. Flying to Texas? You know you are in the right place if Cowboy Johnny wearing leather boots and donning a fumanju moustache is in the designated seating area, chatting it up with his neighbor in a thick southern drawl. Flight 222 to Boston should attract a sea of Red Sox hats and any plane headed to SoCal will be inhabited by bleached-blondes with overly-tanned skin possibly holding Chihuahuas and wearing Ray Bans in addition to excessive amounts of silver jewelry. Still confused? There is typically a handful of university students who still hold the naïve impression that it is “hip n’ happenin’” to wear their school’s logo on every possible piece of clothing which gives a pretty good indication of where you are headed (or leaving from, which could actually cause some confusion). Trust me- it is overkill to have the CU buffalo (which is actually a bison, I might add) on a headband, hair tie, t-shirt, bra that you can easily see through aforementioned t-shirt (because college girls do that), sweatpants, socks, shoes and wristbands (who wears those anymore?).

Speaking of SoCal types (well, I’m not really “speaking” but I don’t think I can say “typing of”), I’ve decided that my past trips to San Diego have given me a false impression of their personalities—a false impression that I have carried with me all my life and just now realize is not based in reality. The San Diegans viciously burst my naive little bubble this time around, however, on numerous occasions. I have to admit that after feeling like a behind-the-wheel pushover in Boulder letting car after car after car merge in front of me, selfish pleasure came over me when driving in California. I no longer had to let people in if I didn’t feel like it, and I could cut people off without being guilty. That is defensive driving at its prime.

Many of the younger generation in Southern California have this assumption that it is completely normal to glare at people angrily as if you have just insulted their family in the worst possible way just because they crossed your path. Even worse, as I discovered, is the death glare you receive when you accidentally bump into them as you walked past. Californians have a very wide personal-space bubble, and that is something you don’t want to mess with.