I need to blow off some steam. Re: Indiana, once again...

[May-chan]

okay, I am just overloaded with anxiety and frustration right now... both because of my usual issues being forced to live in Indiana... and because the stupid endocrinologist here screwed up my prescription and I am PMSing like you wouldn't believe...

...please don't think of me as hateful, it's just the lack of 'mones talking... and if you are from Indiana and have any pride in it I'd recommend not reading this because it will probably offend you...

Okay where to begin... well... the same old stuff I've mentioned in the past... I am being forced to live here by my mother, my house is smelly and ugly and so is the rest of this God forsaken area... mom's husband is just so irksome to both me and my sister... and yet I am forced to be grateful to him since he pays the bills...

This place is overrun with hicks... mullets, flannel, southern accents are all plentiful... Fat, loud, drunk, stupid, bombastic, careless, philistine, tasteless, clueless all describe the average Indianan... or as they prefer to be called "hoosiers"... I personally think "hoosier" is the most abominable word in the English language... every time I hear someone speak it I want to slap them with the nearest blunt and/or sharp object. They are all so proud of it though... I think of it as a slur... it is like being proud of being called "dumb#$&@!!!".

My mom thinks these people are the nicest on earth... and that they are "real" and "genuine"... all my sister and I have seen are jerks and clueless fools... of course they are real... they are like animals... they eat, the defecate, they do simple tasks, and they sleep... they lack the capacity for any higher thought... A bunch of drunken idiots who love fooootball durrrrrr.

ugh, that reminds me. What a bunch of drunks... I've never before seen people with shopping carts full of beer... beer n' guns n' driving drunk... woo!

Then again the average Indianan drives worse than a drunk anyways... here is a guide to HOW TO DRIVE LIKE YOU ARE FROM INDIANA.

- NEVER stop at stop signs
- Pedestrians NEVER have the right of way
- NEVER EVER use a turn signal for any reason
- Red lights count as yellow for the first ten seconds
- Weave... a lot
- Attempt to drive 40 above the limit when someone is in front of you
- Drive 20 below the limit when someone is behind you
- Make sudden stops
- Swing wide into the outside lane on left turns
- Don't use your lights in rain/snow/fog/twilight
- Rev your engine and scratch your genitals
- Shoulders and turn lanes should be used to pass
- Five drink minimum
- Don't mind emissions and noise pollution laws
- Make arbitrary U-turns

and I only WISH I was making that stuff up... ugh... it is dangerous out there, it is already bad enough the roads are TERRIBLY designed with no turn lanes or random turn lanes. And then of course everyone drives huge trucks with redneck bumper stickers worth more than their homes! If you have "Git R Done" on your car or have ever been amused by the phrase please do us all a favor and drink some chlorine... though I suppose if you are amused by "Git R Done" your mother was probably drinking chlorine when she slept with her brother... Ugh... and don't get me started on NASCAR! I am so sick of NASCAR @#%@ everywhere... the most audacious thing I've seen thus far would have to be portraits of drivers as saints... ugh!

Then there are tons of confederate flags... seriously... why is flag burning scorned while confederate flags are loved? If you have a confederate flag... do the world a favor and move down to Alabama with the rest of your KKK bretheren and by all means... break off from the union and form your own nation of dumb$%@#sylvania!

and where do these people get all their confederate flags and NASCAR swag? At the gross pawn shops and mom n' pop resale stores... they all have really inappropriate names like "Upscale Resale" ... wow... I never knew soiled mattresses were "upscale"... They are always next to gun shops... like The Hole in The Wall... which has signage like a five-year-old would make with an upside-down G and backwards N...

But of course there are about 2 bookstores in the entire state... not to mention the puny library is full of nothing but War + Westerns (I am not making this up once again...).

Ugh, going off in another direction... my mom insists it is cheaper to shop here... What the??? No it is not cheaper here than in Illinois... because to get to the store you have to drive half-an-hour... then once there the prices are the same price as in Chicago... the big difference is the Martin's Discount Card saves you $0.30 whereas the Jewel Preferred Card in Chicago would have saved you $9.00... Plus the stores here have a piddly selection and a terrible maze-like layout...

and on the subject of money... why are all the neighborhoods and towns full of rusty fences, peeling paint, crumbling cinder blocks, faded signs, plastic deer, and other crap? I know these people CAN afford to keep their property in good condition... they just piss all their money away on their behemoth chromed SUVS and trucks that get 1 mile to the gallon...

Blahhhh! A total lack of decent parks, nothing cultural (except for run down local museums about the RV industry through the ages)...

Ugly industry!

Trailer parks and prefab houses!

Super conservative idiots who write in to the paper to tell everyone that the antichrist is coming!

Christmas decorations that never get taken down!

ARG! Get me out, get me out, get me out, get me out, get me out, get me out, get me out, get me out, get me out, get me out, get me out, get me out, get me out of this place! WHY? WHY?! is my mother still trying to convince me to live here and go to a the crummy little dump of a college they have!?! I loathe this place! Get me away from this place and all of the rotten apes that live here! Get me out before they give me the madatory "Hoosier" lobotomy!

[Christina Anikari]

Interesting. The people there sound a lot like my little sister's boyfriend. About the only good things i can think of to say about him is that he isn't beating or raping her. I guess it is because he can bully her into submissions without resorting to such tactics and he seems to be just about as cosmopolitian as those people you described.

And the area sounds just like the great hinterlands you find whenever you leave major cities in Europe, except that the average age is probably lower in Indiana...actually you will find the same type of people in cities here, if you are stupid enough to start hanging out with all the people who have taken apprenticeship courses instead of going to high school...people like my little sister's boyfriend, if he were to ever complete middle school at least.

So as you can probably all hear i am quite glad that i live in a city that just manages to reach a size in which it is liveable, now i just need to get to a city that is actually interesting.

[Mitera Nikkou]

South Carolina's pretty much the same, if not worse. I've lived her since '93... At least you won't have to deal with Indiana for that long. -_-

One think did strike me as interesting, though... Well, not interesting in a good way, but interesting in that I may have figured it out. They make left turns the same way down here. In fact, when my family moved down here, my father made such a turn and told me that that was how they made left turns in South Carolina. (We moved down here because he had a work-related transfer, so he had a few weeks of being shown around and learning the culture and stuff.) My theory as to why, may be because of NASCAR. NASCAR's a big thing down here too, and the thing about it is that, when the racers make left turns, they drift into the outer "lane", near the wall, after they finish taking the turn at an angle that doesn't work well on public roads...

[Anamnesis]

I'll switch places with you...
Please?
The people around here need a dose of reality, and the people up there need a six inch dose of steel to their faces. >.>

[Christina Anikari]

And what would that "here" be Sullen?

[ZeroForever]

heh sounds fun... then agian you've mentioned most of those things to me before so i'm not surprised.

[AnimaVex]

...

<.< >.>

Heeeey! That sounds like here! Place where nobody observes the NORMAL rules of driving, everybody drinks... Yup, just like Puerto Rico. >.>

I want to leave. Now. I'll make sure to note that Indiana isn't a great place to live. Oh, and we don't think you're hateful. You're just you. And you're a good person.

[Chibi MitchellTF]

You know, I'm surprised that Indiana sounds more southern than Alabama, which is where I live. (Or Georgia.) Our only problem is the ghettos, and the rampant minor racism.

No KKK....It's just that you're constantly warned to be wary of black people from the ghetto, especially in groups, because they are a bunch of...well, many of them are the reasons that stereotypes exist.

Then again, it's made clear that these stereotypes do not always fit, so there are plenty of non-stereotypical black people who are friendly...

*sighs* Still, you're encouraged to judge people by who they are, not the color of your skin. Even if you do keep a hold of your wallet when first meeting them, or lock your car doors when going through the 'bad' part of town. (Ironically, my cat is from the ghetto.)

[Anamnesis]

Specifically? Central Florida. I was making a reference to the stupidity of people around here. I watched someone drive on the sidewalk for about a hundred feet into a pole...in BROAD DAYLIGHT.
Not that it's acceptable at night, but seriously. Where it isn't nearly as bad as your situation, May, it's still quite irritating. I'd gladly switch places with you, even if your situation is worse.

[Helel]

You know, I'm surprised that Indiana sounds more southern than Alabama, which is where I live. (Or Georgia.)

Yeah, no kidding. Since I live in the middle of Atlanta now (I'm actually about thirty seconds from the Downtown Connector, I get to see a few (hundred) thousand cars go by daily. That said, while I'm in Georgia, and in a huge city, the number of accidents I've seen actually haven't been too bad- it's just there's a TON of people that drive here (Atlanta is often compared with Los Angeles in regards to sprawl, and the number of cars) so accidents are more likely to occur...

And actually, what you've described May-chan, sounds more "Georgia" than well... Georgia. XD

[May-chan]

I drove my sis to dad's house in Illinois yesterday... It was crazy... out in the middle of nowhere on the highway in Indiana, people were driving like idiots and we actually got a count of how many people did not use turn signals (18, and it was very light traffic)... but then once we got into IL and the Chicagoland area with thousands of vehicles making all sorts of exits and junctions and contrsruction and lane endings and tolls.... everyone was driving with skill! HMMMMMMmmMMMmmmmm *colbert-styled chin scratch*

[Chibi MitchellTF]

It's simple. People who drive badly when there are lots of cars around very quickly learn to improve, or they lose their license, or they show up in the obituary column.

Only when there is a low risk of accidents can people afford to drive badly.

Edit: I've actually driven with a RISKY driver or two before. Not a BAD driver, since I got home alive and without accidents, but it was like a roller coaster. They were street racers, both of them. (And both jerks, but that's another story.)

[May-chan]

I'm sorry if I do sound like a meanie here, I just am going to badmouth this state until the day I get home... I just of course am absolutely devestated that I was forced to move from a place I was comfortable and finally getting a life to a place I am totally uncomfortable, bored, without friends, trapped, and away from many conviences of the 21st century...

[xeno]

I cant say I know how you feel with the prescriptions, but in other ways I know how you feel, I daily need to take care of my siblings, for the past few years (current ages are 1, 6, 10, and 19) and they are....really burning my biscuits a good 80% of the time.... so there are many people who have similar problems, but not the exact problems, but you probly knew that...sorry for saying stuff you probly already knew...

[Christina Anikari]

While i have never been forced to live in a place like that i have visited them quite often. You really get to love having the choice between getting minced beef and minced gristle that has been colored red when you are forced to only eat the second type. Actually having houses around you and not just fields is quite nice as well. And these are feelings that set in after having been outside major cities for roughly 3 hours.