"A man never tells you anything until you contradict him."
- George Bernard Shaw

In my small town, people do an amazing oddity that is unheard of in cosmopolitan, fruity-flavored martini’d, overpriced shoe-wearing, urban places.

No. It’s not growing on me. I still don’t like it here, but I’m dealing. I take a shot of Grey Goose every morning and life seems more tolerable here.

It’s something that I’ve noticed over the last several months. I’ve abhorred it whenever I’ve visited, but like a lemming, I find myself doing the same thing. I cringed when I did it to an out-of-state person, knowing what they were thinking. “She doesn’t even know who I am. How dare she? Country people.”

I could see her scoffing.

What is this thing that I’m referring to? Waving.

I remember when I moved to this small town in the fifth grade. I was in a car ride with some other folks and I saw this aged man look straight at me and wave. I was shaken. Why would he do such a thing? What’s wrong with him? I mean he did not know me, yet he waved at me. How peculiar! Other people did it. Then they would add onto it by saying, “Haayyy.”

Now people, should you decide to ever visit me, I gotta give you the ground rules.

1. It’s not about you.
2. It’s a reflex.
3. People are being “inquisitive.” (Y’all know that is a euphemism for being nosy, right?)
4. You will get stared at.
5. It’s not about you.

So, people, when you come over, you will notice that the denizens will look at you as if you are walking naked and on fire. And that’s when you are driving by! Don’t pay any attention to it. You are new and they want to get as much of a look in that small span of time as they possibly can. So people will look at you long and hard.

Then after looking at you for an extended amount of time they will do the weirdest thing. They will wave as they turn their head away. I mean they don’t even care that you are waving back, because they can’t even see it. Besides, they have considered what they are doing—driving without looking at the road and there is no telling what’s in front of them for the thirty seconds that they’ve kept their eyes strayed and unfocused—and decide that they should actually look at the road.

Don’t get me wrong; there are people in my small town that have become wise and will not speak to strangers. However, there are those who don’t give a hoot. They are trying to see within a few moments who is driving, how many are in the car, are all people in the vehicle are wearing seat belts, what they are wearing on their heads, what type of car the person is driving, the vehicle’s condition and where they could be going. They will use this information in the myriad of gossip stations all over town to assimilate information to what is going on in your life.

Come on down to my small town and get waved!

Labels: Humor, My Writing, Prose