So it's weird that I am firmly convinced that Nebraska is my true homeland. My soul must have been born here, if not my body. I mean, I know my body was born in a small town in Upstate New York so I don't mean that literally. I'm fairly certain I was not adopted or anything because my hands look exactly like my mom's and I'm almost exactly like my dad in some ways it's scary. I think my dad would make a great Nebraskan actually, except that there's no trout stream for fly-fishing. Since I didn't inherit the fly-fishing gene from my dad, Nebraska works out perfectly for me.
I could list the endless benefits of living in this great state, but I am a storyteller at heart so I want to tell you what happened at the grocery store the other day and see if it doesn't just explain it all.
I was at No-Frills. For those of you out of state, the fact that we have a grocery store called No-Frills should just be enough for you to understand my love of this place. I love me a Wegmans now and again, but frankly, I love me a good deal even more than 52 kinds of olives. I digress.
At the check-out line, the lady in line ahead of me noticed that the woman ahead of her left her postage stamps behind. As any normal person would do, she pointed this out to the cashier. However, then she says that the woman is her neighbor and that she would just take the stamps by her house and drop them off to her.
This is exactly something I would do. That's not the weird part. Here's the crazy thing--the cashier said, "OK." And the lady said, "If Mary comes back, tell her that Connie has them."
And Connie walked out of the store with Mary's stamps...at least we hope that's what happened.
I'm watching this whole thing and my inner North Easterner wants to scream, "COME ON! You are not letting that lady walk out of the store with someone else's stamps!" But really, when you think about it, that is the best chance that Mary is going to get her stamps. You know she is going to go crazy turning her purse inside out looking for those babies and she's going to assume that they fell out of her wallet in the parking lot or some silly thing. She's not going back to the store because she won't know they're missing for days. And my inner Nebraskan is screaming, "Yes, take her those stamps--that is the most kind and reasonable thing to do."
I'm sure that stuff like this happens in small towns all across America every day....but this is Omaha...the largest city in the whole dang state. And it makes me love this place and feel at home with my people who do nice stuff for each other and get to know their neighbors and take 'em their postage stamps when they accidentally leave them behind at the market.
I may have mentioned years ago in a blog post that fast food restaurants just recently stopped accepting checks in Nebraska. Checks. This place is precious. Can you feel the trust in humankind?
What I love the most is that I am not a freak here. In Boston, when I collected friends on the public bus, I came to realize that collecting friends on the public bus is weird. Even if those friends live in your neighborhood and you see them every single day at the same time at the same stop. The "normal" thing to do is not make eye contact and never, ever learn their name. I do not have a Boston soul.
In Buffalo, I make an attempt to befriend someone to find out later that I was so stalkerishly friendly that she checked me out with other people before agreeing to a play date. I only know this because we became good enough friends in the end that she felt like she could confess this early suspicion. I do have a bit of a Buffalo soul, at least I left some of my soul there when we left...
....BUT my soul truly came alive in Nebraska where I am not the only one who talks to strangers and enjoys living in naive trust in humankind. Even though being a landlord is the one thing that can sap every ounce of faith you have in people, I stubbornly refuse to give up hope.
Actually, I still might be a freak, but Nebraskans are so nice they'll never tell me so.
No comments:
Post a Comment