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Hoosierdom

This is so stupidly depressing. I’m keeping the ones that are so true they should be outlawed.

For my fellow feminist Hoosiers, and I know there are a few of us, a moment of despair.


You Know You’re From Indiana When…

You drive for three hours and the scenery outside doesn’t change.

There’s three feet of snow on the ground and school is still in session.

While driving all you see is corn.

You start saying to yourself “More than corn in Indiana my butt.”

Walking through Wal-Mart with two carts full of kids is normal.

Anyone with a tan is rich.

The hip hang-out place is Wal-Mart.

There really is more than corn in Indiana. There’s soybeans, too.

When you plan an orgy and a Euchre game breaks out.

A restaurant has an invisible wall in the non-smoking section and you believe it works.

Speeding consists of 2 miles over the speed limit.

You build your dream house on a cornfield, and you considered it posh.

You warsh your clothes and you think George Warshington was the first president.

You have no problem spelling or pronouncing “Terre Haute”

Detassling was your first job. Bailing hay, your second.

You live in a city … and there’s a cornfield in your backyard.

High school basketball game draws a bigger crowd on the weekend nights than movie theaters.

You shop at Marsh.

The biggest question of your youth was “IU or Purdue?”

Indianapolis is the “big city”.

“Getting caught by a train” is a legitimate excuse for being late to school.

People at your high school chewed tobacco.

Everyone knows who the town cop is, where he lives, and whether he is at home or on duty.

You actually know what the CART vs IRL debate is about and have taken a side.

The vehicle of choice in your area is not a car, but a pickup.

Someone you know is BIG John Mellencamp fan.

You’ve been to the Covered Bridge Festival.

To you, a tenderloin is not an expensive cut of beef, but a big, salty, breaded piece of pork served on a bun with pickles.

You know what FFA and 4H stand for.

You can say “French Lick” without laughing out loud. [ed note: I can’t.]

There’s actually a college near you named “Ball State.”

The last “g” is silent in any word ending in “ing.”

You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Indiana.

Back to your regularly scheduled reading.


16 thoughts on Hoosierdom

  1. Austin is mostly known for its weirdness. We get our own quiz:

    You never bother looking at the Capital Metro schedule because you know the drivers have never seen it.

    You’ve been to more than one baby shower that has two mothers and a sperm donor.

    You have a very strong opinion where your coffee beans are grown and can taste the difference between Sumatran and Ethiopian.

    You know that anyone wearing pants in November is just visiting from Ohio.

    You are thinking of taking an adult class but you can’t decide between yoga, aromatherapy, conversational Mandarin or one on building your own web site.

    You haven’t been to Hippie Hollow since the first month you moved to Austin.

    A man walks on The Drag in full leather regalia and crotchless chaps …You don’t notice.

    A woman walks on The Drag with live poultry …You don’t notice.

    You think any guy with a George Clooney haircut must be visiting from the midwest.

    You know that any woman with a George Clooney haircut is not a tourist.

    You keep a list of companies to boycott.

    Your hairdresser is straight, your plumber is gay, the woman who delivers your mail is straight and your Mary Kay Lady is a guy in drag.

    You occasionally see a guy on a unicycle whiz by you in your car and you say to yourself, “Oh yeah, it’s that guy again…”

    You start to worry when you don’t see the cross-dressing, bearded guy in-a-tutu-and- bikini-top-who-has-made-a-statement-with-his-grocery-cart-and-cardboard-box-art/shelter on your way to work in the morning. Scarier yet, you know his name is name is actually Leslie.

    You’ll make dinner or bar plans around who’s got the best margaritas.

    You have a tough time deciding on one of Austin’s eight 24-hour resaraunts (Katz’, Kerbey Lane, Star Seeds, Magnolia Cafe, IHOP, Denny’s, the Kettle, or Jim’s).

    You complain about their prices but still shop at Central Market for the scene.

    You don’t even think about getting good seats to the Longhorns football games.

    You know the exact locations of three towing yards.

    Your summer shoes are your Birks and your winter shoes are your Birks w/ socks.

    Your entire wardrobe consists of: a black tank top, a GAP white T-shirt, second-hand Levi’s, second-hand cut-off Levi’s, overalls, Longhorns sweats, anything polyester from the 70’s, a bikini, Tevas, Birkenstocks, and running shoes.

    You often find yourself wondering why magazine editors insist that swimsuit season starts on Memorial Day when it’s really the end of February or at the latest, the beginning of March.

    You consider chips, salsa, Kerby Queso, and Shiner Bock beer a well balanced meal.

    You find yourself making beaded necklaces to give away as Christmas gifts.

    100 degrees for three straight months isn’t unreasonable, 110 degrees is. And 90 degrees anywhere between May and September seems a little chilly.

    ou figure skin cancer is inevitable b/c it’s so DAMN HOT even your sunscreen won’t stay on.

    When you go out, you make sure you’ve grabbed your water bottle before checking to see if you’ve got your wallet and keys.

    You don’t mind parking a mile away as long as it’s in the shade.

    Nobody’s aware that Southwestern went out of style.

    You ask yourself constantly if that’s a cute guy or a butch girl. And you really don’t care either way cuz it’s fun to wonder.

    You’d rather ride your bike than get in a car without air conditioning. At least on your bike, you’re guaranteed a breeze regardless of traffic.

    You see more Texas flags flying than American flags.

    You spend so much time at MoJo’s Coffee House, you finally start bringing in your own CD’s for the staff to play.

    Your professor decides in the middle of the Government lecture that now’s as good of a time as ever to tell his class of 500 he’s gay. Like you didn’t know. Like you even care.

    Cubicles are no longer referred to as “work spaces” but “way out funky left brain meditation depositories.”

    The food at the company holiday party is all vegan, organic, soy free, wheat free, dairy free…

    That noontime odor in the breakroom reminds you of your trip to Caracas, but its only somebody’s lunch.

    You’re in a band – several of them, in fact

    You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Austin.

    There are San Antonio and El Paso jokes that also cracked me up. I must be bored.

  2. Seriously, the El Paso one is so on-target it made me laugh my ass off. Especially the line that said that East siders think that West siders all drive BMWs and West siders think all East siders are gangsters. It’s so true–the East side is 50/50 Hispanic/white part of town, but it is mostly middle and working class people. It’s quite peaceful, but to well-off white Americans, we working sorts are stone cold criminals.

  3. I object — this list was written by a north-central Indiana bigot. All of us folks living in the hills and woods in southern Indiana are really peeved at this corn and prairie bullshit.

  4. I have my principles — just because one or two of them is right doesn’t mean that I can excuse the rampant unfairness. (And by the way, if you need a bit of soul-refreshing the woods are gorgeous right now — the dogwoods are flowering so heavily it looks they are full of suspended snow.)

    And besides I didn’t go to IU or Purdue; I went to Evansville and we had our parties at the quarries which are not conducive to euchre.

    OT on French Lick, I work for a company in Massachusetts and if you go there, the natives will speak of French Lick in the kind of tone that Christians use for Bethlehem (whch is pretty much right in line with how they thing about Larry Bird).

  5. Andi: I have a dogwood and something like a lilac tree blooming in my front yard. They’re beautiful. If I open up my bedroom window the whole house is perfumed.

  6. So now just imagine dozens of flowering dogwoods (and redbuds) nestled among poplars, hickories, beeches, oaks. I never get tired of living in the woods, they change every season (actually everyday) and are endlessly fascinating. It’s why, despite the unattractive aspects of this state, I will probably never leave (and it helps that Bloomington is reasonably close by).

  7. i never shopped at marsh, but i had friends who swooned over the buckle. and yes, the dogwoods and cherry blossoms are fantastic right now! how about knowing the words (and actually using them in conversation) “crawdad,” “crick,” and “are you in the daylight savings time zone?”

  8. I was born in Indy, moved away for a while, then back, and I graduated from high school in the NW corner of the state. I think it’s pretty different up there than it is in the rest of Indiana.

    Anyway, I do know how to pronouce Terre Haute. According to my (Evansville born and bred) dad, it sounds something like “shithole.” He’s bitter about the number of stoplights as you drive through town and their steadfast refusal to allow a bypass on 41.

    And now I live in Missouri and have learned that “Hoosier” is a major insult rather than a title to be proud of, as I’d always thought.

  9. Wow, Indiana is a lot like Iowa. What’s really bad is that I didn’t even know some of that stuff is unusual.

    For example, I thought everyone thought a tenderloin was breaded pork.

  10. Lauren! I’m attending Ball State right now! Damn it! Sorry, but I couldn’t pay the out-of-state-tuition for schools I wanted to go to out-of-state. Really, you have no idea how much I want to leave this state. Oh well. Hopefully I’ll be able to go to a law school some place else.

  11. My parents used to teach at Ball State! I was there in the ’50s and ’60s and everyone still remembered when the Klan ran state politics. Kennedy was running for President and the anti-Catholic feeling was so strong. The hatred was palpable. Soon the Pope would be running the country! I trust things have improved.

  12. Okay, it took awhile but my strong desire for justice finally burst forth:
    you know you’re a hoosier — southern indiana edition

    1. You automatically assume that a traffic jam on I-65 means there is an IU – Kentucky game.
    2. When driving in Clarksville-Jeffersonville-New Albany, you always know which town you are in.
    3. You have a very strident opinion on the I-69 extension.
    4. You have multiple dogs, at least one of which is big enough to keep meter readers and delivery people in their trucks.
    5. You know where to find parking places in Bloomington.
    6. You have been to a bierstube.
    7. Your idea of striking it rich is a reliable location for finding morels.
    8. You don’t have a yard, you have acreage.
    9. There is either a church or a tavern on every corner of your town.
    10. You have been to a kegger held at an old quarry.

  13. Yeah…Indiana. You know, where Bobby Knight could run for president…and win. Where Dan Quayle was thought to be a good lawyer and prize-winning journalist. And where Dan Burton is thought to be a fine, outstanding Representative to Congress.

    Sorry. I love this state, my native and current home. But, god, I wish some folks here could see the stupidity they allow to prosper.

    And oh yes. We Indiana State grads use to poke fun at those from Ball State. But then again, we had Larry Bird….

  14. Hi Lauren, Yeah, I read the Hoosier thing, and could identify with a bunch, despite NOT being a native of Indiana. Living in Indy for 10+ years’ll do that to ya.

    Never heard of euchre before I moved here. My home state, IL, has plenty of corn and soybeans too, though, so that part isn’t weird. Now, if I could just stop hearing people object to Daylight Savings Time because their cows won’t know what time it is!

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