This is the closest to heaven a lot of people will ever get.
There is a place for everyone in this world. Caesar was born for Rome, Bon Jovi was born for the stage, Billy Mays was born for that soft spot in everyone’s heart and I… I was born for the suburbs. Let me give you a perspective: I begin to feel disoriented if there are fewer than eight chain restaurants within a mile of my primary residence. I am frightened by and suspicious of trees that are older than I am. I often awake in the middle of the night with the urge to commit random acts of home repair – I build retaining walls at midnight, I grout tile by flashlight, I steal ride-on mowers just so I can get a turn.
Now obviously these tendencies are completely normal. You see, since the beginning of prehistoric time, human males have sought what anthropologists call “the masculine trifecta”:
1) to protect a domain (and increase its resale value)
2) to provide for a family (the primary provision being an HD big screen, but clothes and other frivolities also fall under this)
3) to hunt and grill prey (hunted in the Kowalski’s aisle and grilled on an oversized Weber)
These primordial desires, however, have been stuffed and stiffled for over a year as I’ve been trapped in an urban jungle of liberal baboons. Imagine a town overrun with college lit students and Wes Anderson fans. That’s a glimpse of where I live. Behold the progressive splendor of my neighborhood:
- there’s a mandatory hipster dress code of wingtip glasses and skinny jeans
- there are more organic food co-ops than fast food joints
- when Obama was elected, women (with more leg hair than the Oakland Raiders) marched down my street joyously banging pots and pans. True story. These are not deranged West Virginians who hunt squirrels. They are educated professionals who read The New Yorker; they are my neighbors; they are why I lock my door; and they are why I want out of urban America.
Don’t get me wrong. I love NPR, locally grown food, and reducing carbon emissions just as much as the next poverty-stricken bike messanger, but I need the suburbs. Now “research” maligns the suburbs as a hellish place that perpetuates “suburban seclusion”, “conspicuous consumption”, and other delightful attributes that happen to top my “What’s Awesome About America” list. White picket fences and curvy streets? (check!) KFC/Taco Bell combo locations? (go on…) Potlucks and block parties? (two please!) I’m practically shedding tears of red, white, and blue as I write this!
I mean, is it wrong that the scent of freshly mowed grass is an aphrodisiac for me? Is it weird that retaining walls make me weep? Is it illegal that I’m already making rotating snack schedules for little league games? No, no, and probably. But I don’t and won’t apologize for who I am.
Let me put it in simpler terms: if heaven doesn’t have tee times, neighborhood patrols, and in-ground pools… well… maybe I don’t want to go.
Image copyright AFS aerial photography.
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