Funny Business: Small Town Traffic Jam
In the city, a traffic jam is six lanes of nobody moving. In a small town, it’s two grain trucks meeting on Main Street and the drivers rolling down their windows to catch up.
My neighbour borrowed my ladder in 1997. I have not seen the ladder. I have not seen the neighbour. Both are presumed to be living their best lives somewhere west of here.
You know you live in a small town when the weather forecast is just somebody’s uncle looking at the sky and saying it’ll do what it wants.
City people have therapists. Small town people have a coffee row at the local café and a friend named Doreen who tells you exactly what’s wrong with you for the price of a refill.
The four seasons in a small town are: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction.
You know you’re in a small town when the high school graduating class fits in one photograph and the photographer is also somebody’s grandma.
I tried to start a rumour about myself once just to see how it would come back. Three days later a woman at the post office asked if I was doing okay after the divorce. I am not married.
The fastest way to get the whole town to know something is to tell one person at the rink and ask them to keep it quiet.
In a small town, the difference between a friend and a stranger is whether they knock before walking into your kitchen.
You know it’s a small town when the parade has more people in it than watching it, and somehow everyone still gets candy.
City directions use street names. Small town directions use the house where the Andersons used to live, even though the Andersons moved in 1986 and the house has been painted twice since.
You know you’re in a small town when you wave at every vehicle on the highway and recognize the ones you don’t by the dent in the tailgate.
A guy in the city loses his dog and posts on Facebook. A guy in a small town loses his dog and three people call him before he notices it’s gone. One of them is already driving it home.
In the city, you lock your car. In a small town, you leave it running at the Co-op in February because the alternative is unthinkable.
The local rumour mill works so fast that by the time you decide to tell your mother something, she already has opinions on it.