hicksville, usa

One of the irritating features of being at my parents’ house is that they’re way out in hicksville with no public transport, so I have to rely on them for anything I want. The nearest pokestop is a 20-minute round trip away. That’s not a problem, it’s a nice daily walk, but it’s symptomatic of how remote the place is. If I wanted to go to the nearest convenience store or grab some fast food, it’d take hours. I could do it if I really wanted to prove a point out of sheer stubbornness (prove what point? to whom? make some sense, kid) but in practical terms, it makes much more sense to ask Dad for whatever I want.

I hate asking for things.

I stayed at home through college. Dad is very proud of this fact; he loves rhapsodizing about it at the dinner table, or to strangers, or in his weekly emails—whenever he gets a chance. I haven’t told him that in retrospect, I’m ashamed of that period of my life. It was cost-efficient, sure. It gave me more time to focus on my studies, sure. But I was such a child. Everyone around me was a young adult, learning to make their own way in the world, and I was the mental equivalent of an eight-year-old with oversized glasses and oversized books. I’m glad I got out, and I’m correspondingly sad to be back.

(I’m not saying that everyone living at home is a kid, but it was certainly true for me. My life in college was not appreciably different from elementary school: wake up, eat breakfast Mom prepared for me, get driven to school by Dad with sack lunch in hand, get picked up from school in the afternoon, come home to do homework + play video games + read books + get called to family dinner. Only difference is I had more homework and fewer friends.)

I’m being overdramatic. Closing on the condo is coming up; I can chill for a few more days. I’m just in an overdramatic mood right now because I walked 20 minutes in the rain and the growing dusk to get my pokestop of the day. Dad drove past and offered me a ride. I said no thanks.