The other day I stopped on my bike ride to buy a loaf of bread. I was having a serious carb deficit, and with the long hill still ahead, thought I’d add an oatmeal cookie to the order.
“That’ll be…eight dollars,” the clerk said.
On the very short list of Things I Will Not Miss About Ann Arbor, that tops the list — eight bucks for a loaf of bread and a cookie. So many of the other things I was warned about have not only not been a problem, they make me question the perception of the warners.
Here’s the gist: “Oh, man, you’re not going to believe that place. Buncha liberal busybodies in your business all the time. The P.C. capital of the universe.”
True, for every “God bless and support our troops” sign you see in Fort Wayne, you see an “Another family for peace” sign here. But no busybody of any political stripe has been in my business at all, nor in any business I’ve been able to observe. You can still smoke in restaurants. Rampaging gangs of lesbians do not enforce no-leg-shaving laws. I’m sure the city council is capable of passing resolutions declaring the city a nuclear-free zone, but so what? Nearly 20 years of life in the Fort has inured me to city-council silliness. And if you see an excess of Honda Accords with bumper stickers reading “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention,” it’s balanced by the years in Indiana reading about someone’s cold, dead fingers being pried off a gun.
Yin, yang, blah blah blah. Anyway, it’s time to move.
The truck arrives in the morning and everything goes out the door shortly thereafter. We’ll be out of touch for a few days. Check back…Monday, maybe? When we’ll be back in the land of cheap bread. Dammit.
MichaelG said on June 10, 2004 at 11:35 pm
Yeah, yeah. We�ve got the same stuff here. Have you guys got the �Don�t Wear After Shave/Perfume/Scented Products” nazis yet?
133 chars
Bob said on June 11, 2004 at 10:26 am
You have to experience an allergic reaction to someone’s perfume in a public place, to get a balanced perspective on that issue.
128 chars
Bob said on June 11, 2004 at 10:27 am
Nance, sometimes I think one of the advantages to living in Fort Wayne is that it makes it easy to appreciate a lot of other places.
132 chars
Danny said on June 11, 2004 at 11:04 am
I don’t know about the rest of you who read Nance’s site, but I think the no smokin’ laws in California are among the best things to happen to restaurants and bars. All the bar owners thought it was going to be the end of the world, but it actually works out quite nicely.
People who don’t smoke are happier and more inclined to frequent such establishments and people who do smoke get a chance to stretch their legs and go to a patio or other designated area and meet new friends. Some of the places have fire pits and such for people to gather around and chat.
I don’t mean to sound preachy, but it is something the rest of the country should rethink. One misses such things when travelling to other states and eating out.
735 chars