If you live outside (way, way outside) the city like I do, you’re forced to get your social thirsts quenched in out-of-the-way Bates’ style motel mini-bars, the off-shaggy-carpeted VFW, and not too few bro dive bars with football calendars. That’s ok, though. Because the booze is cheap, and no one’s too picky about the jukebox (though I did once see a man literally tossed from one bar for playing too many Tom Waits’ tunes, alas). Anyway, for those rural American heroes who are looking for adventure in all the wrong, albeit available places, here are a few tips on what is coming your way:

1)   You will become mayor on 4Square of virtually everywhere you go. Last night I picked up my second 4Square mayorship at a bar that I have literally walked into maybe 5 times. On only one previous occasion had I “checked in” before last night. Now I’m the mayor. I “ousted” the only other dude who has, I guess, inhabited both that bar and the 21^st Century. So don’t take these heralds too seriously.

2)   Someone will develop a story about you. If you tend to take your booze—as I do—alone, wearing something asinine (stocking cap with a ball on top, let’s say), fictions will spread. One night, thanks to a well-placed large, blue scarf, I had half the crew (and the foreman) (and the foreman’s wife) (and the foreman’s wife’s “best friend”) convinced I was gay. “Yah I had a friend like that and we all knew it was cool, so don’t worry man.” Protestations on this front always feel a little weird, so I just rolled with it, gave the “best friend” a ride home, refused to “come in and see my dog,” and watched her puke in her rose bushes. So you will get stories about others, too.

3)   You will be informed of some asinine piece of anachronistic knowledge and he will be angered if you don’t appreciate it. Let’s just say one night there was a man, a man’s walking stick, and an in-depth lecture on the actual cost of “two bits.” Supposedly it’s something like 25-cents. He got riled up when I questioned the practicality of such knowledge.

4)   The attractive women all work at hair salons. If you’ve come from an urban setting, you tend to have developed that nasty habit of being attracted to women who not only look good, but know how to look good, too. Hair, skirts, I don’t know, makeup? Whatever. Anyway, that’s not how “real” women dress. Typically the opposite-sex offering for a guy includes women who are really into Phish (baggy jeans and something made from a llama riding their back), really into Justin Bieber (poofy hair, bedazzled jeans, maybe something from Wet Seal), and then the odd hair salon girl, who might don a cute beanie and maybe a leather jacket. The problem is she’s already been promised to a farmer, and the Phish girl who smells like onions is asking you to buy her a drink.

~Dunstan McGill

Photo courtesy of haven’t the slightest