The Buckeye State

So, as many of you know, I've spent a good portion of my life defending my homeland. I don't mean in an overly zealous, xenophobic, jingoistic, warrantless wiretap, constitution-violating kind of way.

It's more of a defensive, don't-think-my-parents-are-first-cousins kind of way. My brother Dylan understands. He's had to do the same thing.

After years of hearing comments like "doesn't it take 2 days to drive to Cleveland from DC" or "Isn't Ohio out there near Iowa?", I think the best one (until yesterday) was from my law school classmate Lisa Munoz (from San Diego) who repeatedly used Ohio as an example when referring to rural places. One day after making one such reference and realizing I was from Ohio, she apologized and said that she meant no offense and that she had previously thought I was from New Jersey. What???? What is it exactly about me that says "Jersey." How is that better? (Sorry to my sister-in-law Reina, a native Jersey-ite. Note the irony of my trashing New Jersey whilst trashing people who trash Ohio. Such hypocracy.)

As usual, I digress. Back to the point of the story.

Yesterday I met one of my fellow Americans (there are 5 of us) between classes. I politely introduced myself, informed her that I was THE Genevieve that had, in fact, yesterday responded to one of her posts on Facebook (see discussion re Facebook, supra) looking for a tennis partner.

She said "OK" and stared at me blankly.

Not one to be deterred by socially awkward situations, I pressed on.

Me: "Where are you from?"
Her: "New York."
Me: "Oh really?"
Her: "Well, no. Connecticut."
Me: "Oh."

[At this point in the conversation her eyes glazed over and she stared off into space. After what seemed like an eternity, she continued:]

Her: "Where are you from?"

[At this juncture, I had a decision to make. When speaking with non-Americans I usually say, "Oh, it's a little complicated since I've moved around a bit, but I lived most recently in Los Angeles," or just "Los Angeles" depending on the listener's attention span and capabilities in English. However, with Americans, I prefer to be more accurate and I usually say, "Well, I grew up in Cleveland, but I've lived most recently in Los Angeles" and depending on the circumstances, I give the whole spiel about how I lived in DC before LA, and about how I spent the last year in New York and Buenos Aires. Because you know, I like to be accurate.]

This time, however, I went off script:

Me: "I'm originally from Ohio. Cleveland."
Her: "Oh, Ohio." Silence. "I, like, call that a fly-over state."

[Silence, while I choose between a) walking away and b) punching her in the face.]

Again, I go off script:

Me: [insert friendly smiling tone] "Ah, yes, well you know, I just spent 3 months living in New York explaining that people from Ohio speak in complete sentences, wear shoes most of the time and don't walk around with corn husks hanging out of their mouths."
Her: "Yah, like, I mean, it's not like it's as bad as Missouri."
Me: [feeling like a cat with a mouse] "Um, actually, it is quite a lot like Missouri. Cleveland is fairly cosmopolitan, but the rest of the state is pretty much like Missouri."
Her: "My job almost transferred me to Ohio."
Me: "Really? Where?"
Her: "Mason."
Me: "I don't know where that is."
Her: [incredulous] "You don't know where that is??????? Really????"

[As if I know every town in Ohio. I can probably only name 5 of the 88 counties.]

Me: "Uh, yah. Where is it?"
Mer: "It's near the border with Tennessee."

There was silence as I cocked my head to the side and looked at her. I'm not sure exactly what kind of an expression was on my face, but I can only imagine it was somewhere in the neighborhood of smug and contemptuous because she started stammering.

Me: "I think you mean Kentucky."
Her: "Uh...um....yah...it's...uh...south."
Me: "Yes, because Tennessee doesn't border Ohio."

More silence.

Then she turned to the dear sweet Peruvian woman standing with us and said: "You're pretty tall for a Peruvian, huh?"

And thus, my long-standing theory that education and IQ have an inverse relationship to social skills was confirmed. I looked around for a reason to step back from this madness. Finding none, I quickly chugged my coffee and politely excused myself to throw away my now empty plastic cup. I ducked behind my Brazilian classmate who was standing near the trash can and hid out until it was time to go.

For those of you too embarrassed to admit that you also thought Tennesee and Ohio were contiguous, you can go to http://www.blogger.com/www.50states.com/us.htm for answers to all of your questions.