FanPost

I HATE IOWA

Reese Strickland-USA TODAY Sport

GoAUpher: Bumped because Ratigaen hates Iowa so much that he went stream of consciousness.

For me, "who hates Iowa?, we hate Iowa", is not enough. Why you ask? Because I HATE IOWA. I personalize this. It's not us against them, it's me against them. I HATE IOWA.

This is not my story, but it's how I feel. I know it's not Ames, but it is IWOA. Linky: http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Hate-Iowa/1142451

- I Want To Burn This Entire State To The Ground.

I hate this place. I wrote an essay about it. This is an excerpt: Perhaps it is unfair for someone who has only lived here since last August to poke fun at Iowa City, but I say to hell with that. I’ve seen you for what you are. I’ve witnessed that ripple on your surface and have been exposed to what lies beneath. I’ve seen what it’s like for a community to feel like champions, and I’ve stood there, eyes rolling, muttering "It’s only the damn Orange Bowl. Kansas and Louisville have won one of those… I mean, really?" I had read articles about Iowa City’s immunity to the national unemployment crisis, only to move here and find nothing but articles about drunken street violence. Every day I had to absorb journalism that essentially made all of downtown seem like a scene in "Escape from New York." It was as if an army of hyper-violent, bloodthirsty zombies fueled on alcohol and testosterone would be seeking human victims for ritual beatings and/or sacrifice. A comforting thought to someone from the relatively quiet suburbs of Orlando, Florida, especially considering I’d be working downtown and would be walking home every evening in the middle of this "death zone" during its busiest hours. I could only envision myself sneaking from alley to alley under the cover of darkness with an aluminum baseball bat as my only means of protection. Thankfully the cabs here are cheap. Thankfully there is an even greater force out there than the Iowa City Police Department to keep these guys off the streets. No, not the University Heights cops, but Mother Nature herself. The greatest obstacle to me ever being able to call this place home is this spiteful ***** and her need to turn this state into an arctic apocalypse for what felt like nine months. Did I mention I was from Florida? Did I leave out I had never even seen snow before this winter in my entire life? Well, I can honestly say that snow is a lot like every girlfriend I’ve ever had: very pretty at first, but annoying as **** after three days. I have never suffered anything in my life that comes close to complete and utter despair quite like an Iowa winter. My mother battled cancer, my father died when I was very young, my band never got a record deal, Mark Ingram won the Heisman last year, all of these horrors and letdowns pale in comparison to living through an Iowa winter. Our ability to perform simple tasks like drive to the store, walk anywhere outside without falling or nearly freezing to death, or just being able to look up in the middle of the day and see the damn sun… all gone for what felt like an eternity. Going back to an earlier point though, the only good thing about winter was it got the yahoos off the street because most of them were passed out and dying from exposure somewhere. Still, it’s not only the weather that is a huge deterrent for a native Floridian… it’s the fact that EVERYTHING in this damn town is uphill. How is that even possible? I can’t wait to lecture my kids about hard work, "When I was young I had to walk uphill BOTH WAYS in the freezing snow," because not a single word of that sentence is false. I am so freaking serious when I say that as I walk to work, or bike to work, or some mornings crawl, battling gravity and hangovers, to work, I am going up quite an incline for what feels to be the entire way there. How in the world then does the exact same effect occur when I completely retrace my steps going in the opposite direction? How does this happen?! People ask me all the time about the hills here and how it compares to back home. There is nothing like this in Florida, and if there is, we build a track on it, add some carts, have a guy in a mascot suit sell you tickets and call it a theme park. Here it’s just one more reason I hate leaving my apartment. Of which sadly, there are many, most recently the discovery that summer is just another word for roaming clouds of gnats have forced me from enjoying the warmth that I am far more acclimated to. The majority of people I’ve run into are in fact the rudest, angriest and possibly the most ignorant talking apes I’ve ever met in my life, and come on, I’m from the south! We wrote the book on ignorance! Sadly, this isn’t the only thing Iowa City has us beat at. I used to think the influx of northerners coming to roost in Orlando contributed to the horrible traffic and insane drivers that I had to avoid killing me on a daily basis. My own mother argued it was the natives who were the problem, she is such a typical Yankee; bless her Brooklyn-born heart. Well, my instincts were confirmed when I moved here and discovered an amazing fact: Iowa City is the home of what I can only call "The WORST drivers in the entire known universe." I am not making this up, I am not exaggerating, I no longer get in my car and expect to get to where I’m going, you know, during those two months when the roads aren’t covered in ice or flooded. I now get in my car and wait to get in a horrible accident as the result of someone with an Iowa drivers license not knowing what a yield sign means (roundabout in front of the fieldhouse, anyone?) and if I should somehow make it to my destination unscathed or without greatly elevated blood pressure, well, I thank God for another miracle. It’s not home; it never will be, for sadly I simply cannot live somewhere where there are only two seasons… "Death by Snow" and "Pestilence". I hate Iowa. I hate it. If I had one wish it would be that this entire place burned to the ground leaving a giant charred rectangle in the middle of the USA.

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