Home from the Heartland

The newly engaged always talk about how strange the word “fiance” sounds coming out of their mouths, but listen: you have a whole new set of terminology to face after you’re actually married. “In-laws.” This is mostly avoided by referring to the party in question as “J’s mom” or “J’s brother,” but in my head I end up secretly thinking things like, “If Nick gets married, I’ll have a sister-in-law!” I’ve never had a sister anything, so that is kind of novel. If we’re being particular, I guess J’s half-sister counts as a sister-in-law, too, but he doesn’t really keep in touch with her.

Anyway, if you haven’t already surmised, this weekend was all about the in-laws. In Ohio. In St. Marys, Ohio. You’ve never heard of it because no one has. The people living there are barely aware it’s a town. No that’s not right; they’re actually pretty fiercely proud of living in St. Marys despite the fact that they have to head out of the town to do much of anything. Except go grocery shopping. When we arrived late Friday night, J’s dad and step-mom were all abuzz about the big news in town: a brand new Kroger which, the next day, turned into our big outing. We all piled into the car and drove two blocks to the shining megastore in order to get food for our cookout the next day.

It would be easy to make fun of everyone in the town for getting all excited over the opening of a brand new grocery store, if the sentiment didn’t hit so close to home. If we’re being honest here, I would kill someone to have access to a grocery store that big on a regular basis. J and I promptly turned into twisted versions of kids in a candy store, running all around going, “Oh, look ARTICHOKES! Twenty different Morning Star products. ORGANIC things!! Real shallots that aren’t rotting!” We fit right in! Except for the entire deli case filled up with pudding and gelatin products—that we didn’t care about. But frozen yogurt!

Of course, what we ended up buying for our big meal the next day was mainly starches and sweets to be mixed with white substances of the Whip variety (Miracle and Cool, mostly). It was really nice to see everyone, and J’s family is very sweet and hospitable. But, if we’re talking about making a 180 from our regular life, this visit would pretty much encapsulate it. Some years ago, J’s dad won a giant television which, as far as I can tell, is switched on in the morning and not turned off again until everyone heads to bed. There were some shows people watched, but otherwise it was just ON in the background, a Lifetime Movie or a Michael Landon marathon just making up the backdrop to any conversation.

And outside a salad made from the saddest salad bar I’ve ever seen (made up of lettuce and tiny plates with about five chunks each of cucumber, celery, and onions), we didn’t touch a vegetable the whole time we were there. Unless potato salad counts. WHICH IT MIGHT! St. Marys isn’t much of a vegetable town. Despite of the fact that it’s a huge farming community.

There is a big lake in the middle of the town, which serves as the main attraction. We drove around it a lot. We also got Dairy Queen. I love me some Dairy Queen. This may only be because there aren’t any in New York, but for some reason I get really excited about getting a Blizzard whenever I’m in the vicinity of that winking crimson eye.

We also visited the nearby town, Celina, one evening to catch the new X-Men movie (which I loved, in spite of some major plot holes and Storm’s shitty haircut), and when we drove back, we hit a stretch of highway where bugs rained down on our windshield like, uh, rain. It was seriously gross, but oddly fascinating.

It was a strange sort of vacation, one that didn’t exactly feel like a vacation, but where I couldn’t really point to being taxed or harried either. When you visit relatives outside of New York, you have to go through a whole discussion about what New York living entails, and it inevitably comes around to the expense of housing, the crowded streets, the oppressive summer heat, the difficulties of the subway. But it’s a little bit false on our part. We have legitimate complaints, like every other New Yorker, but like all of them, we’re living here now; there are things we love and that have come to mean a lot to us. Home means such different things to everyone. One person’s deviled eggs and Steven Segal TV movie, is another person’s panini and ANTM.