City Girl in a Country World

Friday night I went to the Missouri State Fair and rodeo. Having never been to either of these things before I was unsure what to expect, but I like to think of myself as a "country friendly" person, so I was excited for the adventure, and figured I could hold my own. There was a hat on my head and yeehaw in my heart. The hat did not prepare me for the world I was about to enter; it merely created the appearance that I belonged.

Don't get me wrong, the whole thing was great, just a little....surreal.

We ate turkey legs. HUGE turkey legs. Those turkeys must have been doing some serious squats. I felt like I should have been swinging it about shouting for more meade. My inability to finish the gargantuan turkey leg left me a little disappointed in myself, because it was seriously awesome. If this is a staple of state fairs then I have seriously been missing out.

The newness of the situation increased tenfold when we got to the rodeo. I was handed what appeared to be a program upon entering, and thought, "there's a program for this thing???" I tried to read over the event sheet and figure out what they all were without being too obviously ignorant. Thankfully we weren't sitting by too many people at first, and my friends all knew it was my premier rodeo experience. It was like being in a movie. In fact, for the first couple of events I was reminded of Brokeback Mountain, as it was up to that point my closest experience with a rodeo. The non-movie moment was the beginning, when we were asked to stand and remove our hats...not to sing the national anthem, no no, to pray. At a public event. Over the PA system. This was perhaps more shocking than the whole remainder of the evening. I expected cowboys to get hurt. I expected big horses and bulls. I expected lots and lots of boots and hats.

I did not expect praying.

There were only 2 major "city girl" moments. Granted, there were A LOT of things I was surprised by and didn't know, but only 2 times that it was clear I was not from these parts. The whole concept of being able to rope a moving animal is a little insane to me, and I was completely in awe of those who were responsible for roping the hooves of the calves during the team roping. Seriously, how do you rope the hooves of a moving animal? The smallest part to rope, and it's running - I just can't believe it. I expressed my awe as well as my surprise that one cowboy missed to the friend sitting next to me. The woman in front of me (who, mind you, was wearing a plaid flannel shirt, hat, boots, and buckle that all matched her husband's) turned around and looked at me as if I must be the stupidest person in the world. I'm not sure if she was surprised by my awe, or by my belief that it looked like the cowboy was going to get the calf, but it was clear that she thought I was seriously stupid. It was like suddenly a neon sign glowed over my head saying "not a country girl."

Rodeos have zambonis. That was my other city girl moment. During the barrel racing a tractor came out to rake out the area around the barrels, to which I say, "look, it's a rodeo zamboni!" Matchy woman kept her back turned, and my friend just laughed. Score one for the city girl. I think I need to get dual citizenship - city girl by day, country girl when the hat comes on. The whole thing was too fun not to do again.

Under totally unrelated circumstances, I had another bizarre experience yesterday. Someone I haven't talked to in over 2 years called, completely out of the blue. Her number wasn't even in my phone anymore. What possesses people to do that? Why call someone up after more than 2 years of no communication? The time when we were close friends feels lifetimes away now. We've both started new paths, new lives. I find it hard to believe that memories of a friendship shared so long ago would prompt a phone call now, when those same memories couldn't keep the friendship together when the memories were fresh. Is it cold of me that I feel incapable of understanding her desire to reconnect?