A Story About Boy

Since I talk about Boy so much, I figured I'd tell you little anecdote about him, so you could have something to visualize whenever I talk about him.

Boy grew up in a very small, one-stop-light town in the western part of the state, the part that all those hick jokes come from. His school was closed the first day of hunting season and his rival high school had a "bring your tractor to school day." (I sware to you, I am not making this up). There is very little do to up there, besides play sports or drink, so they did a lot of both in High School.

And while Boy has left most of this country behavior behind him, there are still a few vestiges left that continue to surprise me. Sometimes when we go back to his home town I pretend I am a sociologist examining him in his natural habitat (this visual makes me giggle). The following story explains how Boy still has a little country in him.

Over the summer, Boy and I went to a holiday cookout at one of his friend's mother-in-law's house. Everyone was having a good time, drinking, playing corn-hole, and just catching up in general. Then--it got close to dusk and the mother's family members (like her middle aged sisters) started to set a tent up on the lawn. I was quite confused and asked Boy what they were doing.

Boy: Uh, they are setting up a tent to sleep in (like I was the silly one)
Me: So, these aunts and uncles are going to sleep outside on the lawn instead of inside in a bed or something?
Boy: Uh, yeah (again, like I was a nut)[Now, the house wasn't ginormous, but there was certainly room for a few carefully placed aunts and uncles].
Boy: I mean, we are sleeping in a tent too.
Me: SKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTT. Excuse me? (Now, I am a girl that likes to camp---but only when she isn't being visited by aunt flo and is fully prepared with all necessary camping gear- cute bandana included).

I quickly nixed this idea. Lord only knows what Boy was thinking, telling me hours before bed time, that in fact, we would not be going back to his parent's house, but we would be sleeping outside. That was NOT going to happen. Especially after the appearance of a giant wolf spider! But in the same breath, we are in our early 20s, and sleeping outside isn't really that big of a deal, and had I been prepared, I wouldn't have minded.

But--never in a MILLION years, would I let my aunts sleep on my front lawn in a tent. The more I thought about this situation, the more comical it became! I mean, honestly?! Who lets their aunts sleep on a tent in their yard? And the best part of the whole thing, was that this sleeping arrangement was pretty much 100% normal to the majority of people there. I was baffled and even more baffled that Boy wasn't baffled. Although his aunts have never slept on his front lawn, (his mother would never allow such a thing) he had certainly seen it happen at other people's houses before.

Anyways, I thought this was a fun little tale about Boy and how every once in a while things pop out of his mouth that are totally natural to him, and completely foreign to me. Which is not to say that some things I do are completely foreign to him, but we will get to those stories later.