Sometimes the Stereotype Fits

I find myself doing a lot of defending these days. Actually, not as much as you would think considering I live in LA and I did go to college in the state of Iowa. Everyone that I know and work with gives me a lot less shit than I probably deserve (or do I?). Of course, conversations always arise where colleges, regions, and lifestyles are compared. My boss went to UCLA so trying to throw a school from Iowa into the mix doesn't really work, plus she wouldn't understand, I mean, how could she? When you say to people around here that you went to The University of Iowa it just doesn't click, you tell them and the look on their face is just like "Uhhhhh" like they've never even heard of it, it might as well be The University of Jupiter.

But I like my roots so I defend them or at least attempt to explain them. "Iowa was actually pretty sweet, it's a good academic school and also a party school." Or "The campus is beautiful." I say things like this, whether or not they're true.

I knew that a guy from our Fox affiliate in Des Moines was coming out here today with his wife. He's in the engineering department at KDSM Des Moines and was taking a vacation out to LA and figured he would stop by Fox's main offices. I was in charge of getting a drive-on for the guy; he wasn't really important enough for anyone else to worry about. I told him he was more than welcome to drive onto the lot, walk around, peek into the studios and maybe get lucky and see them filming something. I called in the drive-on and assumed I was done with it, I would never see the guy, never hear from him. I was wrong.

Sure enough, the guy found my building number and office number, and at sometime around noon, this hillbilly comes walking into our office with his wife and two kids. People don't bring family members into the office, there aren't outside people allowed in without permission (but by calling him a drive-on, he now had permission), so it's pretty obvious when a family comes bouncing through. And this was the classic Iowa family. The guy was wearing a flannel and a baggy pair of jeans (fortunately he didn't have a John Deere hat on), just your typical 45 year old Iowan dad who loves the Hawks and drives a truck. His wife had an uncanny resemblence to a hobbit. She was short and fat, had a bad perm, looked like she smelled like a hobbit might smell. I was annoyed with their kids just by looking at them. Their son was probably a sophomore in high school and was wearing a Slipknot t-shirt (Iowa band). Black hair, black shirt, head tilted to the side so he could see from behind his hair. His parents probably told their friends and neighbors that he was going through a "confusing time" and that really, really annoyed me for some reason. More than it would on any other day. The daughter was plump but insisted on squeezing into her low-rise jeans. This family, whose type I have gotten to know over the years, was not helping me today.

I looked up from my work to see this foursome headed straight for me. I caught them before they crowded around my desk and quickly got them out of the building. I gave them a few stories about what little I know of the history of Fox and directed them to a place where they could get lunch. I will never see them again, but everyone in my department assumed that they were my people, and I now have even more defending to do.

Part of me is like, come on Iowa people, I gave you four good years, can you throw me a fucking bone here? Do we have to wear the flannel into Fox? I understand you're overweight, why try to fit into those jeans? Does your troubled teen son have to walk around the office with his head tilted to the side like he's some sort of awkward gothic bird?

But the other side of me loves it. These people were so out of touch with reality that they didn't even know they were out of place, and if they did, I doubt they would have cared. They were just a bunch of Iowans on vacation, happy to be out of Des Moines. Can I really blame them for that?

I guess sometimes the stereotype fits. On some occasions you're glad it fits, like when you're at a towny bar on the bike bar crawl and a 60 year old guy with a beard and a flannel is playing air guitar to Jimi Hendrix with you. On some occasions you're not as happy, like when the whole family comes strolling through the office stopping at each cubicle asking where you sit. When it comes to Iowa, you rock with the good, roll with the bad.