My youngest spent her day yesterday planning a trip to Florida. She dressed in a tropical skirt and put on purple sunglasses and (don't ask me why) a white bandana. No one gave her this idea. No one even told her about Florida. She was coloring a map of the USA and when she got to Florida and its large flamingo, she was sold.
That was that place for her. She wants to go hang out with the flamingos.
I told my neighbor, who's from Florida, about the kiddo's plans.
"Oh, honey, I'm sorry," she said. "The only flamingos in Florida are in zoos or they're plastic ones stuck in people's front yards."
Can I just say I'm shocked? All these years, I thought the only state whose reputation was messed up was Alaska's. We used to laugh at pictures of polar bears hanging out with penguins. (News flash: no penguins in Alaska, but I'm sure you knew that.)
Now I don't know what to think. Did they make up the whole thing about Idaho having potatoes? Or cowboys in Texas? Or teepees in New Mexico (I swear, that's on this map, too. The only teepees I've actually seen in NM were huge tourist traps)
What lies have we been told about where you live? What has surprised you when you've visited somewhere new?
3 comments:
Even harder to spot than tepees, in NM, are jackalopes. Though I've seen jackalope heads mounted and hanging in nearly every gift shop and roadside restaurant, I've never yet seen one in the wild *wink*.
This is funny...
I don't know that all Missourians are stubborn "Show Me" kind of people...in fact, I haven't met anyone like that. But it's our own motto or something, so I don't know what's up.
As a kid, I always got a kick out of Bugs Bunny mentioning his poor choice of direction when he passed through Albuquerque. I looked for him, and I never saw him. I bet he never really came through. Hollywood lied to me. But I did see the Roadrunner. Beep! Beep! Zip...Dang!
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