4

Big Cities Destroy Your Perspective Of Size

Yes, this entry does sound dirty, doesn't it, you filthy pervert. Let's delve into this entry deep and hard until we come to some conclusions. What? You're still thinking about sex? You kids today. Anyway, a weird thing happens when you grow up in a city: Whatever size your city is, that's what you think a "city" is supposed to be. So, yeah, as a kid I knew New York City was big, but so must be Philly and Chicago and Los Angeles, right? Well, no. That's like saying all penises are the same. OMG, are you still thinking about sex?

Pictured: the antidote to thinking about sex too much.

The point is, I remember the first time I visited Philadelphia. I'd seen it as a kid, taking a school trip to the Liberty Bell, but now I was going to really hang out in Philly. My friend and I walked the city in what seemed to take 20 minutes. We just ran out of city. "What? This is supposed to be a city," I thought. I felt lied to. I know that sounds like New York City snobbery, but it had nothing to do with thinking my home city was better or cooler (although New York is both those things compared to Philly, which boasts little more than cheesesteaks and a pervasive urine stench). It was just that New York had defined for me what a city was. Literally defined it.

When I went to Los Angeles, I wondered how a group of suburbs connected by nothing but traffic and smiles could constitute a city. And I'm sure if I ever get to London, I'll wonder how a place that takes up so much space geographically, instead of being compressed on a tiny island, where the groundswell of humanity forces you to build up into the sky, could be a city. Just like people from Tokyo will never understand how New York can be a city when you can't even buy a soiled schoolgirl's undies from a vending machine.

Yes, that's a real thing.

3

You Develop A Hatred For Delays

There's one cliche about big cities that I think is kind of true. Cities move more quickly than small towns. You can make racist cracks about inner-city drop-outs working at McDonald's or deride the staff of a Duane Reade drug store where employees seem so surly you'd think their job was part of some work-release where they earn freedom one packet of Chiclets or condoms sold at a time. But here's the thing: These workers still get shit done. They move. And because of that, prompt customer service becomes an ingrained expectation. (As does the look of salespeople wishing for the sweet release of death.)

"Would you like fries with that? How about a dramatic reading of my suicide note?"

If you want to see my head explode (and why wouldn't you?) just watch me order a Big Mac in a small-town McDonald's. In the city, even with employees earning minimum wage and hating every customer for being part of their hellish fast-food existence, there's typically a three-minute exchange for this transaction -- running from the time of your order. But go outside of the city and suddenly fast food is no longer fast. I can wait in the DMV and expect to get nowhere. I'll stand in line for hours for the forthcoming Star Wars movies. But I simply can't wait 10 minutes for a Big Mac. My stomach devours my other internal organs. Big-city establishments have to serve tremendous numbers of people. And most of those people have to get back to work. Once you get used to that kind of production, it's very hard to accept anything less. Even if you're in Bumblefuck, Iowa, with nowhere particularly important to go.

2

You're Less Likely To Fixate On People's Looks

OK, admit it. You're incredulous. Wait, look up "incredulous." Now admit it. You're thinking that in big cities there are tons of high-maintenance people obsessed with personal vanity. And, surely, in major cities you're more likely to see real-live supermodels walking down the street. Yes, that's all true, but that's not what I mean when I say people in big cities are less fixated on looks. What I'm saying is there is so much well-coiffed talent walking around city streets, it makes it really hard to fixate on one person.

1

You're Afraid Of Quiet Towns

Ask people their biggest fears and they may say spiders or clowns or that time Cracked's own Felix Clay messaged all our readers to come to his "Pants-Off Dance-Off," but for me, it's small towns. Small, quiet towns scare the living hell out of me. One of the scariest movies I've ever seen is the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and the scariest part for me is not what you're thinking. It's not the girl being hung on a meat hook before Leatherface fires up his chainsaw. It's not the zombified grandpa, trying to hack a head off in the attic. It's just the part of the movie where the friends pick up a hitchhiker on a deserted highway.

The part where he talks about homemade cheese before cutting himself is even scarier.

What some people see as the comfort of relative isolation, I see as a place for evil to feast unchecked. Sure, in New York someone might throw you down a subway staircase and take your wallet, but then what? I mean, the odds of him then dragging you to his basement and doing scientific sexual experiments on you with his inbred brother are really slim. Someone in New York City is always around. There are always witnesses. I know horrific things happen in big cities too, but I always take comfort that some bigger fish will always swallow the evil.

Yes, Phantom Menace was actually made only as a metaphor for my feelings on big-city violence. No wonder it sucked.

So, yeah, I guess if you live in urban areas with gangs and crime rates, that can be scary, but I just can't see a guy like Norman Bates lasting in a city very long. It doesn't have to make sense; it's how I'm wired. I blame New York. And The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

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