Carrie was the only Midwest transplant to the group, most being native New Yorkers (to at least the state if not the city), with the other exception being a girl from Boston. Missour-uh had become somewhat of a punch line to the group, as Carrie had used this pronunciation when she differentiated her two perceived realms of Missouri. She often defended her college town, Columbia, parts of St. Louis, and Kansas City. These were the civilized lands, in her mind, where people didn’t call soda “pop,” where people didn’t wear overalls. When a state legislator was mentioned on NPR for trying to put the Garden of Eden into history textbooks, that was Missour-uh. Missour-uh was the drunk, cross-eyed guy at the bar who claimed he beat up three future NBA players at the same time while in college.

She had always had the desire to leave Missouri. There was a condition in small towns. Kids who wanted to go to college would do so and rarely return. What they coveted in other locations they often saw as the downfall of their own rural upbringing, whether it be class or intellectualism or exploration, and in this way their home was viewed as something they had escaped from. In their own criticism of their homes they validated the criticisms of others who had never been there with their own preconceived notions of where those people were from (whether it be the country, small towns, suburbs, whatever). If you listen to most criticisms of small towns, whatever people call those people is what they themselves think they are not and are affirming that loudly. Call them dumb to look smart. Call them ignorant to look enlightened.

Carrie had been talking to her boyfriend about the so-called “dog incident.”

“It was this thing with my dad and my mom. You know how my dad is. My mom, Deb, kind of steamrolls people and my dad, Emery, doesn’t offer resistance to anything. They both mean well. Things kind of just happen. They both do the best they can.