One thing that I hate about living in a small town is how everybody knows every detail of everybody else’s life going back forever and feels the need to share these details with you.
“So this guy you were talking to? His wife left him for his cousin 7 years ago, and then there was a nasty divorce, he got really depressed for a while, let his house go to seed. His son dropped out of high school. And now he just started dating my former neighbor’s second cousin, and she is a very weird, annoying person. So I don’t know, are you sure you want to use his moving service? I mean, I’m sure he’s professional and all, but he’s had all these issues. . .”
This is getting very annoying.
Clarissa's Blog 
Annoying, yes, but for blog readers also hilarious!
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Yes, that’s the positive side if the phenomenon. 🙂
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I take it things are back on track with Hedgehog Manor?
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Let everybody notice that I was not the one to come up with the word “manor” here. I called the place Happy Hedgehogs. But the way these things go, of course it will now be remembered as a manor. 🙂 🙂
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It’s Bible Belt, but I still was surprised that people discriminate against a man for divorcing. Imagine how a single mother would feel there.
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It’s not “discrimination”… it’s the desire to not have to befriend someone who will force you to listen to the past and future drama,
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Mr Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which
made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck,
although he did have a very large moustache. Mrs Dursley was
thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck,
which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning
over garden fences, spying on the neighbours.
— Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s Stone
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So you are now experiencing the glorious “rural idiocies” that Marx once described?
Fabulous — now all you’ll need is to turn on “The Lum & Abner Show” to make your descent into the small town pathos complete!
Absurd trigger warning: rural idiots and small town money-grubbing schemes —
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lum_and_Abner
Pine Ridge, Hedgehog Manor, what’s the diff? 🙂
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Also, I must warn you of a pattern in naming neighbourhoods in American towns, especially exurban and suburban towns, that was once told by an architect whose name temporarily escapes me …
The “subdivisions” are named after what’s gone missing after the development has reached a critical mass of building.
“Elder Holly” refers to two types of small bushes that will no longer be found in the local environs.
“Running Fox” refers to an animal that had been eradicated or driven out.
And, of course, “Hedgehog Manor” names a small rodent that you’ll likely never encounter on your newly purchased property.
As for the “Manor” aspect of it, the architect also mentioned a similar problem with the idea of “country squires” and everyone believing they’ve encamped together out in the wilderness, only to be surrounded by freshly laid bitumen, road berms, and reflective signs.
You may blame the Ebenezer Howard followers and the “City Beautiful” people for having given up to the overly eager “City Motorway” designers who followed them.
Then again, I don’t see places like Canberra as being much better, and various other Roundabout Cities have almost as much to offer (such as Magic Roundabout City, as much of a pedestrian road hazard as it is a huge annoyance to vehicles) …
Hedgehog Manor … is it a proper manor house?
The chattering classes must know! 🙂
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