Being a born and raised an EastCoaster, there are some things that just become geographically instinctual over the course of time. Things that you just stop thinking about because you’re always used to seeing them a certain way. It’s only after you find yourself on the west coast that these instincts get tossed curbside and you wind up having to completely reset your bearings. Literally…
My family is from New York. Generations-upon-generations of native New Yorkers. Even though a good portion of the family has since moved from the Empire state, they all stayed on the east coast. Like most New York transplants, inevitably winding up in south Florida. As for myself, I was raised in Virginia. When my family travelled in my youth, it was always to see family. Mainly New York, Florida years later. This travel was always exclusive to the east coast though. It’s all I’ve ever known.
I have been to the west coast a couple of times in my life, but only recently on business. No matter how many times that I head out there though, it’s still the slightest differences that continue push me a little off-kilter as soon as I step off of the plane.
For example, as an EastCoaster, if the ocean is on your right side, it essentially means that you’re travelling north. Travelling from Virginia to Long Island fairly regularly as a kid, that’s what I have been mentally programmed to decipher as common geographical fact. On the west coast, however, the ocean on your right means that you are travelling south. It only took this MENSA candidate about 15 minutes and 5 miles in the wrong direction to figure out that notable detail.
With the complete inability to effectively deprogram myself of this “fact” with any measureable success, my inner compass was completely hosed up for the better part of the week. To alleviate any possibility of confusion for myself, I literally spent the majority of my wanderings with my map flipped upside-down. Ocean on the right.
There. Now I can navigate.
It really was a pathetic overcompensation of my mental GPS. For some reason though, a “recalculating, recalculating…you moron” banter kept replaying over and over again in the back of my head. Better yet, nothing quite says “tourist” better than some idiot sitting at a stoplight in downtown Los Angeles reading his map upside-down. I probably would have attracted less attention to myself if I had just held my keys and wallet out of the window in my open recruitment of potential carjackers.
With my inverted map and reverse-pole navigation in check, I headed down to the beach one evening to take in some local California culture and to stick my feet in the Pacific for the first time. Yes, that “tourist” thing again... As I walked down the main beach road, there was a well-dressed guy standing in the street holding out a sign towards oncoming traffic. It simply stated “You’re Beautiful”. Being that quintessential EastCoaster, I studied him for several minutes trying to figure out his angle. Money? Publicity stunt? Political agenda? Con?
Much to my skeptical surprise, it became clear to me that this guy really had no agenda. He was simply trying to communicate “positive vibes” during the evening rush. A foreign concept to an EastCoaster like me, who was notorious for unconsciously bulldozing people over in my attempts at catching the Metro train pulling into the station.
Even more foreign to me was the fact that people were smiling, high-fiving him as they drove past, and yelling back “no man, you’re beautiful”. I was traumatized. Why was no one throwing bricks at this guy for impeding traffic? Why was no one trying to mow him down in their expensive, European sedans for standing in the middle of the road? Why was no one screaming at him to get out of the way, while calling both he and his mother unspeakable names?
I‘m a stranger in a strange land.
For me, however, the pinnacle of these trips is always the cheap entertainment that I get out of people-watching at LAX prior to my departure. A vast plethora of gratuitous sights and sounds to help get me through the early morning doldrums of business travel.
The most recent involved a well-dressed, well-groomed mother and her two young children. A boy and girl whose outfits likely cost more than the entire contents of my suitcase…as well as the two guys next to me. They were like a walking advertisement for Louis Vuitton. Moments later, an older boy walks up next to them wearing black skinny jeans and T-shirt, black flat-bill hat cocked sideways, massive ear gauges, and enough metal in his lips to make me openly question the competency of the TSA screeners that morning. I recall thinking to myself that this woman looked entirely too young to have a son in his early twenties.
After a brief kiss between the two, it suddenly dawned on me. “Wait. That’s DAD?”
To quote the late Chris Farley… ”Awesome”.
It was like Rodeo Drive meets Blink-182. I couldn’t just leave it simply at gawking though. I found myself honestly wondering which of their two kids would finally snap, break out of mom’s Abercrombie & Fitch mold, and take over as lead singer of the next great southern California punk band. With a smirk on my face and the iconic punk anthem “California Uber Alles” screaming in my head, my view was suddenly obstructed by an extremely elderly bleached blonde in a halter top shrieking into her Bluetooth.
That was my sign. Time to go…immediately.
Time to get back to the familiar surroundings and those things near-and-dear to my EastCoaster heart. Being able to read my maps with some directional sanity and enjoying that ever-warming symphony of threats and insults directed to those that impede traffic in any way whatsoever. Really, nothing says “home” quite like a fellow EastCoaster threatening horrific carnage upon your entire family for taking too long in the crosswalk. I salute you, fine citizen!
At least I wasn’t totally unprepared for my latest adventure out west. Dictated by recent events, this wandering stranger now knows exactly what to do in the event of an earthquake.
Immediately call everyone you know to see if they felt it.
