Home

They, whoever and whatever they may be, say you can never go home again. Driving around my hometown today, I realized this might actually be the case. Modern life keeps on trucking and tears down the memorable locales of childhood and replaces them with identical, yet more modern and clean and giant versions of the memorable locales of childhood. Take for instance the Starbucks in which I currently sit. This used to be a very dumpy gas station that to date is the only gas station I've seen with a sign stating, "NO GAS," outside of the Jimmy Carter era. An era I lived through and loved. Behind the Starbucks is my favorite local grocer. Except the grocery store that sits behind the Starbucks used to sit in the lot immediately next to the lot in which it now sits. Now the new grocery store, BIG and SHINY and CLEAN sits next to the old grocery store, logos and signs removed, SMALL and OPPOSITE OF SHINY and DIRTY. A small, serves-it-purpose Wal-Mart once sat in the lot the grocery store that moved next door now sits. The original Wal-Mart closed and moved to a spot of town no one at that point ever went to in order to prove, "Hey Fuckers, I'm Wal-Mart--you'll go where I go." And Wal-Mart was right. The mall the Wal-Mart used to be, and the grocery store now is, connected to essentially became a shell of its former self, though freshly renovated. Following the Wal-Mart soon thereafter was a Subway (which is less than a half a block away from the Subway inside the new Wal-Mart). The Subway across town responded by buying half the yogurt shop that was next door when people actually ate yogurt and expanded. Now I can buy meatball subs and have a larger variety of places to sit. The delicious steakhouse that my friend worked at during my high school days has now moved into the location where another grocery store I used to steal my chocolate milk and Diet Pepper, MD (before it had a wonderful blend of 23 flavors) from used to be. This is too bad because I still have the rugs I stole from the grocery store that are quite industrial and were quite useful during my sophomore year in college when they sat on the floor under the weird man-statue that my friend who used to work at the delicious steakhouse stole from an even more delicious pizza place that luckily still stands intact. The Mexican restaurant I never went to in high school, because back in 2000 there was only one Mexican restaurant in the entire United States, has closed. Then it opened up with a facelift and served more Mexican food. Then that Mexican restaurant closed. Then it opened up with the same exact interior but an uglier vomit yellow exterior and a sign that largely proclaims MARGARITAS. That Mexican restaurant stayed open. Now you can't go more than fifteen feet without finding a restaurant that sells giant burritos and tacos of some sort. Though one of the restaurants may have given my one black friend and my friend who used to work at the delicious steakhouse's brother who now, or at least used to, works at the same only newly located delicious steakhouse, e. coli. Progress. The Mexicans are already going to take over and be the #1! minority in the country, do they really have to kill my one black friend with infected lettuce? Let that be a lesson, NEVER EAT TACOS IF ANY MEXICAN ANYWHERE HAS ANY REASON TO BE MAD AT YOU. We used to sit in houses that many of our parents have since moved out of and ask each other, "I wonder what people are doing tonight." "I don't know. I heard so and so might be doing this." "Oh we should call so and so." "Good idea." Then we'd go pick up a phone, off of a wall, and dial a number that we had to either look up or have memorized and call our friend's house. Our friend may not be there as he/she, but mostly he, might have already left. Then we had no way of getting in touch with them. God forbid! We then resigned ourself to, "So, wanna play Madden?" "Yes." Only our Madden didn't look like real footballers, they looked like booger heads with legs. Legs that moved kind of like real legs but mostly like how you'd imagine the legs of booger headed monsters to move. Only, nights of Madden actually became quite fun with whatever random permutation of high school students happened to be there on any particular eve. Because it was too late to try and call anyone, and we actually liked EACH OTHER instead of liking the fact we had countless names we could call in our cellular telephones. Post Madden, we'd go home. And we slept. Or we read. Or we watched an endless cycle of ESPN News that featured hockey when it was an actual sport and rarely if ever talked about NASCAR. Also the Red Sox/Yankees were a fun rivalry, but there were actually other baseball teams too-Cubs, Giants, Dodgers, I wonder what ever happened to them? Steroid use in baseball was quietly encouraged instead of openly chastised and quietly encouraged. We would then wake up in the morning, not having talked to another human being in about eight hours and have to call people's houses and sometimes, ew, actually have to talk their parents and say, "Hi Mimi is Ian there?" "Oh nothing, we just sat around Jeff's and played Madden." "Yeah that's it." "No, there were no girls." "I know I'm probably going to die a virgin." "That's just mean." Then we'd get together and order Dominos pizza, which we can no longer do. Not because the Dominos closed. Though it might have, I really don't know. But because we now generate some sort of income and can afford the three dollar upgrades to the Papa Johns that now sits where the video store that let underage kids rent naughty movies used to sit. But don't worry, the video store that presumably still lets underage kids rent naughty movies now sits across the street and has a tanning bed. Unfortunately the video store boy who used to work there has moved to Arizona. The store is also attached to another Subway, which came originally equipped with plenty of seats for me to sit in and enjoy meatball subs. Kiddy corner from the Subway is now a pita restaurant and a bank which took over for the gas station that let underage kids buy naughty drinks for cheaper than the adults who wanted to drink their fears away and act underage. Also, my town now has a Main St that people actually go to, rather than a Main St filled with odd sewing stores and an old-timey shoe store whose owner used to tell me in full detail why he keeps a gun in the backroom, not under the counter. Why even keep a gun inside an under performing shoe store that generated almost zero cash daily? You can never be too sure in this world. A bar now sits where the shoe store sat. The bar is called Jokers but should be called the Slut Factory-Where Low Self Esteem Results in Pregnancy moved from its old location right by where the delicious steakhouse now locates. It probably moved because the grocery store I used to steal chocolate milk from closed and Jokers got lonely and didn't like being next to a delicious steakhouse producing sluts who now had entirely too much steak pre-drinking. Now there are lots of pretentious places downtown. I can buy sushi. I can buy awful sandwiches at fancily named restaurants. I can ask, "Why would I want to pay so much more money for an awful sandwich. Isn't there a Subway around here?" And be answered, "You need to acquire a fancier taste." Wrong. You need to give me seven dollars worth of meat and cheese and bread, not a twig on a cracker. One bar didn't quite make it to the Main St revolution-I forget the name, but the tagline was "Bringing New York to downtown." Evidently towns in middle sized Iowa don't really feel the need to party like rockstars in a "hip" "trendy" "new age" bar filled with Bosnians and sixteen year old women. The Target store, which was just the right size, shut down after Target Corp built a way too big Target behind it and tore down the other Target, which was just the right size. It's now really very hard to find the place where my old jerk ass gym teacher's brother, who was evidently even a bigger jerkass, shot a guy to death in the Target parking lot. Now, in addition to a Mexican restaurant a minimum of every fifteen feet away from each other, there are cell phone stores everywhere. All the big time athletes from the past of Cedar Falls work at these cell phone stores. At least until they start doing drugs and move to Chicago. The movie theater that I took only one date to during my entire high school career (though I did go with a girl to Titanic BY MYSELF, so maybe I should count that (even though we both paid individually so maybe I shouldn't)) built a big super, excuse me Ultra Screen that basically dilutes a standard movie film and washes out the color. However that doesn't prevent the audience to yell at the screen and be all, "Huh uh, you did not just try and shoot Superman in the eye!" Oh snap! When I initially left for college a field existed where a giant Warehouse that spent two years slowly sucking my soul away only to make sure people had Pringles and men with fetishes had Hannah Montannah dolls now exists. The warehouse, ominous and eye-sorical, sits next to a field they are tearing up to build another warehouse that will help people get their Pringles even faster but will have no effect on Hannah Montannahbanana dolls. My old neighborhood, which I remember to be a sweet little neighborhood with kept up houses has decided to slowly fall apart. My old crazy fireman neighbor that almost burnt his garage to the ground but refused to call the fire department for help because, well, he was the fire department, decided to build a pool in a backyard that did not have the size nor the structure to support the pool. Consequently, the neighbor down the street who had an ever expanding ass and daughter who was born on the same day as my sister but was a grade higher now has a flooded basement. Next door sits a house occupied by a sweet woman who has been unfairly dealt a lot of bullshit but is proving to the world she's much tougher than she looks and has a son who also has the same birthday, but on a different year, than my sister. The son might now get a job at the warehouse that sucks souls away. The house behind that house where a cop with weird, creepy children who looked albino but evidently were just pale used to live is now occupied by a guy who works overnight at the too big Target that told me when I stocked shelves alongside him for a summer that, "When my wife is at work all day, I just go to chat rooms. It ain't creepy or anything, everyone is of age and we talk about Star Wars and movies." Great. Good. Sheboggan! My old elementary school has been built and expanded upon, now jutting out into the field I ran, walked mostly, my first mile and played catcher for the Cub Scout Softball All-Stars. My coach, who was a large women with bad ankles still lives across the street with a giant Astro van and last I knew her son was refereeing for a local professional wrestling unit that started up in some even smaller town on the outskirts of this one. The doughnut shop that sat on the corner across from a gas station where a college kid asked me to buy him beer even though I was sixteen (sideburns + mild obesity = looks older I guess) closed down. The cops that stereotypically sat outside the 24 hour doughnut shop enforce the law now, giving out speeding tickets pretty much all the time, even to people who drive speed limits. The gas station station where a sixteen year old me told the college kid, "No, buy your own beer," closed down, then got replaced with a better gas station that sells pizza. The success of the pizza selling gas station forced the gas station with the same name across the street to close. Though the attached coin store, with the same name as the gas stations, inexplicably remains open. The coin store sits where the comic book store used to. The shop must be destined to house hobbies that prevent fornication.

No, they say you can never go home again. I disagree. Because today I stopped by the comic book shop I used to force my mom to sit outside after school on new comic book release days. It still sits in the same place, though it has a new name. The man who owns it still wears the same t-shirts and still has the same fowl odor. A girl who had two too many babies with a low-life from my graduating class still works at low paying jobs just to get by. The same people who will never be satisfied with what they are and who they've become still act apologetically when they talk to me or anyone, even though I'd be happy for them if they were happy for themselves. The same people who always had to show you how cool they were still try to buy you a drink at the bar because they know the bartender. Only the bartender they know ignores them for fifteen minutes before it becomes increasingly awkward to stand next to them in their fantasy. The people who at one point were going to get the hell out of this town someday feel stuck and let you know about it. My old, half-retarded dog is no longer here, but the void has been filled with a young, half-retarded puppy. They say home is where the heart is. Quite frankly, they, whoever they are, are way off base. Home has nothing to do with hearts, memories, old haunts, etc. The places you grew up in are nothing more than land with built walls and stuff inside. No, home is not where the heart is. Home is where you can go to get a free meal and several free drinks. Home is where the girl I brought to a movie seven years ago and I can come and feel good, as though nothing has changed.