I'm a Little Bit Country

On Friday it came to my attention that I'm kind of a hick.

I first started to realize this when my chemistry teacher was talking about her trip to school that morning.  She had seen a coyote.  (she pronounced it ky-oh-tee.  I mentally corrected her: ky-ote)  She thought it was so cool to see a coyote just running across the street in the middle of the city.  Pretty soon half of the class was telling stories about how they occasionally see coyotes and javelinas running around and how they find it fascinating.  I was thinking, "big deal.  I grew up on a farm.  I saw coyotes practically every other day out there."

The realization hit me again during our lunch break.  I went to lunch with the two girls I have been working with.  After it came up that I was from a very small town, we saw a dog almost jump out of the backseat of an suv.  I don't remember the conversation exactly, but I mentioned how sometimes when I was little, we'd take our dogs places in the back of the truck.  Here's what was said next:
Sarah:  What if they jumped out and you were going really fast or something?
Ashley:  Well we didn't take them everywhere.  It's not like we loaded them up to go into town or anything.
Sarah:  Haha you're so country!  "Go into town!"  That's so funny!
Apparently I was the only one in the vehicle who had to "go into town" to do "city things" growing up.  But come to think of it, I think "going out of town" would have been a more appropriate term since we had to leave town to get to some place that even had a grocery store.

We got back to school about 15 minutes before class started, so we were locked out.  We were sitting there talking about this and that, and more evidence of my country-ness was there on my feet.  I was wearing cowboy boots.

I come by it rightfully though.  My parents came to visit this weekend.  When we went to lunch, a little boy in front of us kept looking at my dad very excitedly.  I turned to my mom and whispered, "I bet that little boy's thinking 'Wow! A real cowboy!'"

So I'm a little (maybe a lot?) country. Big deal.
You know what my response is gonna be next time someone tells me that?
"Thank you."