A Weird Pocket in the Universe

It’s been a while. How about another foray into the world of Other People’s Tweets? Today’s episode starts with this question:

72% of all adults live within 20 miles from where they grew up. How far do you live from home? I’m 14 miles away from where I grew up.

Person A:

I live 29 miles away from my childhood home, but honestly Western Howard County is basically a completely different country compared to Baltimore. The dude I married is less than 10 miles away from his childhood home, though. And we cannot go a single place without him running into someone he knows.

Person B:

Heck, I knew some girls from Columbia, and they were total space aliens to me!

Person A:

I spent my entire 20s in deep reprogramming.

Person B:

As well you should! Life is not like Howard County!

Person C:

I grew up in Silver Spring and ended up going to UMBC and living in Baltimore County and yeah... Columbia is like its own little weird pocket in the universe. Can’t explain it lmao.

Hmmm...

If I didn’t know better I’d think this was some snappy dialogue from a Broadway play or a witty new sitcom. It’s almost too good to be true. What do you think would happen in this imaginary play? Would you go see it?

We spend a lot of time being so embedded in our own surroundings that we don’t get exposed much to what other folks think of us. I found this exchange interesting. It was clearly irreverent but not mean-spirited. I wanted to see where this conversation went, to learn more. But, alas, this is all that there is: one brief snippet in the vast ocean of Twitter.

I will never know why those Columbia girls seemed like aliens or why life is not like Howard County. Do you? Can you imagine where this conversation might go?

If I were a multimillionaire I’d commission a play based on this exchange. Or maybe it would be fun to have a contest which would produce multiple results. Just think: an entire festival of “Life is not like Howard County”!

Who knows? Eventually it could become a musical and we could all go see it at Toby’s. A little meta, perhaps.

Have you ever seen a conversation on Twitter that seized your imagination?

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