Anonymous wrote:
1. Everyone not from the DMV thinks you mumble when you talk, but you and your friends understand each other perfectly
2. you don't understand when people say they can buy a nice house for 250k
3. "5 miles" can mean a place is 20 min away or 1 hour and 20 minutes, depending on time of day
4. You remember when parking on the Mall was free
5. It is likely that you are a first generation DMV person, growing up in the area with parents from outside the area. However, you consider yourself a heritage Midwesterner. Although when you go back to Illinois for Thanksgiving, you don't quite understand how people can live in that winter, every winter.
6. What, the kids at your K-12 school didn't speak 43 languages at home?
7. At least 50% of your friends parents are lawyers, or were lawyers. They are universally miserable, and yet 50% of your friends are now lawyers, too. So much for all those high GPAs and test scores, some people never learn.
8. Snow is a beautiful thing that shuts down the whole world. No one should ever been expected to function when snow is falling, or could be reasonably expected to fall within the next 24 to 48 hours.
9. As an adult, the chance of running into friends from HS at the supermarket or whatever is infinitesimal, because everyone moves away (the Heritage Midwesterner often returns to the nest).
It should not be such a surprise, because you don't live there anymore, either.
10. It will always be National Airport
Totally with you on 7-10. I do have some high school friends here but most of my HS classmates (Sidwell) are elsewhere.
I'd add: When you meet someone local, the first question is about where you each went to high school. (I met someone last week, we are both over 50, and the first question he asked me was about where I went to high school).