Okay, so here’s the deal:

The city of Edmond, Oklahoma, is, without a doubt, my least favorite place on the entire planet. I hate it more than Houston, which is the ugliest, most unpleasant city on Earth; more than Brindisi, Italy, where I was scammed out of a whole bunch of money by merchants who feed on people traveling to Greece by boat; and more than Padua, Italy, where I was accosted by African hookers.

I hate Edmond, Oklahoma, and when I was there today, doing some Christmas shopping at Target, the following happened. It’s a perfect picture of why I hate that town, and everything it represents, so very, very much:

Brian and I pulled up to a parking space in Target after swinging by his office for a second, to grab something we needed. Target is around the corner and so we went to try to find a certain present for my dad. We pulled into a space, and when I got out of the car I noticed that there was an unattended shopping cart full of food – and a case of Miller High Life – sitting behind the car next to ours.

I was looking around for the person who may have left this cart, and I saw her: a middle-aged woman with a bitter look on her face, yelling, "Excuse me!" and pushing a cart between our two cars. Also, full to the brim with groceries. Fine, whatever, it’s Christmas. The place is open tomorrow and the 26th, is all I’m sayin’.

"I have to squeeze through here because people park too damn close!" she screeched at her friend that was with her. You know, that thing where someone’s trying to make a point but doesn’t have the stones to actually say it to you, so they say it loudly to the person they’re with? That thing. That lame, chickenshit thing.

Brian and I heard, and stopped.

"Happy Birthday Jesus!" I said loudly, bitterly.

"Merry Christmas!" he said, simultaneously.

And sure, we were parked close to her, but we were in the lines, completely legal, and frankly, had she asked nicely, I’d have been more than happy to move the car over a few inches. Instead, I kept walking into the store.

*****

So we go in the store, do our shopping, and are standing in line, waiting for the person in front of us to complete her $640 transaction of nothing but toys. The register is near the photo center, which is being manned by a teenager in a red Target polo. As he stands there, he is approached by a beautiful, obviously-rich teenage girl, who obviously knows him. Her expression is pure derision; she’s looking at him like she would look at her shoe after stepping in pig crap.

"Oh my God," she says, her voice rife with disgust, "you have a job?"

*****

Last year my friend Jon Warren wrote a wonderful, beautiful, insightful and intelligent post about why the suburbs suck, and I think everyone should read it RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE. In it he expresses my own thoughts on suburban life more eloquently than I ever could.

Also, I was raised in the ‘burbs on the south side of Oklahoma City, and I have a bunch of friends who grew up there with me, many of whom still live there, happy, fulfilling lives with beautiful homes and children. But also, these are people who would not curse loudly at a stranger in a parking lot TWO DAYS BEFORE CELEBRATING THE BIRTH OF THEIR PERSONAL SAVIOR.

It’s just not the life for me, what with no children and a desire to eat food that was actually prepared AT the restaurant where I’m eating, not in a warehouse in Omaha, then frozen in giant blocks and delivered to the local Olive Garden, where people delude themselves into thinking they’re having an "authentic" Italian meal prepared by a chef. Dooce has a wonderful rant about Olive Garden that I ALSO think you should read.

The point is, I’m pretty sour on the ‘burbs today, but four hours of battling holiday traffic will do that to a person. I swear to God, I’m SO tempted to burn all my presents and make my family spend the holiday keying Hummers and then volunteering at a homeless shelter, not out of the goodness of our hearts, but to see the horrified looks on the faces of evil suburbanites when we tell them.

And that’s probably not a good reason to do it.