The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

Related Content

The Farmer's Insurance Group issued a study of the "Most Secure" places in the U.S. this month, and I have to wonder to myself - what kind of paranoia has to take hold of someone that they're actually willing to take advice on where to live from a list upon which Boise, Idaho is ranked second among large metropolitan areas? Seriously? People are so concerned for their lives and the potential for typhoons and other nigh-biblical disasters that they need to reference a list of places where shit never happens? Really? Are there really people so milquetoast that their fondest desire, the thing that makes their hips shift in a tiresomely boring man's approximation of passion, is to wake up in the morning to headlines that read: "New building has plenty of room" or "City will make tree goal"? Is this what we've come to as a society? Are we on track to become a civilization of gutless shut-ins and risk averse pansies? This may explain the success of Netflix, if nothing else.

But, I say thee nay! I can't bring myself to believe we've fallen so far since the heady ancestral days of Americans tromping all willy-nilly through any number of dangerous places they weren't wanted. Sure, maybe some folks to our south in scenic Ames, Iowa (number 13 on the list of small towns!), or St. Cloud (#19 on the list of mid-sized cities and home of the burning swastika!) harbor fond fantasies of pastoral days spent marveling at how pants-tighteningly dull life can be, but not I. No, gentle reader, I would miss the heady thrill of something - anything - changing (since I would go bat-shit crazy in a town where the only change is in the cow to human ratio). I would miss the guessing game I play every day as I get off 94 headed home and try to figure out what song the panhandler on the off-ramp is dancing to whilst strumming his cardboard disabled veteran sign. But most of all, I would miss the schadenfreude. Because in the sun-dappled Pennsylvania Dutch utopia that is Lancaster PA (#9 on the list of mid-sized cities!), the Amish are unfailingly polite, and buggy accidents are rarely fatal.

So, in the words of local philosopher/rapper P.O.S.:

Let me give a little cause to the flickering sun

Stop, drop, then gimme props, gimme gunshots

Gimme all that work, gimme age spots.

Gimme all that hurt, gimme snapshots.

Lemme get a photograph and laugh under your bad news

And that, my friends, is why I live in #214 (out of 379 rated) on the list. Twisted? Maybe. But tell me, when was the last time a professional football player entertained Logan, UT residents by getting caught in a compromising situation involving strippers and illegal pharmaceuticals whilst nearby lines stretched for blocks to see the fruit of a once-local stripper's loins?