Observations on Living in California

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of accompanying my friend and her husband to the car dealership as they were looking to upgrade their Ultimate Driving Machine to a higher model. As my friend and I drove out to meet her husband at the dealership she remarked that the people at her husband's work seemed to talk a lot about what kind of car everyone drove and what neighborhood they lived in. I believe that that's generally true in California people do talk a lot about what kind of car you drive and everyone is very aware of what kind of car all their friends and colleagues drive. In Minnesota one of the first questions people asked was how do you have children and looked on me with barely hidden pity when I said no. I was then generally left out of a good portion of the conversation. Having kids is not something I can easily do anything about, or something I'm even remotely interested in. But driving a fancy car, that I can do. And everyone can have an intelligent conversation about cars, even if what they drive is fairly ordinary they have an opinion about it. To me the stereotype of Californians talking about cars isn't just a materialistic hangup, it's saying I'm trying to include you in the conversation by introducing a topic we can all talk about even if I look down on you and your inferior driving machine.