One bourbon, one scotch, and one mav

Welcome to sunny (not really) Southern Idaho!

If you’re moving here from a “Liberal Haven” (including but not limited to California and most of the Northeast) you’ll not want to mention that in conversation, at least not until you’ve lived here long enough to be accepted, or you will be regarded with immediate suspicion. If you fuck up and mention it too early, you can usually counter the effect by mentioning one of these things:

• you own a gun (and can describe it in detail)
• you enjoy hunting or fishing (for the love of god, don’t mention any outdoor activities that don’t involve killing)
• you are Mormon
• you are a huge football fan
• you own a vintage American muscle car or a Harley-Davidson

Extra points if 2 or more apply. If you’re planning on faking any one of these things, make sure you’re not going to half-ass it. When it comes to hunting, guns or Mormonism, native Idahoans can sense a faker even through a bourbon-addled drunken haze. It’s an inborn trait.

In addition, here are some facts you may found useful:

• Small talk between strangers is required to not seem like you’re from a big city. However, too much small talk is creepy. You’ll figure it out.
• Not going to church regularly is only OK if you’re using the extra time to watch football or NASCAR.
• If you’re male, crying one (or possibly two) tears during a particularly patriotic movie scene or song is required. No tears means you’re a commie liberal, more than two tears means you’re gay. Also, crying anytime the American flag isn’t on the screen automatically means you’re gay by default.
• J.R. Simplot and/or Micron Tech is evil, until you’re applying for a job somewhere, and then they are really awesome.
• BSU is the best college football team ever.
• Don’t worry about not being able to drive on ice, even though everyone drives a huge 4WD SUV or truck nobody else here knows how to drive on ice either.
• The only local news sources stop short of actually using the phrase “liberal scum,” but only because they think that avoiding it preserves “journalistic integrity.”
• If you’re planning to fly anywhere, you’ll be driving to Boise, as every airport in Southern Idaho is one tarmac strip away from a field of weeds.
• No matter how much precipitation is received during the winter months, we’ll still be in a drought.
• Anything north of McCall/New Meadows is Northern Idaho, and there isn’t anything except liberals and White Supremacists up there.
• Those people who do all the menial labor on farms are “Mexicans”. If you don’t call them that, then you’re a politically correct hippie and you should go back to San Francisco. In addition, if you live in Twin Falls, everywhere that isn’t Twin Falls is filled with them.
• “A night with the family” means either watching a nice politically correct movie on PAX-TV, or going to Wal-Mart. (Replace Wal-Mart with Target or Costco if the family in question owns a home.)