Perfectville

If you were born in Perfectville you probably grew up knowing you were better than everyone else. Your family was more intelligent, more beautiful, more real, more moral, more everything!

And woe to those who weren't!

Let anyone do something new or progressive and the town would buzz with horror. I remember when my uncle began jogging early in the morning during the seventies. Rumors ran from he was on his way to the crazy house, to maybe he was some kind of pervert you needed to keep your children away from.

Perfectville is like one of those bubble nests that fish make when they are laying eggs. Every household is a bubble of perfectly grandiose, better than thou people who tolerate their neighbors (who are under the false assumption that they are better than everyone.)

The main topics of conversation are not about literature, or ideas, or conservation. They are mainly about people and how tasteless, horrifying, stupid and put upon those people are.

You cannot escape Perfectville. By the time you are old enough to leave you have been steeped in the ways and means of surviving there. Your mind is infused with nagging doubts about everything, especially yourself if you are a thinker. Smiles are worn over anxiety and always suspect. A look of downhearted despondency is the proper attire for most social occasions.

Signs of success include how miserable your job is, how difficult it is to maintain your yard (the harder the better,) and how much stuff you can stuff into your little part of God's holy acre. The needier your friends are, the better person you have the chance to be.

Breaking away from the plasma that attaches itself to you when you leave this town can take a lifetime.