Although I may go back for the Macaroni Grill

I spent a good amount of time in the suburbs this weekend. Six hours at least. Which is a long time, people. Longer than a flight to London or my perceived length of any Ethan Hawke movie. And I’m not talking about Arlington or Alexandria, which in many spots are pretty much pseudo-suburbs, but the burbs farther out, the ones that make you reset your trip odometer to see just how deep into the wilderness you’ve really wandered, and then leave you surprised when your ailing car makes it there and back in one piece. I’m talking the real deal.

I’m not sure where it came from, but just as I do for minivans and people would vote for George W. again if they could, I have a hearty bias against the burbs. To me, they just scream PTA and lots of teenagers with headgear and eating at chain restaurants. Although those are great things – maybe not the headgear? – for the folks who choose them, I just cringe when I think about living there. I grew up in a town within an hour of New York City, a quiet place with oak tree-lined road where kids could play Kick the Can in the front street after dark. You couldn’t pick up eggs at the supermarket without running into someone, or several someones, you knew. It was a wonderful and nurturing place to grow up and I wouldn't trade it; I’ve just always known I didn’t want to live there as an adult. Being too far away from a city represents suffocation to me, like being with a boyfriend who doesn’t let you go out with your girlfriends anymore.

And so it was yesterday that I went out to a well-known DC suburb, prepared to hit golf balls and watch the Redskins lose and then get right on back to civilization. Kim made fun of me several times given that I wasn’t familiar with any of the major highways one would travel to get there from the city. I felt a tinge of pride at that.

And then I spent the rest of the day feeling somewhat like an idiot. Because contrary to what I’d pictured, people in these wilds weren’t carrying around multiple babies at a time, one strapped to the front of the mother, another squirming in a harness on her back, and yet another on her head. The landscape, although riddled with SUVs, wasn’t covered in minivans, and natives were eating more than string cheese and pudding cups. Those in their Sunday best didn’t try to recruit me for mass. The town was just like my beloved city, but with long-lost space and convenience. And more than two lanes of well-paved roadway to get you from A to B. Ingenious.

The suburbs were comfortable. They were easy. While there, I didn’t triple check that my car doors were locked (admittedly, I did check once). Things were just so spacious, so green, and so pristine! Where bees and pansies share the frame, why would you need to put a Club on your steering wheel? Do you need to be reminded, as I apparently did, that in this wonderland you can buy lettuce from Giant and Band-Aids from CVS and a fifth of Beam, all in the same shopping complex? And that even the teen salespeople know what customer service is? And that there’s parking? Sweet baby Jebus, the parking.

It’s a beautiful thing. All of it. And I stand corrected. But I’m still not moving there.