People Explain The 'City Things' That Country People Would Never Understand

Image by Olexy @Ohurtsov from Pixabay

Moving to a larger metropolitan area may result in culture shock to those from rural parts of the country.

As someone who has only lived in major cities, I still found the move from Los Angeles to New York being quite the wake up call.

I had gotten accustomed to being stuck in gridlock traffic for most of my commutes in sunny LA. But when I got to Gotham, I loved the convenience of the MTA subway system.

However, the questionable odor while in transit is something I don't care to get used to.

I also realized the denizens of the Empire State were not rude as West Coasters maintained. Well, at least not everyone.

I had come to learn, we – speaking as a New Yorker now after living here for 20 years – are no-nonsense when in certain social interactions. We are very direct and not time wasters.

Which brings us to the subject of what city folks know over those who come small towns.

Redditor bruhcharlie asked:

"People who live in cities, what are some 'city things' country people don't understand?"

Something's Afoul

"That downtown smell that smells like piss? It's piss..."

– CantTakeMeSeriously

"Big cities make their own gravy when it rains."

– MontyVonWaddlebottom

Going The Distance

"Walking somewhere close will always be faster than going there by a car."

– nikamsumeetofficial

Where Nobody Knows Your Name

"The anonymity can be freeing."

– Pseudonymico

"I walk down the street in my small town assuming everyone has contact with my parents and that it will get back to them. The mom network was a truly devastating thing when in high school."

– pirated_vhsvendor

Pets

"Having a dog will make you socialize a lot. When you're walking it, people with other dogs will stop to let your dogs sniff each other and you'll chitchat. Little children will want to pet your dog, and old people will tell you that your dog reminds them of their old dogs. Also, the probability that people stop you to ask for directions will significantly increase, I guess because they assume you live in the neighbourhood."

– No_Face_Spirit

"Being polite and talking to everyone who talks to you will get you finessed."

"Eye contact is an invitation to talk. Smiling is an invitation to talk. People in the city aren't rude for avoiding these, they're just tired of every conversation they have with a stranger ending in them getting asked for something."

– Throwmeout43212345

Eyes Down

"I didn't really appreciate this sentiment when I first moved from the suburbs to the city. Any time someone would stop me for a question, I would always engage in dialogue. 99.9% of the time it was someone asking for money with some sob story about why they needed it. The first few months, I gave away all my spare change, every time (I moved to the city in October when the weather was starting to turn cooler)."

"By the time spring rolled around, I was starting to learn how to stop looking like an easy mark. I stopped making eye contact with everyone and ignored folks who were a reasonable distance away when they called out to me - pretending I couldn't hear them."

"But I'll never forget the first time I really got to that point of straight up no engagement. I was walking home from work and a woman standing right next to me said she wanted to ask me a question. I promptly shut her down with a 'Nope!' and kept walking. It was that moment that I realized, for good or bad... the city had changed me."

– row_the_boat_0115

Conveniences

"I just moved from a small town on the west coast to a medium sized city on the east coast. It's crazy that you can just go out and DO things. You don't have to drive for two hours to go to the mall, you just go. I can have food delivered to my house in minutes and Amazon does next day delivery! It's awesome!! Also, cable internet is pretty sweet after having satellite for so long. One question though: what's with all of the hibachi restaurants?"

– steampunkedunicorn

No Time For Chit Chat

"It's not that we aren't friendly, there are just so many people we can't say hello and chat with everyone or we never get to our destinations."

"I love going to small towns and just dialing my brain back 20mph and enjoying the people. Small talk, hitting yard sales, visiting small restaurants where the staff engage you."

– MadLintElf

The Compromise

"The suburbs/country gives you a lot of physical space and physical freedom. But no internal space or internal freedom. Everyone is up your business. HOAs, small town gossip etc"

"Big cities, you have no personal space. Everything is crowded. So the compromise is you get so much more internal space. There could be 100 people in a cafe but not a soul looks at you. Because the only space you have in the city is internal space."

"Country people think it's rude that city folk ignore people. It's not. It's a favor. It's nice."

– nderhjs

The Healthy Route

"It is faster for me to ride my bike to work than it is to drive, and I feel healthier both physically and mentally."

– jizz_bismarck

Grocery Shopping

"in the city it best to only shop for what you can carry anyway. typically the logisitics of loading a car with grocieries that require multiple trips to drag from where you park to your place makes it inefficient. best to shop often on way home and only buy what you can carry."

"Edit. I never did this but spoke with people who had canned and dry goods delivered and the shop only for pershiables."

– grambell789

Traffic

"Driving 10 miles can sometimes take 60 minutes, depending on how bad the traffic is. That's why if you suggest to go to a restaurant two towns over, someone might say it's too far of a drive."

– Upnorth4

Apartment Living

"Living in a downtown apartment isn't some kind of oppressive hell. Not everyone wants to maintain a huge house or deal with lawn-mowing bylaw requirements. Many people don't give a sh*t about gardening and just need space for their bed, desk, and computer, especially if they are single and live alone. A downtown apartment in cities like NYC or Toronto is also likely to be within walking distance to all sorts of restaurants, shops, and other services. Many people love being able to do this for exercise."

"On the same note, taking public transport is not some kind of freedom-lacking hell. It's only hell if you believe it is. Many people love the freedom of being able to read books or catch up on TV shows or play games during their commutes, instead of staring at traffic for an hour each way. Many people don't give a shit about cars and prefer not paying for maintenance, insurance, etc."

– nsci2ece

Instant Gratification

"Deciding you need a new potato peeler, some daffodil bulbs, a pizza and a can of housepaint at 3:48am, and being able to get them."

– klc81

city

People Break Down The Biggest Changes You'd See In 'Harry Potter' If It Were Set In The U.S.

Image by tookapic from Pixabay

Can you see Harry Potter at a football game in the Midwest? Chowing on a corn dog, throwing back some good ole Pepsi-Cola? Or can you picture the Harry universe living and loving in the great U. S of A? What would casting look like against the backdrop of the great harvest plains? I have so many thoughts and ideas. The first thought, the change would never work. Keep the story alive on British soil.

But, for fun, let's chat about the idea.

Redditor u/Cuish wanted all the Potter heads out there to share what American tweeks would occur in the Potterverse within America, by asking:

If Harry Potter was set in the United States, how would the story change?
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harry potter

People Break Down Which Tasks Are Not As Simple As People Think They Are

Luke van Zyl/Unsplash

Life isn't as simple as one may think. It's not always easy to take a step back and look at the big picture, but when there's over seven billion people on the planet, there's no way things are as cut and dry as they seem.

Everyone's experiences are different going through life. We may not be able to see the complexities it if we haven't lived it ourselves.

So we went to Reddit because we wanted to see what's not as simple as people think it is.

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challenges

People Explain Which Double Standards Need To End Immediately

RobinHiggins/Pixabay

Double standards are something we all live with and, quite likely, find extremely annoying. Things like men being expected to hide their emotions—or not have them at all—or women being expected to stay home and support a couple's children, everyone is generally harmed by double standards.

This is especially true when the double standard isn't clear until someone violates it and then has to deal with anger, ridicule, or sometimes even violence as a result.

Content Note: this article mentions suicide and sexual assault, reader discretion advised.

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double standards

People Describe The Most Valuable Item They've Ever Found In The Garbage

Image by jacqueline macou from Pixabay

They say one man's trash is another man's treasure - and sometimes that saying is pretty literal.

Lots of people build entire businesses picking up cool stuff on bulk-pickup trash day, and upcycling it into something even better that people are willing to pay for.

Sometimes, you might even end up with something pristine and usable right away.

Reddit user JampackedAlborn1976 asked:

What is the most valuable item that you have seen somebody throw away or have found in the garbage?

And for real ... some of these people scored BIG TIME. Like big time. Like really big.

Like Refrigerator Big

just ask leslie jones GIF by Saturday Night Live Giphy

"Our current refrigerator is a double-door one with exterior ice and water dispensers. We got it for free, with absolutely no problems whatsoever. It's just a few years old."

"How we got it? My dad (civil engineer) was doing some work on someone's apartment when they said they had bought a new modern French door refrigerator and that they were just going to discard their current refrigerator."

"My dad simply asked if he could have it.. and they said yes." - SauloJr

Immigrants In Action

Dog Brazil GIF Giphy

"I immigrated to the US from Brazil when I was 12. And every Saturday, my mom, stepdad, sister and I would go out at night to upper middle class neighborhoods the day before trash pickup to rummage through the garbage they were putting out."

"We found perfectly good TVs, VCRs, microwaves, couches, lazy boys, tables, books and comics, etc."

"I couldn't believe these Americans were throwing out like that. We furnished our entire house with that stuff. The entire Brazilian immigrant community in my town did it. We were flabbergasted." - PhillipLlerenas

With A Note

Television Bunny GIF Giphy

"My wife yelled at me that someone put a big TV outside with a note on it. Walked across the street and it was a brand new Samsung 37 inch HDTV."

"They were actually renovating the apartment building and got an upgraded TV. Even had the remote taped to it with batteries, I guess I have really nice neighbors here in NYC." - MadLintElf

Life Hack!

studying busy philipps GIF by Drunk History Giphy

"If you want high end stuff out of the garbage for free, follow these steps:"

"Pick a city with a large university in it. If it's a school well known for its law programs, or medical, or engineering, all the better."

"Search for luxury apartment complexes that market themselves towards students. Look for things like included shuttle service, pools, fitness centers, etc. The more expensive and swanky the better."

"Figure out when finals week is at the end of Spring semester."

"Dumpster dive at those luxury apartment complexes during that week and the following weekend."

"Very wealthy international students will arrive in the US, fully outfit an apartment with nice furniture, big TVs, audio systems, gaming consoles, you name it, and when the semester ends they just junk it all because they aren't going to fly it back to wherever, and it's too much effort to spend the time selling when they do not care about the money."

"It's a smaller scale phenomenon a little like all the luxury cars abandoned at the airport in Dubai." - whattothewhonow

Literal Gold Treasure

valley of the boom david kim stanley GIF by National Geographic Channel Giphy

"I found a gold coin at goodwill for 5 bucks. It was in a case with someone's name and company name."

"It was their gift from the company for retiring. I assume the family threw it out when he died not knowing it was solid gold. It was in a in a thick solid plastic case that had to be cracked opened."

"It literally said 1 oz fine gold on it. I figured 5 bucks was worth the risk it not being real."

"It was a South African KRUGERRAND 1 oz coin. Everyone was just too busy to read it lol."

"Bought it and took it too a pawn shop and sold it for a couple grand." - streetmitch

The Best Day Of My Life

Will Smith Wow GIF by 1LIVE Giphy

"When I was a kid, I grew up right outside the Los Angeles area in the suburbs. My stepdad was a garbage truck driver for the city of Beverly Hills."

"I swear in the late 80s and early 90s we'd have so much basically brand new stuff (still in boxes) brought home on a regular basis."

"I'll never forget one day in particular. My stepdad came home and was like 'get ready, come to the car, I'll need your help.' So I go down there and in back seat of his car he had a few large black garbage bags."

"We haul them up to our apartment and he's like 'go ahead, open them.' Inside was what I could only describe as an 80s kids trove of treasures."

"One bag contained just about every Ghostbusters and GI joe toy you can imagine, they were played with but had every little accessory, there was a bunch the playsets and everything."

"In the other bag was pretty much every LEGO of the early 80s sets, still in their original boxes. I was a big LEGO nerd but was totally thrown off by the old school space ones because they looked nothing like the 90s space sets. I think they even said "NASA" the minifig's chests."

"That was like a random day in July, it felt like Christmas. I was 9 years old and it was basically like the best day of my life up to that point." - Zombgief

Who Throws Away Money?

spongebob squarepants money GIF Giphy

"A jar full of quarters."

"Annual spring cleaning projects happen in a lot of towns where anyone can put almost anything on the curb and it's taken away for free. It's to stop open dumping or stuff being dumped in ditches."

"Sometimes people deal with estates from winter by just dumping all their grandfather's stuff on the curb for the cleanup to get the house empty immediately. Most often they don't even bother to look at what they are throwing away."

"In 2012 on north road in Akwesasne I found an estate pile that I shuttled back and forth with my bike trailer getting lots of older tools like a scythe, hammers, saws, screwdrivers and wrenches, a 22 rifle with 100 round of ammo, a bunch of ar15 magazines, cast iron cookware, oil lamps, a hand crank food mill with all kinds of accessories, a black raven axe head (worth $100 easily since they are a collectable), and a quart size mason jar full of change mostly quarters."

"That was spring and the sheriffs office did a gun buyback in the fall where I took the mags and got $20 each for them (30 round mags suddenly illegal under the safe act of fall 2012. The buyback was a local political move). I still got the 22 and picked off a lot of woodchuck with it in my gardens." - Bogtrotterso1980

Filing Fever

Files Workload GIF Giphy

"I own a small company which is located directly in front of a state funded program facility. The state decided to have this office shred all of their files as they were going to switch to electronic data (exclusively)."

"We found two of these old rotary filing cabinets outside of their office. They're worth almost $3k each!"

"They just placed them there and we saw them and asked what they planned on doing with them. They said, 'Hmmm.....either donate them or trash them.' The state told them simply to get rid of them."

"We jumped at this and took the two into our already tiny office because there was no way in hell that we were going to let these gems go. (We do use paper files, unfortunately)."

"They wanted to give us two smaller ones but seriously, our office is very small. I made some phone calls and they were picked up immediately by other office workers/friends." - GlitzBlitz

This Sucks - In A Good Way!

mrs doubtfire vacuum GIF Giphy

"In the 1990s my moms work had a really nice high end Hoover that stopped working. They threw it out."

"My mom took it home because my dad tinkers and repairs things easily. Turns out since it was a bagged vacuum all the dummies had to do is REPLACE THE BAG."

"Like it never occurred to them to do the most easy and basic step. My parents were excited to have a really upgraded vacuum. Maybe like $500ish." - schweddyboobs

Tiffany's Trash

Audrey Hepburn Movie GIF by The Good Films Giphy

"My dad found an old stained glass window laying out by someone's trash. He thought it would look cool hanging in our cabin, so he stopped and grabbed it."

"It sat in our garage for a few years before he looked at it more closely and found "Tiffany and Co." branding on it. He got in touch with some stained glass window dude who figured it was worth about $40k fully restored, so my dad sold it to him for somewhere around $30k." - throwaway_stopdrink

Have you had any awesomely trashtastic treasures? Let us know!

garbage