A Cidiot By Any Other Name

There's a town in Minnesota that my girlfriend calls home.

A town on the banks of the mighty Mississippi, with friendly locals and... I better stop myself before Mark Twain's estate is asking for royalties.

It’s a place built on the history of nearly going to war with a group of Native blueberry salesmen. A town built on the back of the railroad. A town built on the back of the lumber industry.

It’s the kind of place where family and the high school football team are king, a place blessed with scenic wooded areas and more then it’s share of Minnesota's ten thousand lakes (the state actually has 11,842 lakes but they rounded it down to ten thousand for tax purposes.)

The natural beauty of the region calls to the people of nearby cities. Drawing them in every summer they come in their campers, SUV's, and hummers, clogging and congesting the streets, beaches, and ultimately after learning beer and 250 worth of horse power don't mix, the emergency rooms.

Granted when your town swells to triple its size and the end of the weekend means traffic jams at all exits, you tend to regard these visitors with a little disdain.

And so the first time I flew down to Minnesota I was greeted by my girlfriend's family sitting on the porch, musing over the havoc the tourists were wreaking this particular weekend, or as they called them, cidiots.

Cidiot: A city dweller in the country, a fish out of water, or as my girlfriend’s family would more colourfully put it: a person who left what little brains they had back in the city.

I laughed along at the stories of mishaps caused by ghostly pale city dwellers that got their brand new fishing lures hooked into themselves.

Then it hit me.

I was born in the heart of downtown Toronto, largest city in Canada, fifth largest in North America. I grew up riding the subway and eating dinner from a street vendor hocking hot dogs.

Sure for college I suddenly found myself attending a school in the midst of a cow pasture, but not without graduating before fleeing from a drug sniffing dog I confused for a wolf (an explanation for running that only made the campus security guard more suspicious).

To make matter’s worse, I once got a fish hook stuck in me…

Fine, I’ll say it, stuck in my butt.

Being in front of my girlfriend’s parents for the first time, sitting on their front deck as the dog ran around the edge of the woods, breathing in pine scented air (and no, my city dwelling friends, not horrible pine car freshener, I’m talking the real thing.) Sitting there sipping lemonade in a rocking chair… okay perhaps the lemonade part is made up by my big city stereotyping mind, but they’ve got two rocking chairs!

Sitting there I realized, I am a cidiot.

I feed off the hustle of the city, the countless faces with countless stories. The sight of a Starbucks on every corner feels like home, and yeah, so what if I call the smallest of streams a river, at least I understand the difference between a Grande and a Venti.

So maybe I am a cidiot I thought, is that so bad? Is it wrong to not know how to tie a knot or know the difference between poison oak and poison ivy if Wikipedia isn’t a fingers length away?

When you’re from a sheltered little corner of a big city, the world that isn’t a subway stop away may often surprise you. Even more so if it’s beyond taking the subway then catching the 192 bus.

So yes, the world is a misadventure waiting to happen when you grew up in a John Hughes film, but it is a misadventure that I invite you along on every Tuesday for the next few weeks, months, or years.

My name is Derek Robertson, I am a stand-up comedian, screenwriter and director, and these are the Confessions of a Cidiot.

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