You know you’re from Iowa if…
1. You are from a town that has nearly as many churches and bars as houses.
2. You bought a case of beer in one of those little towns when you were 16.
3. You live in a beautiful old house with transparent plastic sheeting over all the windows.
4. Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway.
5. “Vacation” to you means driving through the Amanas or going to Adventureland or Okoboji.
6. You’ve seen all the biggest bands ten years after they were popular.
7. Snow tires are standard on your car.
8. You “go into town.”
9. You have no concept of public transportation.
10. The only reason you go to Missouri is for fireworks.
11. You wear shorts when it’s 50° in March but bundle up and complain in August when it goes below 60°.
12. You have gone trick-or-treating in two feet of snow.
13. You “warsh” your clothes.
14. State wrestling was a big deal at your high school.
15. You measure distance in minutes.
16. The nearest Gap and Anne Taylor are 90 minutes away.
17. “Down South” to you means Missouri.
18. You know several people who have hit a deer.
19. You were allowed to get a school permit to drive at age 14 if you lived more than a mile away from school.
20. You have no problem spelling or pronouncing Des Moines.
21. You’ve ever played Iowa bingo with county road names while traveling from town to town (C-65, D-15, P-36, N-19, etc.)
22. You know the answer to the question, “Is this Heaven?”
23. Your school classes were cancelled because of cold.
24. Your school classes were cancelled because of heat.
25. You know what “Hawks” and “Clones” are.
26. You’ve ridden the school bus for an hour each way.
27. You’ve ever had to switch from heat to air conditioning in the same day.
28. You know what’s knee-high by the Fourth of July.
29. Stores don’t have bags, they have sacks.
30. You see people wearing bib overalls at funerals.
31. You see a car running in the parking lot at the store with no one in it no matter what time of the year it is.
32. You end your sentences with unnecessary prepositions. Example: “Where’s my coat at?” or “If you go to the mall, I want to go with.”
33. All the festivals across the state are named for a fruit or vegetable.
34. Detassling was your first job.
35. You’ve ever been on a geode hunt.
36. Your idea of a really great tenderloin is when the meat is twice as big as the bun and accompanied only by ketchup and a dill pickle slice.
37. You learn your pickup will run without a muffler.
38. You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.
39. You think of the four major food groups as beef, pork, beer, and Jell-O salad with marshmallows.
40. You drink “pop.”
41. When asked how your trip was to any foreign, exotic place, you say, “It was different.”
42. Going to Wal-Mart is your idea of fun.
43. Being a bit younger, you remember Terry Branstad as governor the whole time you were growing up.
44. You consider being called a Pork Queen an honor.
45. You carry jumper cables in your car.
46. You know what the numbers I-80, 280, and 380 mean.
47. You know what cow tipping is.
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Yeah… this really isn’t anything like what I know of Iowa…
I am a native Iowan and trust me, this is much like where I grew up. It’s probably different if you live in Des Moines or Cedar Rapids or Council Bluffs, but my hometown has a population of 1800. This was more accurate than you can know. So why isn’t this anything like what you know of Iowa?
That explains it, I live in Des Moines… and I really haven’t been to any other parts of Iowa… lol.
So, Sorry ’bout that… I didn’t know what place you were talking about.
I live about half an hour southwest of Waterloo, but there are a lot of little towns around here. Maybe we don’t have quite as many bars and churches as houses, but for the most part, I thought it was pretty accurate. You know those old jokes about the old man driving the lawnmower around town instead of his car (It’s normal to see an old man riding through town on a lawnmower)? My dad was that old man. No joke.
Haha!
I am most definately not saying those aren’t accurate… and heck, there are probably more bars and churches than houses here in Des Moines; I was just saying that I haven’t seen that side of Iowa. I should get out of the house more! Re-reading it, I can see things that happen everyday in DM that I don’t even notice are weird!
You should get out of the city! I used to think I wanted to live somewhere big like Des Moines or even a bigger city in a different state (primarily because in a small town, everyone knows your business, whether you like it or not), but the older I get, the more I realize that I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, even if I do occasionally mistake my backyard for Antarctica.
Yeeah, I don’t think I’d leave Des Moines…
It’s funny, I have been to 35/50 States and yet I have only been to 4 Iowa towns/cities.
A lot of the people here are just afraid of the steriotypes, not knowing that they are things they do everyday!
It’s true! I think a lot of what’s posted on the page Understanding the Midwest is really very true, too, especially the bit about every person in every pickup truck waving. I’ve been all over the eastern half of Iowa, but I haven’t seen much of the rest of the country. I would love to travel, I just can’t afford to. Which states have you been to, and where else in Iowa?
I have been to almost all the eastern, some of the western, and many of the southern states… I have been to several in the midwest; but I ususally travel for business, and the market for my line of business doesn’t usually involve the midwest.
In Iowa I have been to Boone, Sioux City, Cedar Rapids, and Marshall Town.
Yes, the pickup truck statement in the Understanding the Midwest page, and I didn’t even see anything wrong with it! It would feel quite weird to live in a place where people don’t do a lot of the things on that page. Sort of like this page, Understanding the Midwest was funny yet so very true!
I haven’t been to Sioux City, though I have an uncle who lives there. I’ve been to Boone a couple times, and Cedar Rapids and Marshalltown countless times, particularly the latter. I used to live about 20 minutes away from Marshalltown. I’ve been to several southern states and a few of the other midwestern states, but that’s about it. I think it would be fun to travel for business, but unfortunately, my line of work involves being chained to my desk for most of the day. What is that you do?
I am really missing out! This is making me consider going on a mini-vacation to Iowa cities!
My job is to check hospitals to make sure they are functioning correctly… kind of boring, but you travel a lot!
It really would be weird to live somewhere where people don’t do a lot of those things. I used to want to live in Hawaii, but I just can’t imagine not discussing the weather because I talk so much about it!
That sounds like an interesting job. I would love the travel, but I suppose there’s not a lot of time to do things that you want to do. That would probably detract a little from my enjoyment of traveling.
Weather is one of my main topics, I have to admit! It would be weird to live in a place like Hawaii, because it rains… then it’s sunny… over and over.
No, there really isn’t time to do much of what I want to do in my job.. but the company does supply me with a private jet, so I pretty much plan my itinerary. If I want to stay in a place one more day, I can. What do you do for a living?
That would be nice, at least you could see a couple things then. I’m a secretary in a law firm, so I get to deal with paperwork all day long. I love my job and the people I work with, but when things get slow, then it can be kind of a drag. We do a lot of tax work, though, so right now is anything but slow and it’ll get a whole lot worse before it gets better. February is always a crazy month because so many people come in for tax appointments.
Thanks for reminding me! I try to push taxes out of my mind until someone shoves them back in… but I suppose I should get on it! I was thinking, that it’s nice for you to work with the same people all the time… but I suppose I work with the same people, just not regularly.
How is the weather there? Here it is cold and snowy.
It is nice working with the same people when everyone gets along, which we all do.
It’s cold and snowy here, too, and we’re supposed to have flurries today. Oh, joy. It amazes me when I watch my son play in the snow to remember that once upon a time, I thought that was fun, too. Now? Now I can’t imagine rolling around in the snow and building snow forts and staying outside in all that dismal cold until being summoned back inside. I would much rather stay inside where it’s warm! I find that the older I get, the more I hate the cold.
I grew up in Des Moines and this is still extremely accurate.
It’s true. So so funny, but so so true.