2002-09-18 8:13 p.m.
Up (Yours) With People
Whatever people may tell you, there are some real cultural differences between the East Coast and the West Coa--
Dude, shut up! We do so have culture on the West Coast! And just whose diary do you think this is, anyway? Go write your own already, huh?
a-HEM.
There are some real differences between how we do things and how you East Coast types do them, and many of them don't show a lot of love for your West Coast counterparts.
You do weird things like call soda "pop," wear clothes that are far too dressy and actually believe that snow and ice are a good thing.
You forget that we're 3 hours earlier than you, especially when it comes to scheduling meetings. (Can't it wait until after your lunch? What's the hurry?)
You sneer at the suburbs in Southern California and then go and build places like Tyson's Corner.
You ignore our baseball teams until it suits you, then you buy Jason Giambi and threaten to unload Tim McCarver on us.
And worst of all -- in a show of brute, efficient dominance that is so very East Coast, as opposed to the gentle, mellow and, dare I say, loving West Coast way -- you dismiss our flipping-off technique as a mere "variation!"
East Coast children learn to flip people off like this. West Coast children are shamed and brutalized if they don't flip off like this. TheBoy and I have been doing intensive field research on this and our questioning of our friends from both coasts have confirmed this experience and revealed both ways as equally valid versions of the same gesture. (This included an informal poll at Rosh Hashanah dinner where we got all of TheBoy's relatives working the East Coast and West Coast variations for comparative purposes. Bubbe and Zadie must be spinning in their graves. But hey, at least it wasn't on Yom Kippur.)
But the East Coast authors of The Finger: A Comprehensive Guide to Flipping Off have taken advantage of their book contract to enforce what they believe to be the one, true and "correct" way of giving someone the finger -- the East Coast way. They even managed to get their version on the cover. But the history that they wrote describes the finger as a phallic gesture, and the West Coast Finger is unquestionably more anatomically correct.
It's heartbreaking that some East Coast people would write the much-needed, definitive book on The Finger and then warp history to their evil ends. But take heart, West Coasters -- our way pops up in the most unlikely places.