I think I’ve finally come up with a good answer to people’s
invariable response to my mentioning of living in Hawaii. There are a few
topics Ive found that when brought up, 100% of people have exact same response.
The first of which, I discovered a few years ago when I got stung by a teeny
tiny itty bitty baby scorpion.
Its entire
body was less than the length of my pinky nail so I imagine it was maybe ¼ of
an inch long or so. And EVERY single person said to me without fail “it’s worse
to get stung by a baby because they don’t know how to control their venom yet
like adults” I cannot confirm nor deny
the validity of that, however I have done some speculation as to why everyone
felt the need to tell me that. I can
only assume that due to the obscure nature of that fact (or old wives tale-
whichever it actually is) people maybe feel that they are the only ones on the
planet who have this little nugget of info in their knowledge arsenal and need
to share it whenever an opportunity presents itself all the whole advertising
their unparalleled scorpion trivia. But
as it turns out, pretty much everyone on the planet has heard this and I bet
very few of them know if it’s actually true.
The second example is the general populous’s response to my
previous residence in Hawaii or plan to return.
“But isn’t Hawaii so expensive?”
I think this statement is intended to be somewhere between a rhetorical question and just a general statement to show that they have never been to Hawaii and once upon a time had a conversation with someone else who had never been to Hawaii and for some reason had a conversation about Hawaii concluded that Hawaii is expensive because someone else who hadn’t been there said so. Making this comment at least 3rd generation “no empirical evidence to support it” claim. I say this because if any of these people had actually been to Hawaii, their overwhelming memory would have been of the beauty of the islands, not how much they paid for a poke bowl at Foodland. Also, the word “expensive” is really a comparison and isn’t quantitative by nature. Sure Hawaii is probably expensive if your frame of reference is Unemployment-ville, Arkansas. But if you had been living in say Bali or Guatemala, even middle-of-no-where Arkansas would probably seem outrageous. If you live in Manhattan or San Fransisco, Maui probably seems reasonable or maybe even cheap. And just as I would imagine, that common sense should imply (but apparently doesn’t to most people) when you live somewhere that costs more, generally make more money. Most people that I know in Maui work at restaurants and often times make upwards of $40/hr. I wouldn’t argue rent doesn’t cost a little more than middle America, but I don’t think you can make that kind of money when you can buy a 3 br house for $6,000.
So after spending frankly too much time going to these lengthy and maybe kind of abrasive conversations, I’ve come up with a new response “I don’t want to live somewhere cheap, I want to live somewhere awesome.” I am however SUPER thankful that some people would rather live somewhere cheap otherwise there would probably be close to 7 billion people trying to squeeze into a few awesome little spots on the globe. But for me, you can’t put a price on living where others want to vacation.
I think this statement is intended to be somewhere between a rhetorical question and just a general statement to show that they have never been to Hawaii and once upon a time had a conversation with someone else who had never been to Hawaii and for some reason had a conversation about Hawaii concluded that Hawaii is expensive because someone else who hadn’t been there said so. Making this comment at least 3rd generation “no empirical evidence to support it” claim. I say this because if any of these people had actually been to Hawaii, their overwhelming memory would have been of the beauty of the islands, not how much they paid for a poke bowl at Foodland. Also, the word “expensive” is really a comparison and isn’t quantitative by nature. Sure Hawaii is probably expensive if your frame of reference is Unemployment-ville, Arkansas. But if you had been living in say Bali or Guatemala, even middle-of-no-where Arkansas would probably seem outrageous. If you live in Manhattan or San Fransisco, Maui probably seems reasonable or maybe even cheap. And just as I would imagine, that common sense should imply (but apparently doesn’t to most people) when you live somewhere that costs more, generally make more money. Most people that I know in Maui work at restaurants and often times make upwards of $40/hr. I wouldn’t argue rent doesn’t cost a little more than middle America, but I don’t think you can make that kind of money when you can buy a 3 br house for $6,000.
So after spending frankly too much time going to these lengthy and maybe kind of abrasive conversations, I’ve come up with a new response “I don’t want to live somewhere cheap, I want to live somewhere awesome.” I am however SUPER thankful that some people would rather live somewhere cheap otherwise there would probably be close to 7 billion people trying to squeeze into a few awesome little spots on the globe. But for me, you can’t put a price on living where others want to vacation.
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