Recently I visited three states in three days. I traveled mostly by plane and during these flights I was asked on three separate occasions where I was from. When I replied Southern California I was pushed to provide more detail. Apparently everyone wants to get a city name because they just might know the exact location despite never really spending much time there. Must be an East coast geo-ninja skill that we don't have out in the West or maybe it's that we, who live in the West, don't really care much about anything past Vegas because we know that we live on the best side of the States.
"Orange County," I would reply.
"Oh, where the choppers are made!" I'll swear to Congress that's what they said each time. Three-different-people, on three-different-occasions.
"No," I shot back which produced a very puzzled look on their face.
"But they're in Orange County..." they stated, looking as if they were starting to piece facts together for their cross examination. Before they could finish laying out a chain of logic, I would cut-in and tell them that Orange County Choppers operates in upstate New York, not lower California.
This confused each inquisitors even more while they silently mouthed the words "orange" and "county."
"That I know of," I continued while they seemingly rang their index finger in the air, across an invisible globe, "there are three Orange Counties in the United States. One is in California, another in New York, and the third is located in Florida."
"Oh..." and the conversation would end after they added something about not knowing our country had so many Orange Counties and that they always assumed it was in southern California. To end the vocal water boarding I finished with a short monologue on the fact that in more than a handful of episodes of American Chopper, snow makes a big, big appearance. And that for that kind of weather to happen in Southern California is likely a meteorological impossibility in (Although earlier this decade we had a freak rain storm that produced a lot of hail in Santa Ana. The quantity and ferocity allowed for the frozen precipitation to collect on the ground and if you looked at it from the SkyChopper 5 Live-Feed, it looked like snow. This was enough for the inner-city youth to lie on the ground in front a local 7-11 to make what the reporter lady called "snow angels". I called it "sadness").
Anyway, lets repeat the lesson learned here. The popular dysfunctional family that makes hot rod motor bikes on television does so from their facilities located somewhere between Yonkers and Buffalo, not between San Diego and where OJ killed those people.
Please pass this information along to your friends, family, co-workers, and maybe that awkward guy on the train. Last thing we need during these times of crisis is for our fellow citizens to be confused about where the best choppers on the planet are born.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
Not as bad as when people ask where I'm from. I say Canada, and they ask "Vancouver or Toronto?"
... As if those are the only two options for people living in Canada. COME ON.
I just learned something.
You think the fact that it is often snowing on the television show would give them the idea that perhaps it wasn't in Southern California?
> ... As if those are the only two options for people living in Canada.
Seriously, who doesn't know about Quebec City?
@Doug: I know, right?!
Kindly print out this post, frame it, and drop it in the mail to me. I'd like a hard copy of the funniest thing I've read this weekend, so that I might occasionally take it behind the middle school and [OVERPLAYED 30 ROCK TROPE HERE].
Surprisingly I've never been asked about the Orange County Choppers. I'm more likely to be asked about the numerous and ridiculous TV shows based in Orange County. If I get asked about the "OC" one more time...
Also, let it be known that the only people who say "OC" are people who don't live in Orange County. Can we please retire that term?
Yeah, you know me!
Oh, OCC.
Blow their minds and remind them that there's a Springfield in every state.
I lived in Orange County Indiana during our junior year of high school.
When I lived in Ireland a few years ago, I made a big point when asked where I was from to say SoCal. If pressed then, "Near LA". If further pressed, I would say, "Orange".
Then the response would be, "OMG, Orange County!" I would never ever ever ever tell them, even with pressure of waterboarding, that I actually grew up in Newport & went to Newport Harbor High School. Ever. Never. Ever.
Why, you ask? The most popular TV show that year in Ireland was ... The OC. All the teenagers on the Luas and around Dublin had practiced their SoCal accents, so much that when friends from LA came to visit me they thought a lot of other SoCal folks were visiting Dublin but were terribly disappointed to find out that the kids in question were faking a SoCal accent.
Geography by TV is not just an American phenomenon, but a global one.
There's also an Orange County in North Carolina—it's the county that includes Chapel Hill (and the flagship branch of the University of North Carolina).
> Also, let it be known that the only people who say "OC" are people who don't live in Orange County. Can we please retire that term?
No way man, I use the OC gang sign all the time. People in Pennsylvania love it!
> Blow their minds and remind them that there's a Springfield in every state.
I'd try that but then I would be lying.
> I lived in Orange County Indiana. There's also an Orange County in North Carolina.
Silly Indana, New York, and North Carolina. There's no oranges in those states. I'm gonna petition Obama to rename those counties something like Crab Apple or Pale People, something that best describes the place.
> the kids in question were faking a SoCal accent.
There's a SoCal accent? I know there's a look and it requires a lot of bleach and silicone but it never occurred to me that there is a local accent.
As a former Floridian and card-carrying EastCoast4Life member, I'll acknowledge that nobody really wants their coast to be associated with that TV show. Ace of Cakes, sure, but not OC Choppers. I was curious how a state like NY could even bequeath a name like Orange County upon its citizens, so I wikid it.
"Its name is in honor of William III of Orange, who was greatly esteemed by the original settlers of the region."
Oh, of course, William III of Orange. Nothing to do with citrus, choppers, or Adam Brody (thank goodness)...and you should make note that there are actually 8 Orange Counties in the US. You know, so you can further impress and bewilder the next East coaster you meet.
Speaking of Canada... I think there are four Springfields up here. And no, I don't know your Canadian friend from Toronto, but almost everyone in Canada knows someone who plays or played in the NHL. You can't get healthcare up here until you learn how to skate, you get a card to prove it :)
Wait, why does the Canadia topic always rear it's touque-covered noggin'? Sheesh! (Oh, and pass the coffee crisps).
Regarding where we live, I usually tell people what street I'm on and go backwards from there. It works just as well as starting with "The Milky Way…[wait for response]" and holds nearly as many intermediary stops along the way.
Oh, and it's the LEFT coast.
When I went to school in Boston, people asked where I was from. When I told them, "Highlands Ranch, near Denver," they asked me if I rode horses to school and roped cattle - they weren't kidding. Could it hurt us to learn a little about geography stereotypes?
Awesome! So you know the guys know the OCC guys.
I went to college in Rochester, NY. Once had a taxi driver from the airport who told us that an alarming number of people would get into his cab and tell him to take them to the clinic. The Mayo Clinic. In Rochester, MN.
>>Wait, why does the Canadia topic always rear it's touque-covered noggin'? Sheesh!
'Cuz Canadians are so much cooler, literally, I had to scrape the ice off my igloo this morning. And I prefer the term 'knitted hat' :)
Doesn't OCC stand for Oodles of Cranky Canucks?
> I went to college in Rochester, NY. Once had a taxi driver from the airport who told us that an alarming number of people would get into his cab and tell him to take them to the clinic. The Mayo Clinic. In Rochester, MN.
Wow. He should contact the Darwin awards.
@Ms. Jen: counterpoint:
"Ireland"
"Where?"
"Ireland"
"I don't think I've heard of it."
"Island, off the western coast of Europe, leprechauns."
"Oh! EYRE-LAND! I'm part Irish!"
I feel it better to respond to a question like, "Where are you from, or where do you live?" with an actual place and not a region. For instance why not just say what city you live in or that you are from.
I mean responding with Southern California would be like me responding with Southern Texas. Which isn't REALLY answering the question.
However the main reason for the post was very educational for me, I don't watch that show, but if someone would of told me they were in Orange County I would of automatically thought they were in California...
Now I am sharing this fun fact with everyone I know and pretending like I already knew it the entire time. It's kind of like learning a new word.
Coincidentally, Disneyland and Disney World are both in Orange County.
ORlando
ORange
CONspiracy by Walt!