What Are You, Exactly?

I was having a conversation the other day with an out-of-stater who had never been to Montana. He asked me what the capital was. Of course, I said, Butte.

Just kidding. I said Helena. He asked me how big Helena was. I said, "I think it's under 50,000."

"Miles?"

"No," I said. "People. The population."

He asked if we had any major cities. I told him that our biggest city was Billings, and it had just over 100,000. People. Not miles. He was completely silent. It was awkward.

"How big is the whole state?" he asked.

I told him it was just over 1 million, but we were crossing our fingers that it had grown enough in the 2010 census that we might actually get another electoral college vote. "How many do you have now?" he wondered.

"Three. And only because they can't give us any less than that."

"Do you realize that your entire state contains less people than the city I live in?" We were currently in Portland, his hometown and current residence.

I did, in fact, realize that. I used to live there. One of the weirdest experiences as an 18-year-old was when I realized that there were more people attending my college than there were in my entire home county (Sheridan).

"How big is the city you live in?" he asked.

"50,000 people."

"So that's not even a real city, then? Is it? I mean, you're not really an urban area."

"Oh no! There is no really urban area in the whole state. In fact, if we're honest, there's not a real urban area between Spokane and Minneapolis, between Denver and Calgary."

"But you're not really rural, either? You said you have a mall. A Target. A Starbucks."

"We're not really rural either. And we can't be sub-urban, because there's no urban to sub."

"Then what are you, exactly?"

"Y'know, I don't think they have a word for us." And that sentence right there sums up why I love living in this state. There really isn't a word for us.

Except maybe awesome.