"Yes, I'm from Fargo.....

……yeah, like the movie.” I didn’t always answer that way. I was living in Chicago when it started. The first few times I heard the questions: “You’re from Fargo? Like the movie?” I was offended, taken aback. No! Not like the movie!! It’s a movie filmed in Minneapolis. People don’t really talk like that! OK, they do. That’s not the point. At first I would try to explain the differences. After feeling bad from seeing the disappointment on their faces, I started to answer, “Yeah, like the movie.” People seemed to like that answer better. I became a novelty in their eyes. The way a Fargoan would look at a person from exotic California. I knew they would go out into the world and tell their friends and family that they had met a real person from Fargo, like the movie.

I don’t mind Fargo so much. It’s normal, almost wholesome. People are simple and friendly for the most part. Not everyone talks with long O’s. I get irritated when I watch the news and the only people they interview have the worst North Dakota accents. Where do they find these people? Wait. I was interviewed on the local news. Oh, crap. If anyone reading this saw me, please let me know if I talked like a local, OK?

Something else that entertained my Chicago neighbors was when I would unknowingly say “Uff Da”. I always figured out quickly that I had said it when the person next to me would give me a confused, quizzical look. I can’t help it, it just comes out. I once explained it’s definition to someone as the Norwegian “Oy Vey”. They readily accepted it, and I was off the hook. I met a man who had lived in Norway for a few years. I asked him if Norwegians said Uff Da. “No, not really. Not the younger people anyway. You might hear someone older say ‘Uff‘”. Great. So I’m uncool on two continents. I could never live down the way I said “hamm-ock”, though. I still don’t know the proper way to pronounce it. Do you say it fast? “Hammick”? I know it isn’t two words. I just don’t know how to sound normal when I say it. You can take the girl out of the Midwest, but you can’t take the hamm-ock out when it’s -32 below……